Drawings tell the difference: student characteristics and student-teacher relationships in a cross-cultural context

Student-teacher relationship drawings were employed to investigate how students’ mental representations of student-teacher relationships were affected by their gender, age, and shyness across the Netherlands and China. The sample included 752 third- to sixth-graders (48.5% boys; M_age = 9.96) from the Netherlands and 574 third- to- sixth-graders (53.7% boys; M_age = 11.48) from China. Students’ drawings were double-coded on eight relationship dimensions. Multiple group models showed that Chinese students’ drawings scored lower on anger/tension, role reversal, emotional distance/isolation, and global pathology but higher on vulnerability than those of Dutch students. Boys’ drawings displayed higher global pathology than girls’ drawings and this difference was larger in the Netherlands than in China. Other associations between student characteristics (gender, age, shyness) and drawing dimensions were equally strong across countries. As an implication, findings from Western countries may not necessarily generalize to students and teachers in Eastern countries. Drawing may be a promising method to further understand differences and similarities in the formation of student-teacher relationships across countries.