Examining how foreign secondary school students express themselves through paintings

This study aims to examine how foreign national middle school students express themselves through drawings. The research was conducted using a qualitative research method with a phenomenological design. The study was carried out during the 2024–2025 academic year with a total of 52 foreign students from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and Iraq, who were enrolled in 11 public middle schools located in the İpekyolu, Tuşba, and Edremit districts of Van, Turkey. During the data collection process, students were asked, "Can you draw an event or a moment that affected you before or after migration?" and were requested to produce a drawing that reflected their personal experiences. After completing their drawings, the students were then asked, "Why did you draw this picture? What did you want to express?" and were encouraged to write an explanation on the back of their drawings. The data obtained through the "draw and write" method were analyzed using content analysis. As a result of the analysis, 19 themes and 74 different codes were identified. The coding process was carried out independently by two experts, and the inter-coder reliability was calculated as 89.16%. The findings revealed that foreign students were able to express challenges related to language barriers, exclusion and bullying in school settings, cultural adaptation problems, difficulties encountered during the migration process with their families, and various emotional states through their drawings. Based on the findings, it was concluded that drawing serves as a meaningful and effective means of communication, especially for foreign national students. Keywords: foreign students, middle school students, expression through drawing, self-expression, visual arts.