Cultural perspectives on children’s tadpole drawings: at the interface between representation and production

Abstract

This study investigated tadpole self-drawings from 183 three- to six-year-old children living in seven cultural groups, representing three ecosocial contexts. Based on assumed general production principles, the influence of cultural norms and values upon specific characteristics of the tadpole drawings was examined. The results demonstrated that children from all cultural groups realized the body-proportion effect in the self-drawings, indicating universal production principles. However, children differed in single drawing characteristics, depending on the specific ecosocial context. Children from Western and non-Western urban educated contexts drew themselves rather tall, with many facial features, and preferred smiling facial expressions, while children from rural traditional contexts depicted themselves significantly smaller, with less facial details, and neutral facial expressions.

Schooling and Identity: A Qualitative Analysis of Self-Portrait Drawings of Young Indigenous People from Chiapas, Mexico

“…In general, our results are in line with the mixed cultural models of autonomous relatedness (Kagitçibasi, 1996; Gernhardt et al, 2015) and the trend, identified by Greenfield (2009, 2016), of a global rise in individualism as a result of the transformation of traditional rural contexts characterized by urbanization and the increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas, the rise in schooling, the increase in technology in people's daily lives, and the impact of money, commerce, and tourism. All of these factors have transformed traditional subsistence living for many communities including that of Zinacantan in los Altos de Chiapas (Greenfield, 1999; Greenfield et al, 2003, 2009).…”

“…In particular, these cultural models included (1) psychological autonomy (characteristic of Western, urban, middle-class contexts), (2) hierarchical relatedness (representative of non-Western, rural, traditional contexts), and (3) mixed cultural models of autonomous relatedness (e.g., non-Western, urban, middle-class contexts; migration contexts). Overall, the studies revealed that figure size, facial depiction, and gender-specific characteristics could be linked to the culturally shaped understanding of self and others in the respective cultural context (Gernhardt et al, 2014, 2015). Regarding the size of the figures drawn, for instance, rural Cameroonian children (who represent the cultural model of hierarchical relatedness, interdependent self-conception) draw themselves alone in a family picture smaller than urban German children (examples of the cultural model of psychological autonomy with an independent self-conception) (Rübeling et al, 2011).…”

A Study Regarding the Representation of the Sun in Young Children’s Spontaneous Drawings

“…More importantly, the present study accounts for the fact that not only did the older children of the sample draw the sun more often than their younger counterparts but they assign larger areas of the picture to represent it. In this connection, it is worth drawing attention to the fact that when it comes to analysing young children's drawings, the size of the elements drawn is not a trivial issue and this pictorial feature is supposed to be associated with the perceived importance and with the significance that the child attaches to the subject matter (Gernhardt et al 2015;Slee and Skrzypiec 2016). As for the implications that these ideas have in the sample under study, they suggest that the significant relevance that the older children attribute to the sun is the presumable reason which inspires them to draw bigger solar representations.…”

New indices to characterize drawing behavior in humans (Homo sapiens) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

“…One of the first steps of children's early symbolic drawing development is tadpole figures 10 . Consisting of two lines (legs) attached to a round form (head), the tadpole figure arises around 3 years of age 11 and is observed in Western as well in non-Western countries 12,13 . Thus, in the same way that children reorganize their spoken language to communicate efficiently, the appearance of these first recognizable drawings also allows them to be better understood by others 14 .…”