Abstract
Teaching about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, is one way to support students’ learning about issues of fairness. However, learning about this document is not enough. Students need to have experiences where they explore issues of justice and equity in order to learn about respect and dignity for others. The present study explored an arts-based project in a kindergarten classroom about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 26—The Right to Education. Over the course of several months, nineteen kindergarten students learned about educational inequities around the world and specifically about an under-resourced partner school in El Salvador. Children’s literature about human rights became the catalyst for critical conversations, written responses, and drawings inspiring action. Students worked to address injustice by screen printing images they drew about their beliefs regarding a child’s right to education on fabric banners to raise awareness about school inequity. These banners were then displayed in their school and in the partner school. Overall findings from students’ discussions, writing, illustrations, and interviews indicated that the kindergartners were able to recognize their own rights and educational privilege. Through the project they demonstrated active citizenship centered on care and sought further connections with children at the partner school. In using arts-based service learning, educators involved in the study discovered how art can be used as a creative process and a teaching method to support young learners raising awareness about global inequities.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adamson, H. (2009). School in many cultures. Mankato, MN: Capstone.
Amnesty International. (2008). We are all born free. London: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books.
Bell, D., Jean-Sigur, R. E., & Kim, Y. A. (2015). Going global in early childhood education. Childhood Education, 91(2), 90. doi:10.1080/00094056.2015.1018782.
Bloch, M., Swadener, B. B., & Cannella, G. S. (Eds.). (2014). Reconceptualizing early childhood care and education: A reader. New York: Peter Lang.
Bodeen, S. S. (1998). Elizabeti’s school. New York: Lee & Low.
Boyle-Baise, M., & Zevin, J. (2013). Young citizens of the world: Teaching elementary social studies through civic engagement. New York: Routledge.
Center on Educational Policy. (2008). Instructional time in elementary schools: A closer look at changes for specific subjects. Arts Education Policy Review, 109(6), 23–28.
Christie, E. M., Montgomery, S. E., & Staudt, J. (2012). Little by little: Global citizenship through local action inspired by Wangari Maathai. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 25(2), 8–11.
Dissanayake, E. (1999). ‘Making special’- An undescribed human universal and the core of a behavior of art. In F. Cooke & B. Turner (Eds.), Biopoetics (pp. 27–46). Lexington, ICUS: Evolutionary explorations in the arts.
Dorling Kindersley. (2002). A life like mine: How children live around the world. New York: Dorling Kindersley in association with UNICEF.
Eisner, E. W. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind [electronic resource]. New Haven, CT: Yale University.
Eisner, E. W. (2008). What education can learn from the arts. Speech given at National Art Education Association Conference. http://www.arteducators.org/news/what-education-can-learn-from-the-arts.
Fair, C. D., & Delaplane, E. (2015). “It’s good to spend time with older adults. You can teach them, they can teach you”: Second-grade students reflect on intergenerational service learning. Early Childhood Education Journal, 43, 19–26. doi:10.1007/s10643-014-0634-9.
Farhokhi, M., & Hashemi, M. (2011). The analysis of children’s drawings: Social, emotional, physical, and psychological aspects. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 30, 2219–2224.
Fontana, A., & Frey, J. (2005). The interview: From neutral stance to political involvement. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 695–727). London: Sage.
Goodman, J. (1992). Elementary schooling for critical democracy. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco: Josey-Bass.
Hughes, S. (2011). Off to class: Incredible and unusual schools around the world. Toronto: Owlkids Books.
Johansson, E. (2009). The preschool child of today—The world citizen of tomorrow? International Journal of Early Childhood Education, 41(2), 79–95.
Krensky, B., & Steffen, S. L. (2008). Arts-based service learning: A state of the field. Art Education, 61(4), 13–17.
Kuby, C. (2012). ‘Ok this is hard’: Doing emotions in social justice dialogue. Education, Citizenship, and Social Justice, 8(1), 29–42.
Kuby, C. (2013). Critical literacy in the early childhood classroom: Unpacking histories, unlearning privilege. New York: Teachers College Press.
Lake, V., & Jones, I. (2008). Service-learning in early childhood teacher education: Using service to put meaning back into learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 2146–2156.
Leland, C., Harste, J., Ociepka, A., Lewison, M., & Vasquez, V. (1999). Exploring critical literacy: You can hear a pin drop. Language Arts, 77(1), 70–73.
Lewison, M., Leland, C., & Harste, J. (2008). Creating critical classrooms: K-8 reading and writing with an edge. New York: Erlbaum.
McLeod, J. (2014). A peaceful pedagogy: Teaching human rights across the curriculum. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 152, 1225–1232. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.09.303.
Merriam, S. (1998). Mining data from documents. Qualitative research and case study applications in education (pp. 112–133). San Francisco, CA: Josey Bass.
National Council for the Social Studies. (2015). Human rights education: A necessity for effective social and civic learning. http://www.socialstudies.org/positions/human_rights_education_2014.
National Endowment for the Arts. (2011). Arts education in America: What the declines mean for arts participation. http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/2008-SPPA-ArtsLearning.pdf.
Nelson, K. (2013). Nelson Mandela. New York: Katherine Tegan Books.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley: University of California.
Noddings, N. (2002). Educating moral people: A caring alternative to character education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Noddings, N. (2012). The language of care ethics. Knowledge Quest, 40(5), 52–56.
Owens, L., & Ennis, C. (2005). The ethic of care in teaching: An overview of supportive literature. Quest, 57(4), 392–425.
Peterson, C. N. (2011). School around the world. Huntington Beach, CA: Teacher Created Materials.
Rabin, C., & Smith, G. (2013). Teaching care ethics: Conceptual understandings and stories for learning. Journal of Moral Education, 42(2), 164–176. doi:10.1080/03057240.2013.785942.
Radunsky, V. (2004). What does peace feel like? New York: Atheneum.
Rumford, J. (2010). Rain school. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers.
Ruurs, M. (2009). My school in the rainforest. Honesdale, PA: Boyd Mills Press.
Serres, A. (2012). I have the right to be a child. Toronto, Canada: Groundwood.
Shore, D. & Alexander, J. (2009). This is the dream. Augusta, KS: Amistad.
Singh, K. (2013). United Nations special rapporteur on the right to education. In B. B. Swadener, L. Lundy, J. Habashi, & N. Blanchet-Cohen (Eds.), Children’s rights and education: International perspectives (pp. xi–xiii). New York: Peter Lang.
Smith, D. (2011). This child, every child: A book about the world’s children. Toronto: Kids Can Press.
Smith, P., & Zahavit, S. (2007). A school like mine. New York: Dorling-Kindersley.
United Nations. (2015a). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/.
United Nations. (2015b). Protect human rights. http://www.un.org/en/sections/what-we-do/protect-human-rights/index.html.
United Nations. (2015c). History of the document. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/history.shtml.
United Nations. (2015d). Convention on the Rights of the Child. http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx.
Vasquez, V. (2004). Negotiating critical literacies with young children. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Voicethread. (2015). Voicethread Home. https://voicethread.com.
Wade, R. (2001). Social action in the social studies: From the ideal to the real. Theory into Practice, 40(1), 23–28.
Whiteland, S. (2013). Picture pals: An intergenerational service-learning art project. Art Education, 66(6), 20–26.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Montgomery, S.E., Miller, W., Foss, P. et al. Banners for Books: “Mighty-Hearted” Kindergartners Take Action through Arts-Based Service Learning. Early Childhood Educ J 45, 1–14 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-015-0765-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-015-0765-7