Cultural Differences in Chinese American and European American Children's Drawing Skills over Time

Abstract

Parents and early childhood teachers in Chinese societies and the United States have had dissimilar views about appropriate art instruction for young children. The Chinese view is that creativity will emerge after children have been taught essential drawing skills. The American view has been that children's drawing skills emerge naturally and that directive teaching will stifle children's creativity. Forty second-generation Chinese American and 40 European American young children participated in this longitudinal study at ages 5, 7, and 9 to explore possible cultural differences in and antecedents of their drawing skills and creativity. Chinese American children's person drawings were more mature and creative and their parents reported more formal ways of fostering creativity as compared to their European American counterparts. Correlations showed that children who had more opportunities to draw and who received more guidance in drawing were more advanced in their drawing. For Chinese Americans, fathers' personal art attitudes and children's Time 1 drawing skills predicted 53% of the variance in children's drawing scores four years later. (Contains 8 tables and 5 figures.)