Gender-Differentiated Behaviour Traits of Elementary School Pupils in Identical Visual Arts Learning Situations

Alain Savoie, Sylvie St-Pierre

Faculty of Education, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada.

DOI: 10.4236/ce.2012.37179                

Abstract

This exploratory qualitative research project comparatively observes the conduct of girls and boys—in their third year of elementary school—divided in same-gender dyads, participating successively in an identical visual arts project in Canada. Our goal is to improve knowledge of the differences and similarities between boys and girls in a learning situation and help to devise gender-differentiated teaching strategies in the visual arts, a curricular subject for which boys typically show limited interest. We categorize the behaviour patterns of our research subjects according to a behavioural indicators table we designed after reviewing literature on female/male brain, personality types, gender and gender role. We observe notable gender differences in behaviour among the pupils, with “male indicators” overwhelming identified in the boys and, surprisingly, in one girl, while the “female indicators” are clearly dominant in the other girls.

Keywords

Elementary School; Visual Arts Education; Gender; Gender Role; Differentiated Instruction; Behavioural Indicators

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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