Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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This study was made to determine to what extent behavior problems in fourth grade children in the Palo Pinto Common School, Palo Pinto, Texas, were revealed in their drawings.

Orientador(a): Rejane Galvão Coutinho / Banca: Rosa Iavelberg / Banca: Valéria de Alencar Peixoto / Resumo: Este artigo propõe a observação de como o desenho de humor pode ser trabalhado em sala de aula com crianças e adolescentes visando o desenvolvimento simbólico e do desenho em si. O estudo tem como hipótese a incorporação da linguagem do humor gráfico ao ensino-aprendizagem do desenho a partir de propostas para pensar, elaborar e criar a partir de referências experimentadas através da apropriação do alfabeto gráfico por parte do aluno. A intenção é provocar a reflexão sobre o quanto o incentivo ao desenho, por meio de uma abordagem interacionista, possibilita e fomenta a prática desenhista numa fase de possível bloqueio do desenvolvimento gráfico do sujeito / Abstract: This article proposes the observation of how the humor drawing can be worked in the classroom with children and adolescents aiming at the symbolic development and the drawing itself. The study's hypothesis is the incorporation of the language of graphic humor into the teaching-learning of the drawing from proposals to think, elaborate and create from references experienced through the appropriation of the graphic alphabet by the student. The intention is to provoke reflection on how much the incentive to draw, through an interactionist approach, enables and encourages the designer practice in a phase of possible blocking of the person's graphic development / Mestre

Within the framework of this thesis, three studies are presented that investigated cultural similarities and differences of preschool aged children’s self- and family-drawings. The research was guided by the assumption that besides the basic structure of the drawing, specific drawing characteristics would vary cross-culturally, according to differences in cultural models and the associated understanding of self and others. Based on an ecocultural approach, families were systematically selected from diverse cultural contexts across and within national boundaries, representing three different cultural models: (1) the cultural model of psychological autonomy (characteristic for Western urban middle-class contexts), (2) the cultural model of hierarchical relatedness (representative for non-Western rural traditional contexts), and (3) mixed cultural models of autonomous relatedness (e.g., non-Western urban middle-class contexts, migration contexts). The participating children were of similar age, gender distribution, and had reached comparable structural levels of human figure drawings. Overall, the studies revealed three main findings. First, it could be confirmed that there are basic similarities in children’s graphic development. In line with previous reports, the studies demonstrated that the structural composition of the human figure as well as production principles did not differ significantly across cultures. Second, several content-based drawing features varied with cultural context and the associated cultural model. In particular, figure size, the facial depiction, and gender-specific characteristics could be linked to the culturally shaped understanding of self and others in the respective cultural context. Third, it was shown that the composition of children’s family-drawings corresponded to the structure of families in the particular cultural context, mainly with regard to number and position of family members, figure size- and gender-differentiation. The results are discussed with a focus on the role of general and culture-specific drawing characteristics in preschool aged children’s drawings of self and family. Based on these and former research findings, an integrative framework of children’s self- and family-drawings is proposed in order to shed light on the origin and relationship of the investigated drawing characteristics. Open research questions are pointed out, as well as limitations and practical implications of the study results.

Summaries in Afrikaans and English / Die primere skoolkind bevind horn in 'n fase van groot verandering wat aanpassings verg en hoe eise stel. Die ervaringe wat die kind gedurende hierdie tydperk opdoen, is beduidend omdat dit sy vormingsjare is. Omdat die kind nie altyd kan verbaliseer watter probleme hy ervaar nie, is met hierdie studie gepoog om vas te stel of skooltekeninge van enige diagnostiese waarde kan wees om die kind in nood te verstaan. Die empiriese studie het bewys dat skooltekeninge nie net waarde as 'n identifiseringsmedium inhou nie, maar ook as 'n aanvullende ortopedagogiese medium aangewend kan word. Die kind neig om sy probleme, persepsies, houdings en so meer visueel te projekteer. Hoewel hierdie studie bevindinge van vroeere navorsing bevestig, is bepaalde verskille ook geidentifiseer. Die studie is afgesluit met riglyne vir die gebruik van skooltekeninge, asook aanbevelings met die oog op die verfyning van hierdie projeksiemedium. / The primary school child finds himself in a phase of great change which makes high demands and requires adjustments. What happens to the child during these years is critical because these are foundation laying years. Because a child is not always able to verbalise problems which he may experience, this study is an . endeavour to determine whether school drawings have any diagnostic value to identify a child in need. The empirical study has confirmed that school drawings have diagnostic value not only as a medium of identification, but also as a supplementary orthopedagogical medium. The child· tends to project his problems, perceptions and attitude visually. Although this study confirms findings of previous studies, certain differences were also identified. The study was concluded with guidelines for the use of school drawings, as well as recommendations regarding the refinement of this projection medium. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (met spesialisering in Voorligting)

Summaries in Afrikaans and English / Die primere skoolkind bevind horn in 'n fase van groot verandering wat aanpassings verg en hoe eise stel. Die ervaringe wat die kind gedurende hierdie tydperk opdoen, is beduidend omdat dit sy vormingsjare is. Omdat die kind nie altyd kan verbaliseer watter probleme hy ervaar nie, is met hierdie studie gepoog om vas te stel of skooltekeninge van enige diagnostiese waarde kan wees om die kind in nood te verstaan. Die empiriese studie het bewys dat skooltekeninge nie net waarde as 'n identifiseringsmedium inhou nie, maar ook as 'n aanvullende ortopedagogiese medium aangewend kan word. Die kind neig om sy probleme, persepsies, houdings en so meer visueel te projekteer. Hoewel hierdie studie bevindinge van vroeere navorsing bevestig, is bepaalde verskille ook geidentifiseer. Die studie is afgesluit met riglyne vir die gebruik van skooltekeninge, asook aanbevelings met die oog op die verfyning van hierdie projeksiemedium. / The primary school child finds himself in a phase of great change which makes high demands and requires adjustments. What happens to the child during these years is critical because these are foundation laying years. Because a child is not always able to verbalise problems which he may experience, this study is an . endeavour to determine whether school drawings have any diagnostic value to identify a child in need. The empirical study has confirmed that school drawings have diagnostic value not only as a medium of identification, but also as a supplementary orthopedagogical medium. The child· tends to project his problems, perceptions and attitude visually. Although this study confirms findings of previous studies, certain differences were also identified. The study was concluded with guidelines for the use of school drawings, as well as recommendations regarding the refinement of this projection medium. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (met spesialisering in Voorligting)

Researchers have taken a particular interest in children’s drawings as a means of representing and communicating knowledge and perspectives but a review of literature reveals that researchers routinely use drawings as a way of obtaining data without considering their function or value. This ESRC-funded research aims to explore drawing as a method of accessing children's perspectives and has three central research objectives which consider methodological and analytical factors relating to the use of children’s drawings as a research tool. These are: to develop a principled approach to analysing and interpreting children’s drawings, to create guidelines for the use of drawing as a research tool, and to gather children’s perspectives on play through the method of drawing. The research objectives were achieved by asking the following three questions: How can children’s drawings be analysed using a principled approach? What are the major factors to be considered when using drawing as a research tool? What can drawings reveal about children's perspectives on play? The study involved two visits to the homes of eight preschool children aged four. The sample included four girls and four boys from central and north-east Scotland with half of the families being categorised as being of low socioeconomic status. Visits were flexible and unstructured allowing the child autonomy regarding our level of interaction and the types of activities (such as free play and conversation) with which they wished to engage. The second visit included a prompted drawing activity in which I invited children to express their perspectives on play. The topic of play was chosen (i) to offer children a meaningful research activity to investigate the issues surrounding the method, (ii) to explore the task of representing an abstract, yet familiar, concept and how this may influence children’s drawings and representations of play, and (iii) as an extension of the ESRC project Young Children Learning with Toys and Technology at Home (Plowman et al., 2012) by giving greater emphasis to children's own perspectives on play and exploring the ways in which this can be achieved. My theoretical approach is not to consider drawings as reproductions of reality, but to value and attempt to understand children’s drawings as a semiotic vehicle in which messages are created and conveyed during the drawing process through representation and signification. Informed by social semiotics (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996) the research presents an innovative four-step approach to analysing children's drawings (4-SASA). The protocol, a key contribution of the research, was developed to promote a more systematic analysis, involving (i) isolating signs within drawings through manual annotation, (ii) documenting the child’s understanding of signs and the significance attributed to them, (iii) organising signs using specific categories of social semiotic analysis (mode, size, colour, salience) and identifying the child’s motivation and interest for specific sign production, and (iv) synthesis of the child’s perspectives from steps 1-3. Post hoc methodological examinations elucidated the following four key factors to be considered when using young children’s drawings: (i) contextual sensitivity of the drawing process, (ii) children’s perceptions of the research task, (iii) the complex task of representing an abstract and elusive concept such as play, and (iv) whether there is a fundamental difference between drawing spontaneously (non-commissioned) and drawing on request. Evidence from the study supports previous literature in demonstrating the potential of drawing as a method of accessing children’s perspectives. However, findings suggest that rather than routinely selecting drawing as a method for representing children’s perspectives, researchers need to be more thoughtful about the ways in which factors such as the social and contextual framing of drawing and approaches to data collection can affect research outcomes. The thesis concludes by discussing how these emerging issues impact research outcomes, along with implications for future implementation and analysis of drawings.

