Young Children’s Nonfigurative Drawings of Themselves and Their Families in Two Different Cultures

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hartmut Rübeling ◽  
Sina Schwarzer ◽  
Heidi Keller ◽  
Melanie Lenk
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Children's Drawings ◽  
Spatial Allocation ◽  
Family Drawings ◽  
Children’S Drawings ◽  
Cultural Communities ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Middle Class Families

This study examined the influence of cultural background on young children’s nonfigurative drawings of themselves and of their families. We assessed children’s drawings in two very different cultural communities that emphasize orientations toward autonomy and relatedness to varying degrees. Children (mean age 3.3 years) were recruited either from rural Cameroonian Nso families (n = 27) or urban German middle-class families (n = 21). The results of this study supported our hypotheses that children in the two groups would differ in their self and family drawings with respect to their use of distinctive forms and the spatial allocation of scribbles. Despite these differences, however, some aspects of nonfigurative drawings were similar across cultures.

Cultural Expressions of Preschoolers’ Emerging Self: Narrative and Iconic Representations

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Schröder ◽  
Heidi Keller ◽  
Pirko Tõugu ◽  
Tiia Tulviste ◽  
Melanie Lenk ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Models ◽  
Children's Drawings ◽  
Past Event ◽  
Children’S Drawings ◽  
Cultural Self ◽  
Cultural Expressions ◽  
Farming Families ◽  
Iconic Representations ◽  
Middle Class Families

The aim of this study was to investigate the socialization and internalization of children’s cultural self-representations. A total of 149 mothers and their 4-year-old children from four different cultural milieus representing different cultural models participated. The sociodemographic profiles of the four samples were associated with different emphases on autonomy and relatedness. There were 36 middle-class families from Berlin, Germany, and 42 middle-class families from Stockholm, Sweden (both representing the model of autonomy); 33 rural Cameroonian farming families (representing the model of relatedness); and 38 middle-class families from Tallinn, Estonia (representing the model of autonomy relatedness). Two tasks were investigated in view of children’s socialization and internalization of their self-representations: mother–child past event conversations and children’s drawings of themselves. Overall, the different cultural emphases on autonomy and relatedness were embodied in mother–child reminiscing and children’s drawings of themselves. Specifically, mothers in the autonomous contexts were more elaborative relative to being repetitive and focused more on the child relative to others during reminiscing. Accordingly, children provided more memory elaborations, referred more to themselves relative to others, and drew themselves bigger compared to children from the relational rural Nso milieu. Mother–child conversations in the Tallinn sample were very similar to those of the autonomous samples; however, children’s drawings were medium in size. Correlations between narrative and drawing variables were only prevalent in the autonomous milieus and not in the Tallinn and rural Nso milieus.

Gender differentiation in the family drawings of Israeli, Jewish-orthodox preschoolers

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-224
Author(s):  
Rachel Karniol
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Differentiation Of Self ◽  
Children's Drawings ◽  
Mothers And Fathers ◽  
Gender Differentiation ◽  
Family Drawings ◽  
The Family ◽  
Children’S Drawings ◽  
Large Families

Preschool children from Israeli, Jewish-Orthodox families with an average of four children per family drew their families. Three aspects of gender differentiation in children’s drawings were assessed in relation to children’s gender and number of siblings: size of figures, colour use, and inclusion of gender-associated characteristics. Size of drawings reflected gender differentiation, with fathers being drawn larger than mothers. Boys, and children with more siblings, drew both their mothers and their fathers larger. Colour use did not differ by children’s gender or number of siblings. Girls evidenced greater gender differentiation in their drawings, including more gender-associated characteristics than boys, both in their drawings of children, and in their drawings of adults. Finally, children who showed no differentiation between parents in terms of gender-associated characteristics drew both mothers and fathers smaller than children who showed such gender differentiation, and boys who did not use a variety of colours in their drawings drew their fathers larger than their mothers, whereas those who used a variety of colours, drew their parents the same size, indicating that the measures of gender differentiation are related. The results were discussed in terms of children’s emerging gender differentiation of self and others in large families.

