The education of young learners has become a casualty of No Child Left Behind (2001). While the mandates of this law have led to an intensively structured, narrow, teacher-driven academic curriculum accompanied by high stakes testing for all children, its exclusion of the arts has been particularly calamitous for children who do not come from White, middle-class homes. Literacy has been defined as acquisition of text through a limited number of programs reliant on printed symbols. Yet, children come to know in a multitude of ways and those whose roots lie in oral, visual, or kinesthetic cultures are placed at a disadvantage when their first experiences with schooling are bereft of joy and individual expression related to their cultural roots. This chapter will address children's meaning making in culturally responsive settings.
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Whitfield, P.T. (2009). The Heart of the Arts: Fostering Young Children's Ways of Knowing. In: Narey, M. (eds) Making Meaning. Educating the Young Child, vol 2. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-87539-2_9
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