During adolescence, individuals begin to intensively explore their identity, which is rapidly forming during this period. This leads to differences in the content, depth, and awareness of their own identity among students at different stages of development. Individuals can express their identity in various ways, including through drawing. The prerequisites for self-expression through art are sufficient cognitive abilities, personal maturity, and a certain level of development of drawing skills and abilities.
In my master's thesis, I examined how students of different developmental levels (neurotypical students, students with mild intellectual disabilities, and students with moderate intellectual disabilities) explore and shape their own identity and how they present it in self-portrait drawings. The purpose of my master's thesis was to connect artistic creation and reflection on personal identity, focusing on understanding the differences in the presentation of identity among adolescents with different developmental levels. With my master's thesis, I wanted to highlight the fact that a student's execution of an art task is not only the realization of an artistic motif, but that with the help of solving an artistic problem, with quality guidance, the student can also develop and get to know themselves.
The sample included adolescents of different developmental levels, aged 13–14, attending different primary school programs, i.e., a special program, a program with lower educational standards, and a regular primary school program. I included 6 students with neurotypical development, 6 students with mild intellectual disabilities, and 5 students with moderate intellectual disabilities in the sample. One meeting was held with each group of pupils, where they explored their personal identity through self-portrait drawings. The empirical part of the task included a qualitative analysis of the drawings and discussions with the pupils using the drawings as a basis, as well as an analysis of interviews with the teachers of the participating pupils.
In my research, I found that there are clear differences in artistic development, independence, creativity, and identity reflection among students of different developmental levels. All of them predominantly expressed their interests and everyday topics, while the exploration of areas of identity that develop later in life (e.g., values, views of the future) was the least expressed. The latter was particularly evident in students with intellectual disabilities. In their self-portraits, students with neuroatypical development expressed their identity through the most complex and thoughtful artistic solutions, while their works reflected an awareness of their own characteristics, interests, and emotions, which they depicted with details, diverse symbolism, and an independent and creative approach to solving artistic problems.
|