Self-Promoting and Modest Job Applicants in Different Cultures

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Schmid Mast ◽  
Denise Frauendorfer ◽  
Laurence Popovic
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Background ◽  
Job Applicants ◽  
Presentation Style ◽  
Interview Situation ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
Different Cultures

The goal of this study was to investigate the influence of the recruiter’s cultural background on the evaluation of a job applicant’s presentation style (self-promoting or modest) in an interview situation. We expected that recruiters from cultures that value self-promotion (e.g., Canada) will be more inclined to hire self-promoting as compared to modest applicants and that recruiters from cultures that value modesty (e.g., Switzerland) will be less inclined to hire self-promoting applicants than recruiters from cultures that value self-promotion. We therefore investigated 44 native French speaking recruiters from Switzerland and 40 native French speaking recruiters from Canada who judged either a self-promoting or a modest videotaped applicant in terms of hireability. Results confirmed that Canadian recruiters were more inclined to hire self-promoting compared to modest applicants and that Canadian recruiters were more inclined than Swiss recruiters to hire self-promoting applicants. Also, we showed that self-promotion was related to a higher intention to hire because self-promoting applicants are perceived as being competent.

Depicting emotions for a male or for a female audience: Do children adapt the content of their drawings to the audience gender?

2021 ◽  
pp. 016502542110316
Author(s):  
Claire Brechet ◽  
Sara Creissen ◽  
Lucie D’Audigier ◽  
Nathalie Vendeville
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Contextual Cues ◽  
Children's Drawings ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Facial Cues ◽  
Audience Control ◽  
Children’S Drawings ◽  
Explicit Mention ◽  
Female Audience ◽  
Therapeutic Settings

When depicting emotions, children have been shown to alter the content of their drawings (e.g., number and types of expressive cues) depending on the characteristics of the audience (i.e., age, familiarity, and authority). However, no study has yet investigated the influence of the audience gender on children’s depiction of emotions in their drawings. This study examined whether drawing for a male versus for a female audience have an impact on the number and type of emotional information children use to depict sadness, anger, and fear. Children aged 7 ( N = 92) and 9 ( N = 126) were asked to draw a figure and then to produce three drawings of a person, to depict three emotions (sadness, anger, fear). Children were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions: they were instructed either to draw with no explicit mention of an audience (control condition) or to draw so that the depicted emotion would be recognized by a male (male audience condition) or by a female (female audience condition). A content analysis was conducted on children’s drawings, revealing the use of seven types of graphic cues for each emotion. We found numerous differences between the three conditions relative to the type of cues used by children to depict emotions, particularly for anger and fear and particularly at the age of 7. Overall, children used facial cues more frequently for a female audience and contextual cues more frequently for a male audience. These results are discussed in terms of their implications in clinical, educational, and therapeutic settings.

scholarly journals White men and electric guns: Analysing the Amazonian dystopia through Shipibo-Konibo children’s drawings

2021 ◽  
pp. 204361062199583
Author(s):  
Thaís de Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
White Men ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Children's Drawings ◽  
Children’S Drawings ◽  
Racial Dynamics ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Andean Countries ◽  
The Village ◽  
Dual Capacity

In Andean countries, the pishtaco is understood as a White-looking man that steals Indigenous people’s organs for money. In contemporary Amazonia, the Shipibo-Konibo people describe the pishtaco as a high-tech murderer, equipped with a sophisticated laser gun that injects electricity inside a victim’s body. This paper looks at this dystopia through Shipibo-Konibo children’s drawings, presenting composite sketches of the pishtaco and maps of the village before and after an attack. Children portrayed White men with syringes and electric guns as weaponry, while discussing whether organ traffickers could also be mestizos nowadays. Meanwhile, the comparison of children’s maps before and after the attack reveals that lit lampposts are paradoxically perceived as a protection at night. The paper examines changing features of pishtacos and the dual capacity of electricity present in children’s drawings. It argues that children know about shifting racial dynamics in the village’s history and recognise development’s oxymoron: the same electricity that can be a weapon is also used as a shield.

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