The Center for Montessori Studies is an intellectual community co-founded by researchers and practitioners contributing to Montessori education and the broader implications of Dr. Maria Montessori’s theories on human development, learning, and social reform. The Center was founded in 2017.
Center Priorities
Through research in our greater Hartford community as well as the larger international Montessori community.
Through Montessori Teacher Education Exchange to promote dialogue and the exchange of ideas among and between higher education Montessori preparation programs.
Research & Knowledge Equity Dissemination
We at the Center for Montessori Studies are committed to knowledge equity dissemination. This means valuing the intellectual contributions of practitioners from the field, students in our programs as well as scholarly endeavors through research presentations and publications that address our Center priorities.
Focus a diaspora of emerging Montessori research efforts.
Educate and socialize the next generation of Montessori researchers.
Generate and disseminate new knowledge about the Montessori movement through research.
Transfer knowledge about Montessori education through degree programs at all academic levels.
Ensure relevance of undergraduate and graduate programs through data-informed decisions.
Sustain a physical location and virtual structure for researchers and practitioners to collaborate.
News & Upcoming Events
DEC 16, 2024
UHart’s Center for Montessori Studies Receives $100K Gift
The University of Hartford’s Center for Montessori Studies has received a $100,000 gift from Wend, Inc. to support its work in advancing Montessori education.
News & Upcoming Events
Traveling Together: The Many Paths of Community Engaged Research
This conference emphasizes that community engaged research is essentially about shared meaning making which is at the core of co-creating our society and is critically important to a well-functioning democracy.
JUNE 2025
Finding Your Stride
Practitioner inquiry is a way for individuals to research their own communities, know their students and themselves more deeply, and use this knowledge to inform their practice and improve learning outcomes. This summer's intensive workshops provide applied opportunities to engage in data-informed decisions.
Joint Ventures
Joint ventures are essential in our work to facilitate exchange.
Civic Design and Public Work
The Initiative for Civic Design and Public Work is a partnership among the URBAN Hartford Node of the URBAN Research Network, Knowledge Designs to Change, and the Parent Inquiry Initiative (Parentii), a parent-to-parent democracy learning endeavor created through a learning agreement with the Kettering Foundation. This civic work aligns with the Montessori commitment to social change through generations of empathic and informed individuals who construct knowledge in community.
As we co-construct this work, our intention is to increase civic possibility and success by serving as a creative space for: groups of residents to understand their civic influence; neighbors to develop their capacity for civic living and public work; emerging leaders and professionals to deepen their understanding of civic change and impact; issue networks to deepen both learning and practice; and for the intergenerational transfer of civic experience and know-how.
The Montessori Higher Education Exchange (MHEEx) is an initiative to connect Montessori program leaders to identify and pursue opportunities specific to Montessori education programs located in institutions of higher education and establish a nimble, responsive network among the emerging influences on education, specifically the US public school landscape occurring in Montessori and non-Montessori.
Initially, the MHEEx efforts focused on bachelor’s degree pathways as they require the most institutional integration of the Montessori degrees.
Since 2022, the MHEEx efforts have focused on Montessori Teacher Educator Equity-based Grading Practices.
Enduring Efforts
Enduring efforts are steadfast commitments to our research and knowledge equity dissemination.
A quarterly, curated memo of peer reviewed research and policy papers accessible and contributed to by a broad community of Montessori and non-Montessori researchers and practitioners. The archive can be accessed here.
Recommend ResearchThe Montessori Glossary enables interaction and contextualizes terms along with access to relevant research, providing practitioner review and direct author submission. This seeded community project is the next step in access and knowledge equity in the Montessori landscape.
Access HereThe Center for Montessori Studies in collaboration with the Harrison University Libraries is honored to contribute to a global collection of Montessori archives by housing a body of literature specific to Montessori pedagogy. Complete as is, we have evolved this effort into the Montessori Glossary.
View ArchiveResearch & Knowledge Equity Dissemination
Advance the Field of Montessori Education
Transfer knowledge about Montessori education through degree programs at all academic levels. Learn more about our undergraduate degree completion and graduate programs.
Our research efforts serve the local and global Montessori community by preparing Montessori teachers in the context of a generative research community and seeking to prepare the next generation of Montessori scholars.
Resources
- Paige M. Bray, EdD, director of Montessori Studies, associate professor of early childhood education
- Joshua Russell, PhD, professor of Music Education, The Hartt School
- Courtney Reim, EdD, managing director, Montessori Training Center Northeast
- Gretchen Hall, AMI primary trainer/UHart adjunct faculty
- Laurie Campiformio, AMI primary trainer
- Lisbeth Harrison, AMI elementary trainer/UHart adjunct faculty
- Gerry Leonard, AMI elementary trainer
- Toko Odorczuk, AMI A to I trainer-in-training
- Bodeene Amyot Cairdeas, research fellow, Montessori Glossary
- Erin Kenney, research fellow, URBAN
- Sue Angelides, practitioner fellow, Rights of the Child
- Undergraduate work study fellow, Montessori Studies
- Graduate research fellow, Montessori Memo
- Paige M. Bray, director of Center for Montessori Studies, associate professor of early childhood education, College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions
- Tim Nee (In Memoriam), director of satellites and special projects, Montessori Training Center Northeast, CREC
- Joshua Russell, professor of Music Education, Hartt School
2024 - Montessori Training Center Northeast Celebrates 20 years
The Center for Montessori Studies was delighted to have research gallery to amplify the practitioner and research work happening in partnership with MTCNE.
2023 - Guided by Nature by NAMTA Installation, Open to the Public
2022 - Urban Living in the Age of Climate Change: Sustainable Local Development in Hartford and Connecticut. Postponed to Spring 2022.
2021 - Free Your Mind Montessori Research Series: More info
2020 - Free Your Mind Montessori Research Series: More info
2019 - Angeline Lillard, professor of Psychology, University of Virginia, returned to campus six years later to speak to the Hartford-based longitudinal study dissemination and the published article Montessori Preschool Elevates and Equalizes Child Outcomes: A Longitudinal Study, the most cited article in 2018 in Frontiers. Paige Bray, director of Montessori Studies at UHart, is also a contributing author. Lillard is the author of Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius (March 2019) and signed books as well as enjoyed alumni and friends at the Montessori Training Center Northeast, Butterworth Hall, UHart Asylum Ave campus.
2018 - Montessori Schools of Connecticut Conference, co-sponsored by the Institute of Translational Research's Center for Learning and Professional Education, Montessori Studies Initiative with keynote speaker Dr. Howard Gardner, the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Gardner has studied and written extensively about intelligence, creativity, leadership, and professional ethics, and is senior director of Project Zero and co-founder of the Good Project (October 2018). Read more.
2017 - Celebrating 10 years of Partnership
The University of Hartford and the Montessori Training Center Northeast (MTCNE) celebrated 10 years of partnership and their recent milestones with an open house at MTCNE’s newly renovated facility at Butterworth Hall on UHart’s Asylum Avenue campus in Hartford.
Contact Us
For more information about and how to engage with the Center for Montessori Studies, contact Paige Bray, associate professor, early childhood education and director of Montessori Studies at bray@hartford.edu.