Our mission is to design and provide developmentally and culturally appropriate programs that promote children’s development, support families, and are reflective of our community. An integral component of our curriculum is that children and teachers construct the content of the curriculum and the processes for learning in partnership through inquiry. We make a special effort to promote a diverse and inclusive community of learners.

Our mission is to provide UNH students with excellent teacher training in early childhood education that parallels our work with children and families, as well as offer opportunities to learn about child and family development in a naturalistic setting. Each year more than one hundred students enrolled in Family Studies courses at UNH use the Center as a laboratory for experiential teaching and learning, and documentation of those experiences. Students from other disciplines, for example, education, psychology, occupational therapy, and communication disorders, also use the Center as a laboratory for the study of children.

Our mission is to engage directly in action research that supports our work with children, to provide the UNH community with access to a relevant research site, and to engage the broader professional community in learning about innovative early childhood practices. The seven classrooms in the center are equipped with observation booths that are used by college students, faculty, parents, and visitors. These booths provide researchers with the opportunity to observe children in a natural context. Research projects have ranged from the effects of infant child care on attachment to the development of emergent literacy. All research projects must be approved by the UNH Institutional Review Board and by the Associate director. The center hosts and annual conference and frequent tours by educators from across the country and internationally.

Diversity Mission

The CSDC community is committed to valuing individual differences and actively including children and families with a wide variety of racial, ethnic, family, religious, economic and cultural orientations, as well as children with a range of special needs and linguistic backgrounds. We believe that it is only by providing and supporting diversity within our classroom that we can enable children and adults to value the richness and importance of a multicultural education and world. The CSDC Diversity, Equity, and Bias Taskforce (D.E.B.T.) developed the following mission statement in 2005 that reflects these values and beliefs. The following mission was adopted by the CSDC staff to guide future initiatives:

“Lack of the free and equitable intercourse which springs from a variety of shared interests makes intellectual stimulation unbalanced. Diversity of stimulation means novelty, and novelty means challenge to thought.” John Dewey, 1916

We believe that human diversity is integral to the care and education of young children and to all those who touch their lives. Diversity at the University of New Hampshire can be defined as “a fully inclusive campus community that is enriched by persons of different races, genders, ethnicities, nationalities, economic backgrounds, ages, abilities, sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, and religious beliefs.” Our goal is to promote awareness and acceptance, affirm equity, and take an active stance against bias in our community.

We strive to respect and value the differences in each child and family in our community through all that we do. We value the development of strong relationships with families and colleagues in order to better understand how we can respond to cultural and historical differences in experiences, values, and practices. We offer an environment that welcomes and celebrates the sharing of family history and culture in the classroom in meaningful ways. In our curriculum we are intentional in providing children with opportunities to explore similarities and variation, and we are responsive to the questions that emerge.

We support children in being active participants in their world by connecting them to their community in ways that foster an understanding of diversity and an ability to effect change. We are committed to an open and ongoing dialogue among colleagues, families, and the students we mentor, seeking insight into how we contribute to social bias and the process of change. As adults we strive to be models of active participation in our field by speaking out against bias and seeking equity.