Art and Aesthetics in Early Childhood Education
confirmed the U-shaped development pattern were collected in
North America and relied on aesthetic assessments of artistic merit
executed by North American and other Western judges.
When this study was recently replicated in settings involving
Chinese populations, the U-shaped pattern failed to be confirmed
(Kindler, 2001); Pariser & van den Berg. 1997). In none of these
recent studies was young children's work considered to be
artistically superior of the work their older peers or
nonartistic adults. This suggests that the cultural criteria of
artistic merit indeed played a powerful role in defining the
very concept of artistic development in research that led to
the universality claims of the U-shaped developmental
progression. It is important to note that the repertoire model of
development does not disprove the U-shape model. In pictorial
repertoires tht emphasize modernist values, this prediction quite
possibly continues to hold true. However, the repertoire model
annaabi.ee 
