Children's Gendered Sense of Self and Play as Represented Through Drawings and Written Descriptions

Abstract

This study investigates the relations between children's perceptions of self and play in 89 school-aged children (52 girls, 37 boys, ages 5 to 8) in two Canadian schools. The study involves standardized measures, interviews, and drawings to assess children's perceptions of play and self. Teacher ratings of emotional competencies were also collected. Findings show that children's play drawings and corresponding descriptions differ according to gender such that girls referred to more social and psychological aspects of play and boys focused mainly on physical activities. Compared to boys, family structure played a stronger role in girls' play and self-representations in that positive associations were found between number of characters drawn and number of siblings for girls only. Implications for socioemotional and cognitive development are discussed.

Cette étude porte sur la relation entre les perceptions qu'ont les enfants d'eux-mêmes et du jeu chez un échantillon de 89 enfants d'âge scolaire (52 filles et 37 garçons, âgés entre 5 et 8 ans), répartis dans deux écoles canadiennes. L'étude comprenait des mesures standardisées, des interviews et des dessins pour évaluer les perceptions des enfants par rapport au jeu et à eux-mêmes. Les données englobaient aussi les évaluations des enseignant(e)s de la compétence émotionnelle. Selon les résultats, les dessins des enfants pendant le jeu et les descriptions correspondantes diffèrent selon le sexe, de sorte que les filles parlent davantage d'aspects sociaux et psychologiques du jeu alors que les garçons, eux, s'orientent principalement sur les activités physiques. La structure familiale des filles, et non celle des garçons, joue un rôle plus important dans leurs jeux et la représentation qu'elles se font d'elles-mêmes, comme le démontrent les associations positives chez elles entre le nombre de personnages dessinés et le nombre de frères et sœurs. La discussion traite des implications sur les développements socioémotionnel et cognitif.

Keywords

drawings self-concept emotional competence play middle childhood

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