Drawing Political Leaders: Race/Ethnicity and Gender in Children's Views of Politics

• In Event: 1-017 - Social Justice and U.S. Politics: Multidisciplinary Insights into Children's Political Development

Integrative Statement

Understanding what children know and think about politics has theoretical and methodological challenges. Consequently, and despite the importance of childhood political socialization, the discipline of political science has long ignored this topic. This paper is the first to adapt the Draw a Scientist task to the political context. By asking children to draw a political leader and describe what they drew, we were able to explore variations across age, gender, race/ethnicity, and community in children's political views. Given the underrepresentation of women and people of color in political leadership roles in the U.S., we were especially interested in the gender and race/ethnicity of the political leaders drawn. In addition, we examined the types of roles represented (president, historical figure, police officer, etc.), the degree to which children captured politically-relevant tasks in their drawings, whether leaders were portrayed positively or negatively, and whether the image conveyed a complex understanding of the political world.

Among our hypotheses, we expected children's drawings to reflect the over-representation of White men in political leadership roles in the U.S., as well as differences across communities. We also expected differences by children's gender and race; we expected, for example, girls to be more likely than boys to draw female leaders and children of color to be more likely than White children to draw leaders of color. We also expected older children's drawings to represent more political sophistication in terms of the tasks the portrayed leader is undertaking, as well as the overall complexity of the drawing, than younger children.

Our Draw a Political Leader task was completed by 1200 schoolchildren in grades 1-6 at four research locations throughout the nation: greater Boston, upstate New York, northeastern Ohio, and New Orleans. The younger children were interviewed in pairs by trained researchers; the older children completed individual survey questionnaires. All children were provided with a set of 16 crayons to use for their drawing: the 8 standard Crayola colors and the 8 colors from Crayola's multicultural set. The children were asked to imagine a political leader at work and then to draw what they imagined. Once their drawings were complete, they answered questions describing the content of their drawing and the leader that they drew.

Examination of the drawings revealed that children conceive of politics to be highly masculinized and white; only a minority of drawings featured women or leaders of color. As expected, older children's drawings reflect more detailed and, in some cases, more nuanced understanding of the political world compared to their younger peers. Older children were also more likely to separate their views of current leaders from the general political world, presenting, for example, negative portrayals of specific leaders alongside neutral or positive assessments of politics or government. Furthermore, children's understandings of leaders are often context-dependent, drawing upon personal experiences and exposure (e.g., with local elected officials) and reflecting media images (e.g., leader giving a speech or sitting at a desk).

Authors

• Angela Bos, College of Wooster
  Non-Presenting Author

• Celeste Lay, Tulane
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jill Greenlee, Brandeis University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mirya Holman, Tulane
  Non-Presenting Author

• Zoe M. Oxley, Union College
  Presenting Author

• Dzifa Adjei, College of Wooster
  Non-Presenting Author