Children and their purple crayons: understanding their worlds through their drawings.

In Harold and the Purple Crayon, the popular children's book by Crockett Johnson (1955), Harold draws his world with a purple crayon. Readers follow his purple marks as he faces a dragon, enjoys a picnic of pies, and takes a ride in a hot air balloon, all under the light of a moon he makes with his crayon. Harold draws us into a world of his own making and allows us to better understand his likes, dislikes, dreams, and fears. The idea that a child's drawings can tell us something about the child and his or her world is not a new one. Years before Harold drew his first moon, the drawings of children were fascinating the researchers who studied them. Early scientists understood children's drawings to be a reflection of the child's personality, intellectual maturity, or emotional development; more recently, researchers have focused on the use of drawings as a means of investigating children's understanding of specific concepts.

Despite their continued popularity, the use of children's drawings as reliable and valid sources of data has been questioned in the research literature. Furthermore, the disparate disciplines utilizing children's drawings make it challenging for educators and other professionals working with children to keep up-to-date with best practices. Therefore, the purpose of this review of research is to determine when and how children's drawings can be used effectively to better understand the lives of children. It is guided by three questions: What do we know about children's drawings? What have we learned from drawings that help us better understand children and their worlds? How might drawings be used to inform our efforts in the classroom and other settings?

What Do We Know About Children's Drawings?

Children's drawings have been studied for over a century. Initially, researchers worked to describe and catalogue the various qualities unique to drawings made by children. Early researchers suggested that children developed specific schemes or symbols to represent objects in their pictures, and that the developmental sequence of these schemes was predictable, consistent, and correlated with age. One of the earliest documentations of such a sequence is that of Luquet (1913). He studied his daughter's drawings and described an evolution of her human figures (i.e., from a scribble identified as a person to a figure with recognizable body parts) that was later confirmed and interpreted by other researchers as demonstrating specific stages of artistic development. This developmental sequence was considered so consistent, especially as demonstrated in children's drawings of the human figure, early scientists adopted figure drawings as a measure of intellectual maturity (Goodenough, 1926). Twenty years after Goodenough developed her drawing test for intelligence, researchers began to look at children's drawings in another way, suggesting that not only was a child's cognitive development reflected in his or her drawing, but so were his or her inner thoughts and emotions (Buck, 1948; Machover, 1949). The resulting projective drawing tests were largely based on psychoanalytic theory and clinical observations. Assessment primarily involved evaluating specific drawing features.

The validity of drawing tests as psychological measures continues to be called into question (Motta, Little, & Tobin, 1993). Researchers have questioned the use of specific drawing features as indicators of pathology or emotional distress (Cox, 1993; Joiner, Schmidt, & Barnett, 1996). Not all drawing features are created equally, and more attention has been given to some than others. The concrete and quantifiable nature of figure size has made it a particularly popular measure for developmental scientists and other researchers. Its popularity also makes it an ideal choice for demonstrating the difficulty in trying to quantify the creative expressions of children.

Early researchers suggested that figure size was related to a child's self-concept (Machover, 1949) or could serve as an index of emotion (Koppitz, 1968), but very little support for such hypotheses exist (Cox, 1993; Motta et al., 1993; Thomas & Jolley, 1998). The multiple "mechanisms of influence" described by Thomas and Jolley (p. 130) explain the challenges in giving meaning to a single feature in children's drawings. If children are said to draw more important figures larger, how is "importance" defined? Thomas and Jolley suggested that a child may give an item or figure contextual importance, highlighting its significance in a specific scene by drawing it larger than other items in the drawing. The youngest school-age children in a study by Levin and Barry (1997) exaggerated the size of the computers in their pictures of "a technologist," making the computers larger than the figures using them. According to Thomas and Jolley, however, children also may draw an object larger to emphasize its personal significance to the artist. The findings of Lev-Wiesel and Al-Krenawi (2000) exemplify this definition of importance. In their study, Israeli Bedouin-Arab children of polygamous families drew their biological mothers as larger than the other wives in the family. Thomas and Jolley also indicated that children may increase the size of figures who have socially defined importance in their drawings. For example, students consistently draw their teachers larger than the other figures they include in the pictures of their classrooms (Aronsson & Andersson, 1996; Bonoti, Misailidi, & Gregoriou, 2003). To complicate matters even further, researchers also have suggested that figure size is related to how the child approaches the production and planning of a drawing (Cox, 1993; Thomas & Jolley, 1998). These numerous interpretations of figure size illustrate the inherent challenge in analyzing children's drawings according to a specific drawing feature.

