Date of Award
11-1975
Culminating Project Type
Thesis
College
College of Liberal Arts
First Advisor
Lee Gutteter
Second Advisor
James Roy
Third Advisor
Boyd Purdom
Keywords and Subject Headings
Art, beauty, gender, vocabulary, boys, girls, picture, judgment
Abstract
PROBLEM:
The area of aesthetics is intriguing and elusive. Researchers have used the words “like best” to evoke an aesthetic response. The first aim of this thesis will be to determine whether the words “like best” receive the same aesthetic response as the words “most beautiful” when put to children. Secondly, with the concern of educators today regarding sex roles, this thesis will attempt to define differences in aesthetic responses of boys versus girls at three grade levels—first, third, and fifth.
PROCEDURE:
The writer selected art reproductions and placed them into three groups according to traditionally used labels: Group A, ones depicting women, soft colors or things of traditional beauty (traditionally labelled feminine qualities); Group B, ones depicting men or boys or painted in bold colors (traditionally labelled masculine qualities); Group C, no people depicted, landscapes, cityscapes, middle range colors (labelled neutral). Four sets were then composed, each containing one Group A, one Group B and two Group C reproductions. Forty students at each of the three grade levels were shown the four sets and asked to choose first the picture they “liked best” and secondly the one they thought was the “most beautiful.” The sets were selected eliminating previously researched reasons for aesthetic choice (color, style and content) within each set. The results were tabulated as a whole and according to sex.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSTIONS:
The only results that were significant to the .05 level when submitted to t-tests seemed to appear randomly. The sets, therefore, did not seem to all test the same things. To the contrary, the results seemed to be either so personal to each child that his or her sex was not a factor or the results appeared to be wholly dependent on the particular pictures used in each set. Choices were either made with originality or with some pattern that was not tested here.
Recommended Citation
Henriksen, Meredith Hawkins, "A Study of Aesthetic Vocabulary Used by Boys Versus Girls in Picture Judgment" (1975). Culminating Projects in Art. 5.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/art_etds/5
