Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Children’s Westernized Beauty Ideals in China: Notions of Feminine Beauty

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of Race and the Arts in Education

Abstract

This chapter sheds light on the Westernized beauty standards popular in China. Through exploration of popular media for children in China and Chinese art education practices, this chapter discusses how globalizing media, mainly White-dominated Disney cartoons and picture books, affected children’s drawings of female human figures, children’s perceptions of feminine beauty standards, as well as the teaching and learning practices of portrait and figurative drawing and painting for elementary school children in the research area in urban China. The collected data revealed that children in the research site had the preferences toward White mainstream beauty standards, which were evidenced in their drawings of human figures.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 349.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 449.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 449.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    White in this chapter refers to characteristics belonging to a group of human beings marked by slight pigmentation of the skin, especially of European descent.

  2. 2.

    Chiaroscuro refers to the use of light and shade in depicting variation and gradation in pictures.

References

  • Ackerman, D. (1990). A natural history of the senses. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashikari, M. (2005). Cultivating Japanese whiteness: The “whitening” cosmetics boom and the Japanese identity. Journal of Material Culture, 10(1), 73–91.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baumann, S. (2008). The moral underpinnings of beauty: A meaning-based explanation for light and dark complexions in advertising. Poetics, 36(1), 2–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berry, D. S. (2000). Attractiveness, attraction, and sexual selection: Evolutionary perspectives on the form and function of physical attractiveness. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 32, 273–342.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blair, L., & Shalmon, M. (2005). Cosmetic surgery and cultural construction of beauty. Art Education, 58(3), 14–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke, T. (1996). Lifebuoy men, lux women: Commodification, consumption, and cleanliness in modern Zimbabwe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charles, C. (2003). Skin bleaching, self-hate, and black identity in Jamaica. Journal of Black Studies, 33(6), 711–728.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Charles, C. A. D. (2009). Skin bleachers’ representations of skin color in Jamaica. Journal of Black Studies, 40(2), 153–170.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chin Evans, P., & McConnell, A. R. (2003). Do racial minorities respond in the same way to mainstream beauty standards? Social comparison processes in Asian, black, and white women. Self and Identity, 2(2), 153–167.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, S. B. (2006). Media exposure and the subsequent effects on body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, and drive for thinness: A review of the current research. Mind Matters: The Wesleyan Journal of Psychology, 1, 57–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cox, M. V., & McGurk, H. (Eds.). (1993). Children’s drawings of the human figure. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Lawrence Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennis, W. (1966). Group values through children’s drawings. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dion, K. K. (1973). Young children’s stereotyping of facial attractiveness. Developmental Psychology, 9, 183–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dion, K. K., & Berscheid, H. (1974). Physical attractiveness and peer perception among children. Sociometry, 37(1), 12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duan, W. (2005). Introduction to children’s human figure drawings with oil pastels. Xian, China: Shangxi People’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ekowa. (2009). The original African body type and European emulation: Lips, hips, and finger tips. Retrieved from http://www.essaysbyekowa.com/lis%20hips%20redux.htm

  • England, A. (2004, August 17). Cosmetics industry cashes in where fairer equals better: In Kenya, women queue to buy lightening creams that damage skin. Financial Times, p. 9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Etcoff, N. (1999). Survival of the prettiest: The science of beauty. New York: Anchor/Doubleday.

    Google Scholar 

  • Festinger, L. (1975). A theory of social comparison processes. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M., & Signoreielli, N. (1994). Growing up with television: The cultivation perspective. In J. Bryant & D. Zillmann (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 17–41). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glenn, E. N. (2008). Yearning for lightness: Transnational circuits in the marketing and consumption of skin lighteners. Gender & Society, 22(3), 281–302.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodenough, F. L. (1926). Measurement of intelligence by drawings. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, K. (2003). Television viewers’ ideal body proportions: The case of the curvaceously thin woman. Sex Roles, 48(5), 255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klepsch, M., & Logie, L. (1982). Children draw and tell: An introduction to the projective uses of children’s human figure drawings. New York: Brunner/Mazel.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koshoibekova, N. (2015). Hating on China’s female celebs. Retrieved from http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2015/06/hating-on-chinas-female-celebs/

  • Langlois, J. H., & Downs, A. C. (1979). Peer relations as a function of physical attractiveness: The eye of the beholder or behavioral reality? Child Development, 50, 10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Langlois, J. H., & Stephan, C. (1977). The effects of physical attractiveness and ethnicity on children’s behavioral attributions and peer preferences. Child Development, 48(4), 1694–1698.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Layton, R. (1991). The anthropology of art (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lowenfeld, V., & Brittain, W. L. (1987). Creative and mental growth (8th ed.). New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Man, K. W. (2000). Female bodily aesthetic, politics, and feminine ideals of beauty in China. In P. Z. Brand (Ed.), Beauty matters (pp. 169–196). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mire, A. (2001). Skin-bleaching: Poison, beauty, power, and the politics of the color line. Resources for Feminist Research, 28(3–4), 13–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rhodes, G. (2006). The evolutionary psychology of facial beauty. Annual Reviews Psychology, 57, 199–226.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saraswati, L. A. (2010). Cosmopolitan whiteness: The effects and affects of skinwhitening advertisements in a transnational women’s magazine in Indonesia. Meridians, 10(2), 15–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Singer, D. G., & Singer, J. L. (2001). Handbook of children and the media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stice, E., Spangler, D., & Agras, W. S. (2001). Exposure to media-portrayed thin-ideal images adversely affects vulnerable girls: A longitudinal experiment. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 20(3), 270–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stuhr, P. L. (1994). Multicultural art education and social reconstruction. Art Education, 35(3), 171–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, J. K., & Heinberg, L. J. (1999). The media’s influence on body image disturbance and eating disorders: We’ve reviled them, now can we rehabilitate them? The Journal of Social Issues, 55(2), 339–353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tiggemann, M. (2003). Media exposure, body dissatisfaction and disordered eating: Television and magazines are not the same. European Eating Disorders Review, 11(5), 418–430.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Unknown. (2010). Qiaoshoutuse figure drawings. Xingjiang, China: Xingjiang People’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Evra, J. P. (2004). Television and child development (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, T. (2012). What is beauty? A cross-cultural comparison of children’s ideas of feminine beauty and implications for art education. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, T. W. (2014). Children’s drawings from China and the United States and conceptions of female beauty. International Journal of Education through Art, 10(3), 363–379.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weber, S., & Mitchell, C. (1996). Drawing ourselves into teaching: Studying the images that shape and distort teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 12(3), 303–313.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, B., & Wilson, M. (1983). Themes and structures in the graphic narratives of American, Australian, Egyptian, and Finnish children: Tales from four cultures. Journal of Multi-cultural and Cross-cultural Research in Art Education, 10(1), 63–76.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolf, N. (1991). The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women (1st ed.). New York: William Morrow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xu, Z. (2000). Manual of beautiful women. In P. Z. Brand (Ed.), Beauty matters (pp. 184–185). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yue, Y. (2009). On the problems existed in Chinese art education and the way out. International Education Studies, 2(3), 103–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, USA

    Tingting Windy Wang

Authors
  1. Tingting Windy Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Art, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Amelia M. Kraehe

  2. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández

  3. School of Visual Arts, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    B. Stephen Carpenter II

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Wang, T.W. (2018). Children’s Westernized Beauty Ideals in China: Notions of Feminine Beauty. In: Kraehe, A., Gaztambide-Fernández, R., Carpenter II, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Race and the Arts in Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65256-6_24

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65256-6_24

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-65255-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-65256-6

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation