Figure Structure, Figure Action, and Framing in Drawings by American and Egyptian Children

Abstract

Two opposing theoretical positions have been posited regarding the child's graphic development. For nearly 100 years the first article of faith assumed by art educators has been that universal biological unfolding and personal disposition were the only two factors that really counted so far as children's artistic development was concerned. A few psychologists have also fallen under the spell of this belief, most notably Arnheim, who in reacting to Wilson and Wilson's (1977) suggestions that the culture influences children's productions, indicated that if children were not protected from cultural influences their very mental health would be at stake (Arnheim, 1978). Art educator's beliefs and fears not withstanding, social psychologists suspecting little of the dangers of cultural influences on graphic productions, have amassed a small but growing body of research showing cross-cultural differences in children's graphic productions. The purpose of this study is to investigate the interaction between biological unfolding and culturally related factors on the drawings of children. Virtually every study of children's drawings has assumed either the biological or the cultural position. In this study both are assumed to be influential factors. Most previous studies have focused almost exclusively on drawings of the human figure. This study deals not only with the human figure but also with the amount of action shown in figures and with changes in the implied distance between viewer and subject as shown in a sequence of related narrative drawings. The findings of the study support hypotheses relating to the interaction of natural and nurtural influences on children's drawings. Theoretical Background and Hypotheses One of the most important investigations of cultural influence is Dennis' (1966) massive study of the responses of 40 different cultural groups to the Draw-a-Man test. In testing subjects, primarily at ages six and seven, he found group scores ranging from highs of 125 and 124 for selected American and Japanese samples, through 94 and 93 for Lebanese and Egyptian samples, to a low of 56 and 53 for Syrian Bedouins and the Shilluk of Sudan. Dennis accounts for this 75 point difference in performance among cultures on the basis of two factors-the degree of modernization in the culture and the extent of the artistic background in the culture. Dennis discounts four other hypotheses that might account for the large group differences. Specifically, he argues that the difference could not be accounted for by (a) heredity and biological factors, (b) differences in the amount of schooling, (c) differences between urban and rural populations and (d) differences in literacy and education of the parents. But in offering artistic heritage and industrialization as the key factors Dennis does not really offer much in the way of explanation. It is even possible that what Dennis observed was essentially different levels of graphic development resulting from varying kinds of encouragement given to children's art activities. It is also possible that, in time, with the same innate unfolding proceding at different paces, the young people in all cultures would draw figures in essentially the same way. Dennis' general descriptive methods, however, preclude such a conclusion. As culture influences the form of drawings it also influences their content. In a study of 2,382 boys comprising 26 cultural