Influences on Children's Drawings

Of course, the choices children make when drawing are not limited to figure size. Consider Harold. We might want to know how big he draws his policeman and why, but we are also curious about where he places the moon in relation to the other images on the page. What details does he add to create a "frightening" dragon and a "very hungry" moose? And, of course, why purple? While Harold is only a fictional character, his drawings convey meaning to viewers just as the drawings Of real children do. Interpreting that meaning is impossible without understanding the various influences on the choices children make when they draw. Three influences are of primary importance when trying to better understand children's drawings: age, culture, and gender.

Age. The developmental sequence initially proposed by Luquet (1913) has been expanded upon by multiple researchers and educators. Lowenfeld (1957) described the graphic expressions of children, ages 2 to 13, in terms of five stages: scribbling, preschematic, schematic, dawning realism, and pseudorealism. According to Lowenfeld, the 2-year-old child's earliest attempts to draw appear as uncontrolled and random marks related more closely to kinesthetics than visual representation. These marks later develop into more purposeful, often circular, marks on the page that are eventually named by the 3- to 4-year-old children who make them. As 4- to 6-year-old children move into the preschematic stage, they begin to include graphic schemes or symbols in their drawings to represent human figures and other familiar objects. These symbols often are not consistent from one drawing to another and appear to be randomly placed on the page. In the schematic stage, 7- to 9-year-old children have developed a graphic language, which they use consistently, including specific symbols and rules of spatial organization (e.g., the use of baselines). In dawning realism, 9- to 11-year-old children strive for accuracy, drawing more details, more action, and more accurate spatial representation, including perspective and occlusion. Children in this stage often recognize the failure of their drawings to "look like" what they see in the real world, and many of them stop drawing at this point. Adolescents who do reach the pseudorealistic stage create images inspired by both visual stimuli and subjective experiences, depending on the choices they make as artists.

In their review, Thomas and Silk (1990) concluded that a number of similarities in children's drawing development, especially among younger children, did exist, but argued that the relationship between children's age and those stages was not necessarily consistent. According to Thomas and Silk, older children may continue to use more primitive drawing strategies despite having demonstrated their ability to use more sophisticated strategies. Similarly, Wolf (1997) argued that drawing development must be understood "not so much as a ladder of ascending stages, but as the development of a repertoire of choices" (p. 189).

Culture. Wolf (1997) argued that physical and cognitive maturation are not the only driving forces behind children's drawing choices.

"Instead, it is much more likely to be the liveliness and diversity of the visual culture in which children grow up" (p. 193). Thus, the choices children make as they draw are influenced in part by their specific sociocultural contexts. According to Wilson (2000), "Children's drawings rely on cultural graphic models. Where the models are different, the drawings are also different" (p. 101). Cox, Koyasu, Hiranuma, and Perara (2001), for example, attributed differences in artistic abilities between children in Japan and the United Kingdom to differences in culture and suggested that, specifically, the exposure to manga (i.e., comics) in Japanese culture may be one explanation for Japanese children's better performance on various drawing tasks. "Because of manga models, Japanese children draw differently from children in other cultures--and far more skillfully than most" (Wilson, 2000, p. 59). Wilson and Wilson (1987) speculated that the children's compositions communicate the respective worlds they construct for themselves.

Gender. In addition to culture and age, researchers also have looked at a child's gender as an influence on the choices he or she makes when drawing. For example, some evidence exists of girls' preferences for horizontal baselines and symmetrical compositions (Iijima, Arisaka, Minamoto, & Arai, 2001; Tuman, 1999). Some researchers also have reported that girls tend to use more colors per drawing than boys do (Iijima et al., 2001; Moore & Kramer, 1993). Iijima and colleagues suggested that boys tended to use cooler colors (e.g., blue) and girls tended to use warmer colors (e.g., pink) in their drawings. Such color preferences appear to emerge in early childhood (Boyatzis & Eades, 1999). One other consistent finding in reports of the gender differences in children's drawings is that the majority of children choose to draw people of their own gender (Chen & Kantner, 1996; Pfeffer, 1985; Tuman, 1999).

These various influences on children's drawing choices challenge researchers as they strive to better understand children's graphic expressions. Nevertheless, educators and other professionals working with children can capitalize on the richness of drawings as a source of qualitative data if they consider these various influences on the multiple contexts in which children live. Drawings have much to teach us if we care to learn.

What Have We Learned From Children's Drawings?

Numerous educators and researchers have used children's drawings to better understand the developing child. DiCarlo and colleagues (2000) argued that a systematic analysis of the content of drawings resulted in an approach that revealed characteristics that might not have been apparent if only a "sign" approach (i.e., quantifying the presence or absence of a specific drawing feature) had been used to evaluate their drawings. In other words, measuring the size of Harold's moon may be less helpful than identifying the themes that emerge from his drawings of that moon. Drawings have allowed researchers to compare values across cultures, ages, and genders, and to elicit "more open-ended expressions" than they might otherwise achieve through traditional surveys (Stiles, Gibbons, & Schnellmann, 1987, p. 412). Examples of drawings as data abound in the literature. Drawings have been collected to better understand children's family life (e.g., Fury, Carlson, & Sroufe, 1997; Lev-Wiesel, & A1-Krenawi, 2000), friendships and peer interactions (e.g., Bombi & Pinto, 1994; Pinto, Bombi, & Cordioli, 1997; Rubenstein, Feldman, Rubin, & Noveck, 1987), and children's many and varied perceptions of the world around them (e.g., Alerby, 2000; Barraza, 1999; McLernon & Cairns, 2001; Moore & Kramer, 1993; Walker, Myers-Bowman, & Myers-Walls, 2003). Of particular interest here, however, will be those studies that illustrate how drawings can be used to help educators and other professionals understand the lives of children in school and related settings.

Numerous researchers have asked children to draw themselves and their teachers working in the classroom. Studies in Tanzania and Sweden (Aronsson & Andersson, 1996) and in Greece (Bonoti et al., 2003) demonstrated how children's drawings could reflect their teachers' pedagogic styles. Prout and Celmer (1984) also found that the content of the children's drawings (e.g., the specific behaviors or activities depicted) could be related to children's achievement in school. Other researchers have used children's drawings in educational evaluation efforts. In one study, open-ended instructions asked the children to draw "my school and me" (Gamradt & Staples, 1994, p. 42). Examining the content of the children's drawings, Gamradt and Staples concluded that, collectively, the drawings provided insight into student concerns regarding their educational experiences (e.g., peer interactions and academic progress).

Not surprisingly, researchers also have used drawings to explore what children are learning in their classrooms. For example, Hanke (2000) effectively used drawings to tap into children's literacy experiences. She asked children in England to complete drawings illustrating "literacy hour" in her classroom to help her evaluate the implementation of national literacy standards. The drawing completion task "enabled children of all levels of achievement and degrees of motivation to record and share their perceptions" (p. 290). In Canada, Kendrick and McKay (2004) asked children to "draw a picture of reading or writing" (p. 113). The results suggested that children's literacy experiences occur within a variety of diverse contexts, in and out of school. Fournier and Wineburg (1997) used drawings to explore how American children "picture the past" by asking them to draw Pilgrims, western settlers, and hippies. The drawings revealed gender differences in children's understanding of history. The authors argued that "if these patterns suggest that girls view the past with less than twenty-twenty vision, then boys are blind in one eye" (p. 178). Based on the participating children's drawings, the results of all three of these studies led to specific recommendations regarding school curriculum in the authors' respective fields (i.e., literacy and history education).

Researchers also have focused on children's perceptions of science and technology. Levin and Barry (1997) and their team of teacher-researchers asked school-age children in the United States to "draw a technologist" and then interviewed them about their drawings. Brosnan (1999) evaluated drawings by English children of a "computer user," analyzing the content of the drawings (e.g., activities depicted) as well as the gender and age of the figures drawn. Similarly, Martin, Heller, and Mahmoud (1992) analyzed American and Soviet children's drawings of computer users by examining the drawings' content and specific features. All three of these studies helped the researchers better understand "that boys and girls may have different experiences with computers and think differently about computer technology" (Levin & Barry, p. 284). As in the other studies described, the authors' primary goals were to capture the children's perceptions. Studies like these exemplify how drawings might be used by educators and other professionals to better understand children's experiences in school settings.

How Might We Best Utilize Children's Drawings?

Analysis of children's drawings has a long history in the scholarly literature, but specific recommendations regarding the analysis and interpretation of drawings in professional practice have been limited. This review of the relevant literature was meant to encourage educators and other professionals working with children to view drawings as data and to consider how drawings might best be used to inform their efforts in the classroom and related settings. If we ask Harold to draw his favorite day at school, what will his picture tell us? The examples provided indicate that children's drawings are particularly suited to those questions that focus primarily on understanding the perspective of the developing child. The inherent assumption is that understanding children's perceptions is central to meeting their needs. This assumption is embedded within a theoretical framework that emphasizes the active role children play in their own development. Vygotsky's (1978) sociocultural theory suggests that children's social and cultural knowledge evolves as children actively engage with their environments. Thus, "Children's meaning construction [is] embedded in their social and cultural milieu" (Kendrick & McKay, 2004, p. 111) and can be reflected in their drawings.

Drawings may be considered a "natural" method of inquiry for school-age children, who frequently are given the opportunities and tools to draw "for fun" in schools or other settings. However, drawings also may be used effectively with adolescents and with preschoolers. For example, Stiles and Gibbons demonstrated the effective use of drawings in studies focused on the identity development and expectations of adolescents living in diverse cultures (e.g., Gibbons, Stiles, Schnellmann, & Morales-Hidalgo, 1990; Stiles et al., 1987, 1990). Specifically, the drawings helped illustrate the adolescents' perceptions of the ideal man and woman. Other studies have focused on preschoolers. When Gross and Hayne (1999) asked 3-to 6-year-olds to draw and describe familiar events (e, g., their birthday party or a trip to the park), they discovered that after a delay of 3 months, the children still recognized their own drawings and could describe them as they had initially. Even more surprising, the youngest children (3 to 4 years old) could accurately describe drawings that consisted primarily or exclusively of scribbles.

Verbal input from the child is essential to understanding the content of his or her drawing and the meanings he or she wishes to convey, especially if that content is unrecognizable to an adult. When drawings are used effectively to understand the meanings children give to their experiences, participants are asked not only to draw but also to talk or write about their drawings. But why use drawings at all if the educator or practitioner still has to "interview" the child? Gross and Hayne (1998) answered this question when they asked a group of 3- to 6-year-olds to draw about a time when they felt sad, happy, or scared. If the children did not spontaneously narrate as they drew, they were asked to describe their drawings. Another group was asked to only tell about the experience. "Children given the opportunity to draw and tell reported more than twice as much information as children asked to tell only" (p. 163).

Additional information also may be gleaned from children if they are asked specific questions about their drawings. For example, Tamm and Prellwitz (1999) asked preschool and school-age children in Sweden "to draw a picture of a child sitting in a wheelchair" (p. 228). The children were then asked a series of questions based on their drawings (e.g., Why is the child in a wheelchair? How do you think he or she feels?). In this way, the drawings served as a way to jump-start discussions with children about how they perceive children with disabilities. The researchers suggested the drawings worked indirectly as projective stimuli upon which the children projected their "conceptions of the world about them" (p. 227).

Also important when collecting drawings from children is to consider how the task will be presented to the participants. Careful wording of instructions and additional questions is critical. For example, Symington and Spurling (1990) found that the majority of 5th-graders in their study produced very different drawings when asked to complete "a drawing which tells me what you know about scientists and their work" and to draw "a picture of a scientist" (p. 76). The latter instruction was more likely than the former to result in the stereotyped image of a figure with lab coat and eyeglasses; children may have interpreted the instruction to mean they should draw the requested figure in such a way as to make it recognizable to others viewing the drawing.