Increasingly since the 1990s those of us who are interested in gender issues in education have heard the question: What about the boys? A discourse has emerged in New Zealand, as in other countries including Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, that attention spent on addressing issues related to the educational needs of girls has resulted in the neglect of boys and problems related to their schooling. Positioned within this discourse, boys are depicted as disadvantaged, victims of feminism, underachieving or failing within the alienating feminised schooling environment and their struggles at school are seen as a symptom of a wider ‘crisis of masculinity'. This anxiety about boys has generated much debate and a number of explanations for the school performance of boys. One concern, that has remained largely unexamined in the Aotearoa New Zealand context, is that the dominant discourse of masculinity is characterised by a restless physicality, anti-intellectualism, misbehaviour and opposition to authority all of which are construed as antithetical to success at school. This thesis explores how masculinities are played out in the schooling experiences of a small group of 5, 6 and 7 year old boys in two New Zealand primary schools as they construct, embody and enact their gendered subjectivities both as boys and as pupils. This study of how the lived realities of schooling for these boys are discursively constituted is informed by feminist poststructuralism, aspects of queer theory and, in particular, draws on the works of Michel Foucault. The research design involved employing an innovative mix of data generating strategies. The discursive analysis of the data generated in focus group discussions, classroom and playground observations, children’s drawings and video and audio recording of the normal classroom literacy programmes is initially organised around these sites of learning in order to explore how gender is produced discursively, embodied and enacted as children go about their work and their play. The research shows that although considerable diversity was apparent as the boys fashioned their masculinities in these different sites, ‘doing boy’ is not inimical to ‘doing schoolboy’ as all the boys, when required to, were able to constitute themselves as ‘intelligible’ pupils (Youdell, 2006). The research findings challenge the notion of school as a feminised and alienating environment for them. In particular, instances of some of the boys disrupting the established classroom norms, as recorded by feminist researchers more than two decades ago, are documented. Concerns then, that “classroom practices reinforced a notion of male importance and superiority while diminishing the interests and status of girls” (Allen, 2009, p. 124) appear to still be relevant, and the postfeminist discourse “that gender equity has now been achieved for girls and women in education” (Ringrose, 2013, p. 1) is called into question. Amid the greater emphasis on measuring easily quantifiable aspects of pupils’ educational achievement, what this analysis does is to recognize the processes of schooling as highly complex and to offer a more nuanced response to the question of boys and their schooling than that offered by, for example, men’s rights advocates. It suggests that if we are committed to improving education for all children, the question needs to be re/framed so as not to lose sight of educational issues related to girls and needs to ask just which particular groups of boys and which particular groups of girls are currently being disadvantaged in our schools.

Drawing is valued as a non-verbal assessment tool to measure children's conceptual development and emotional state. Drawing has also been described as a problem-solving activity and unique symbol system. Although drama has been known to facilitate learning in other symbol systems, such as reading and writing, and to bring about advances in perspective taking and understanding of emotion, its impact on drawing has not been previously examined. In this study, Kindergarten and first grade children were instructed to draw a happy tree, sad tree, and angry tree before and after a 10-hour drama intervention. Half of the children participated in the intervention while the remaining children were members of a control group who participated in the regular school program. Consistent with expectations, children who participated in the drama program showed significantly greater improvement from pretest to posttest in drawing emotion compared to control children. Their drawings of emotion improved in clarity, that is, they depicted more clearly the emotion they were instructed to convey. Participants in the drama program also used significantly more highter level drawing strategies. The results suggest that the experience in emotional perspective taking provided by dramatic play may generalize to the domain of drawing and enhance expression.