The self-portraits were analyzed by their contents, categorized in: type of activity, number of persons, co-operation with others, expression, total impression of the picture.

Our categorizing resulted as follows: boys tended to picture themselves as courageous, strong-making performances (12 out of 24 pictures), while girls tended to picture themselves doing activities without stressing "performances". They expressed "joy in movement" (15 out of 24). No girl pictured herself as courageous or aggressive.

The study was carried out to increase our knowledge of children' s conceptions of themselves in sports settings. One might interpret the results as boys and girls having different expectations of what they want to express with their bodies. When we put this in relation to the goals of PE in Sweden, we need to take into account which social and cultural constructions should be allowed to remain static, or in what way PE teachers would like to contribute to a change in attitudes.