As previously acknowledged, interpreting findings based on the quantitative measurement of specific drawing features poses numerous challenges. Thus, an educator interested in the perceptions of children will benefit from qualitative analysis of children's drawings. Drawings can be analyzed according to the educator's specific questions. Themes will emerge as the drawings are reviewed individually and collectively, and "investigator triangulation" will enhance resulting interpretations (Patton, 1990, p. 187). Consultation and collaboration with other educators and professionals will help minimize bias. Furthermore, focus groups with the participants themselves can help refine interpretations (Stiles, Gibbons, Lie, Sand, & Krull, 1998). Asking children to examine the drawings they or their peers created may lead to insights initially missed by the adult reviewers.

Conclusion

For educators and other practitioners, drawings can serve as a tangible record of children's perceptions regarding their experiences in and out of the classroom. As a rich source of qualitative data, children's drawings can help us gain insight into the world of the developing child. Like Harold's purple moon, they will lead us home to greater understanding.

References

Alerby, E. (2000). A way of visualizing children's and young people's thoughts about the environment: A study of drawings. Environmental Education Research, 6(3), 205-222.

Aronsson, K., & Andersson, S. (1996). Social scaling in children's drawings of classroom life: A cultural comparative analysis of social scaling in Africa and Sweden. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 14, 301-314.

Barraza, L. (1999). Children's drawings about the environment. Environmental Education Research, 5(1), 49-66.

Bombi, A. S., & Pinto, G. (1994). Making a dyad: Cohesion and distancing in children's pictorial representation of friendship. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 12, 563-575.

Bonoti, F., Misailidi, P., & Gregoriou, F. (2003). Graphic indicators of pedagogic style in Greek children's drawings. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 97, 195-205.

Boyatzis, C. J., & Eades, J. (1999). Gender differences in preschoolers' and kindergartners' artistic production and preference. Sex Roles, 41(718), 627-638.

Brosnan, M. J. (1999). A new methodology, an old story? Gender differences in the "draw-a-computer-user" test. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 14(3), 375-385.

Buck, J. N. (1948). The H-T-P Technique: A qualitative and quantitative scoring manual. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 4, 317-396.

Chen, W-J., & Kantner, L. A. (1996). Gender differentiation and young children's drawings. Visual Arts Research, 44-51.

Cox, M. V. (1993). Children's drawings of the human figure. Hove, UK: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Cox, M. V., Koyasu, M., Hiranuma, H., & Perara, J. (2001). Children's human figure drawings in the UK and Japan: The effects of age, sex and culture. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 19, 275-292.

DiCarlo, M. A., Gibbons, J. L., Kaminsky, D. C., Wright, J. D., & Stiles, D. A. (2000). Street children's drawings: Windows into their life circumstances and aspirations. International Social Work, 43(1), 107-120.

Fournier, J. E., & Wineburg, S. S. (1997). Picturing the past: Gender differences in the depiction of historical figures. American Journal of Education, 105, 160-185.

Fury, G., Carlson, E. A., & Sroufe, L. A. (1997). Children's representations of attachment relationships in family drawings. Child Development, 68(6), 1154-1164.

Gamradt, J., & Staples, C. (1994). My school and me: Children's drawings in postmodern educational research and evaluation. Visual Arts Research, 20, 36-49.

Gibbons, J. L., Stiles, D. A., Schnellmann, J. G., & Morales-Hidalgo, I. (1990). Images of work, gender, and social commitment among Guatemalan adolescents. Journal of Early Adolescence, 10(1), 89-103.

Goodenough, F. (1926). The measurement of intelligence by drawings. New York: World Books.

Gross, J., & Hayne, H. (1998). Drawing facilitates children's verbal reports of emotionally laden events. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 4(2), 163-179.

Gross, J., & Hayne, H. (1999). Young children's recognition and description of their own and others' drawings. Developmental Science, 2(4), 476-489.

Hanke, V. (2000). Learning about literacy: Children's versions of the literacy hour. Journal of Research in Reading, 23(3), 287-297.

Iijima, M., Arisaka, O., Minamoto, F., & Arai, Y. (2001). Sex differences in children's free drawings: A study on girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Hormones and Behavior, 40, 99-104.

Johnson, C. (1955). Harold and the purple crayon. New York: Harper.

Joiner, T. E., Schmidt, K. L., & Barnett, J. (1996). Size, detail, and line heaviness in children's drawings as correlates of emotional distress: (More) negative evidence. Journal of Personality Assessment, 67(1), 127-141.

Kendrick, M., & McKay, R. (2004). Drawings as an alternative way of understanding young children's constructions of literacy. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 4(1), 109-128.

