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Multiculturalism and Social Work | San Francisco State University

Street children s drawings: Windows into their life circumstances and aspirations.

Author: DiCarlo, Margaret A.; Gibbons, Judith L.; Kaminsky, Donald C.; Wright, James D.; Stiles, Deborah A.
Author Background:
Date 1/1/00
Type Journal
Journal Title: International-Social-Work
Volume/Pages 2000 Jan; Vol 43(1): 107-120
Publisher
Subject Matter Human Behavior
Population
Pedagogies
Abstract The goals of this study were to examine the content of the drawings of street children, to introduce a new application of a scoring system that addresses the content of the drawings, and to compare this procedure to more standard scoring procedures. The standard scoring procedures include the criteria of F. L. Goodenough and D. B. Harris (1963) for intellectual maturity and the presence or absence of E. M. Koppitz s (1984) emotional indicators. A 3rd scoring system (D. A. Stiles et al, see record 1989-04728-001) that may provide indicators of the children s social environment, personal aspirations, and cultural values, also was applied. 82 street children(aged 5-17 yrs) in Tegucigalpa, Honduras participated in the study. Almost all of the Ss were working in open-air markets as vendors earning money for their families. Ss were instructed to draw a picture of an ideal person engaged in an activity and to write comments explaining the person s activities. The mean Goodenough-Harris raw score was 27.5, which translates to a standard score of 86.8. The drawings of many children show the presence of emotional indicators according to Koppitz s criteria. Emotional indicators were significantly related to a number of the scores according to Stiles procedures. Sample drawings and their scores are provided. ((c) 2000 APA/PsycINFO, all rights reserved)
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