Abstract
There are striking differences between boys' andgirls' art during the elementary school years, but it isunknown whether such artistic gender differences emergeearlier in childhood. We tested 20 preschoolers (12 boys, 8 girls) and 29 kindergartners (15boys, 14 girls), most White and middle-class, on threetasks to assess gender-stereotypicality in theirdrawings and preferences for pictures. As predicted, in a production task, boys and girls drewgender stereotypical pictures, though neither group wasextremely stereotypical. Interestingly, evenpre-representational preschoolers' scribbles were ratedas gender-stereotypical, despite the absence ofidentifiable thematic content. In a second task,children chose coloring-book sheets, previously ratedfor gender-stereotypicality, which they expected tocolor. Boys chose masculine and girls chose femininesheets. In a third task, boys and girls preferredgender-stereotypical pictures and were similar in howstrongly stereotypic their choices were. The tasksdemonstrate that gender differences in artistic productionand preference emerge in the preschool years, earlierthan previously reported. Beneficial future work wouldaddress relations between children's artistic production and preference and their genderschema flexibility and socializationexperiences.
REFERENCES
Basow, S. A. (1992). Gender stereotypes and roles (3rd ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Block, J. H. (1984). Sex-role identity and ego development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bowker, J. E., & Sawyers, J. K. (1988). Influence of exposure on preschoolers' art preferences. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 3, 107–115.
Boyatzis, C. J., & Ball, K. M. (in press). Peer influence on gender themes in children's art: Naturalistic and experimental approaches. In C. J. Boyatzis & M. W. Watson (Eds.), Symbolic and social constraints on the development of children's artistic style. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Boyatzis, C. J., & Varghese, R. (1993). Children's emotional associations with colors. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 155, 77–85.
Cox, M. V. (1993). Children's drawings of the human figure. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Creative Child Press (1991). Keep busy! Keep happy! Coloring and activity book. New York: Playmore Inc.
DiPietro, J. A. (1981). Rough and tumble play: A function of gender. Developmental Psychology, 17, 50–58.
Dunn, J., Bretherton, I., & Munn, P. (1987). Conversations about feeling states between mothers and their young children. Developmental Psychology, 23, 132–139.
Feinburg, S. (1977). Conceptual content and spatial characte ristics in boys' and girls' drawings of fighting and helping. Studies in Art Education, 18, 63–72.
Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (1998). Dynamic development of psychological structures in action and thought. In W. Damon (Series Ed.)& R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol.1.Theoretical models of human development (5th ed., pp. 467–561). New York: Wiley.
Gardner, H., & Winner, E. (1976). Three stages of understanding art. Psychology Today, 1976 (March), 42, 45, 74.
Huston, A. C. (1983). Sex typing. In P. H. Mussen (Serie s Ed.), & E. M. Hetherington (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol.4.Socialization, personality, and social behavior. New York: Wiley.
Katz, P. A., & Boswell, S. L. (1986). Flexibility and traditionality in children's gender roles. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 112, 105–147.
Kawecki, I. (1994). Gender differences in young children's artwork. British Educational Research Journal, 20, 485–490.
Koppitz, E. (1968). Body part size estimation in children. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 47, 1047–1050.
Lange-Küttner, C., & Edelstein, W. (1995). The contribution of social factors to the development of graphic competence. In C. Lange-Küttner & G. Thomas (Eds.), Drawing and looking (pp. 159–172). Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Machover, K. (1960). Sex differences in the developmental pattern of children as seen in human figure drawings. In A. I. Rabin & M. R. Haworth (Eds.), Projective techniques with children. New York: Grune & Stratton.
McLoyd, V. C., Warren, D., & Thomas, E. A. C. (1984). Anticipatory and fantastic role enactment in preschool triads. Developmental Psychology, 20, 807–814.
Picariello, M., Greenberg, D., & Pillemer, D. (1990). Children's sex-related stereotyping of colors. Child Development, 61, 1453–1460.
Poest, C. A., Williams, J. R., Witt, D. D., & Atwood, M. E. (1989). Physical activity patterns of preschool children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 4, 367–376.
Pomerleau, A., Bolduc, D., Malcuit, G., & Cossette, L. (1990). Pink or blue: Environmental gender stereotypes in the first two years of life. Sex Roles, 22, 359–367.
Reeves, J., & Boyette, N. (1983). What does children's art work tell us about gender? Qualitative Sociology, 6, 322–333.
Rheingold, H. L., & Cook, K. V. (1975). The contents of boys' and girls' rooms as an index of parents' behavior. Child Development, 46, 459–463.
Rubenstein, J., & Rubin, C. (1984). Children's fantasies of interaction with same and opposite sex peers. In T. Field, J. Roopnarine, & M. Segal (Eds.), Friendship in normal and handicapped children (pp. 99–123). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Serbin, L. A., Powlishta, K. K., & Gulko, J. (1993). The development of sex typing in middle childhood. Monographs for the Society for Research in Child Development, 58 (2, Serial No. 232).
Serbin, L. A., & Sprafkin, C. (1986). The salience of gender and the process of sex-typing in three-to seven-year-old children. Child Development, 57, 1188–1199.
Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Whiting, B., & Edwards, C. (1988). Children of different worlds: The formation of social behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wolf, D. P., & Perry, M. D. (1989). From endpoints to repertoires: Some new conclusions about drawing development. In H. Gardner & D. N. Perkins (Eds.), Art, mind, and education: Research from Project Zero. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Wolf, D. P., Rygh, J., & Altshuler, J. (1984). Agency and experience: Actions and states in play narratives. In I. Bretherton (Ed.), Symbolic play: The development of social understanding (pp. 195–217). New York: Academic Press.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Boyatzis, C.J., Eades, J. Gender Differences in Preschoolers' and Kindergartners' Artistic Production and Preference. Sex Roles 41, 627–638 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018855707332
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018855707332