Koppitz, E. M. (1968). Psychological evaluation of children's human figure drawings. London: Grune and Stratton.

Levin, B. B., & Barry, S. M. (1997). Children's views of technology: The role of age, gender, and school setting. Journal of Computing in Childhood Education, 8(4), 267-290.

Lev-Wiesel, R., & Al-Krenawi, A. (2000). Perception of family among Bedouin-Arab children of polygamous families as reflected in their family drawings. American Journal of Art Therapy, 38(4), 98-109.

Lowenfeld, V. (1957). Creative and mental growth (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan.

Luquet, G. H. (1913). Les dessins d'un enfant. Paris: Alcan.

Machover, K. (1949). Personality projection in the drawings of the human figure. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.

Martin, C. D., Heller, R. S., & Mahmoud, E. (1992). American and Soviet children's attitudes toward computers. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 8(2), 155-185.

McLernon, F., & Cairns, E. (2001). Impact of political violence on images of war and peace in the drawings of primary school children. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 7(1), 45-57.

Moore, M., & Kramer, D. (1993). Value reflection in Israeli children's drawings during the Gulf War. Archivio di Psicologia, Neurologia e Psichiatria, 54(1), 3-12.

Motta, R. W., Little, S. G., & Tobin, M. I. (1993). The use and abuse of human figure drawings. School Psychology Quarterly, 8(3), 162-169.

Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Pfeffer, K. (1985). Sex-identification and sex-typing in some Nigerian children's drawings. Social Behavior and Personality, 13(1), 69-72.

Pinto, G., Bombi, A. S., & Cordioli, A. (1997). Similarity of friends in three countries: A study of children's drawings. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 20(3), 453-469.

Prout, H. T., & Celmer, D. S. (1984). A validity study of the Kinetic School drawing technique. Psychology in the Schools, 21, 176-180.

Rubenstein, J., Feldman, S. S., Rubin, C., & Noveck, I. (1987). Across-cultural comparison of children's drawings of same- and mixed-sex peer interaction. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 18(2), 234-250.

Stiles, D. A., Gibbons, J. L., Lie, S., Sand, T., & Krull, J. (1998). "Now I am living in Norway": Immigrant gifts describe themselves. Cross-Cultural Research, 32(3), 279-298.

Stiles, D. A., Gibbons, J. L., & Schnellmann, J. (1987). The smiling sunbather and the chivalrous football player: Young adolescents' images of the ideal woman and man. Journal of Early Adolescence, 7(4), 411-427.

Stiles, D. A., Gibbons, J. L., & Schnellmann, J. (1990). Opposite-sex ideals in the U.S.A. and Mexico as perceived by young adolescents. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 21(2), 180-199.

Symington, D., & Spurling, H. (1990). The "draw a scientist test": Interpreting the data. Research in Science and Technological Education, 8(1), 75-77.

Tamm, M., & Prellwitz, A. (1999). "If I had a friend in a wheelchair": Children's thoughts on disabilities. Child: Care, Health and Development, 27(3), 223-240.

Thomas, G. V., & Jolley, R. P. (1998). Drawing conclusions: A re-examination of empirical and conceptual bases for psychological evaluation of children from their drawings. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 37, 127-139.

Thomas, G. V., & Silk, A. M. J. (1990). An introduction to the psychology of children's drawings. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Tuman, D. M. (1999). Sing a song of sixpence: An examination of sex differences in the subject preference of children's drawings. Visual Arts Research, 51-62.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Walker, K., Myers-Bowman, K. S., & Myers-Walls, J. (2003). Understanding war, visualizing peace: Children draw what they know. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 20(4), 191-200.

Wilson, B. (2000). Becoming Japanese: Manga, children's drawings and the construction of national character. Visual Arts Research, 48-60.

Wilson, B., & Wilson, M. (1987). Pictorial composition and narrative structure: Themes and the creation of meaning in the drawings of Egyptian and Japanese children. Visual Arts Research, 10-21.

Wolf, D. E (1997). Reimagining development: Possibilities from the study of children's art. Human Development, 40, 189-194.

Kathleen Walker is Assistant Professor, Human Development and Family Studies, School of Family and Consumer Studies, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio.