Introduction

The objective of this study is to investigate the role and significance of community-based art education for the prevention and reduction in school violence as well as for the healing of both the victims and the perpetrators of school violence. During adolescence, numerous physical, emotional, and mental changes occur and most adolescents are vulnerable to the resulting stress from these changes. In particular, Korean teenagers suffer from many problems as they struggle to establish their independence and resist the value system and restrictions of their society. This can lead to a pressing need to relieve themselves of their emotional and psychological desires as a result of the education system that heavily focuses on college admission. This study especially focuses on adolescence which covers elementary school students, because school violence caused by teenagers can be attributed to the unstable self-identity in this period. Self-identity has not yet been established during adolescence; thus, teenagers can be changed. Additionally, school violence could be caused by misunderstanding of others as well as self-exploring. Community-based art education which increases creativity and self-expression helped teenagers to improve self-esteem. Violence arising from the expression of adolescent aggression is being highlighted as a serious form of social pathology. Thus, art education programs are needed to heal both the adolescent victims and the adolescent aggressors. The acclimation of adolescent aggression may provide important clues to understanding widespread acts of school violence today.

Preventative efforts using diverse approaches are being made as teenage school violence is becoming more and more serious and the number of such cases is increasing recently. Although programs related to school violence have been developed and made available both domestically and internationally, such school violence relief programs experienced many difficulties in real application as time had to be specifically allotted during school and the programs targeted specific students. Additionally, most programs showed severe limitations in reducing school violence because these programs were one-time events or were merely based on presentation.

Comprehensive countermeasures, including legislation and enforcement ordinances regarding school violence prevention and measures, have been in effect since 2012, and the scope and subject of school violence have been defined in detail. All acts of violence against students both inside and outside of school are defined as school violence, and its categories include physical violence, verbal violence, extortion of money and other valuables, coercion, ostracism, sexual violence, and cyber violence. As school violence is defined as all acts of violence where a student is the victim, all forms of violence to students in and out of school are considered school violence. Currently, the government announced various comprehensive countermeasures to fight school violence due to the severity of the issue. A presented solution is the call for character education. This need was emphasized in the 2012 survey on the current status of character education conducted by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

Therefore, this study raises questions with regard to how community-based art education can heal both the victims and the aggressors of school violence. Can creative artistic activities contribute to the healing process of the victim of school violence? To seek out the answer to such a question, this study conducted art classes in 2013 where 26 students who were victims of school violence took part. The process of recovery and healing for these students through creative activities was observed, and the students were interviewed. The 26 students who were enrolled in an elementary school in the Gwanak district in the city of Seoul participated in the recovery and healing process of school violence trauma through art projects and art-making activities during three classes.

This study, as Mastern and Powell (2003) maintained, defines resilience as the process of bouncing back to a normal or above-normal state despite exposure to school violence. I explore the specific aspects of creativity that appear most pertinent to the process of emotional resilience. Therefore, I attempt to identify the relationship between creative art making and the healing of school violence trauma that students experienced through interviews with the participating students and observations of the resulting artwork.

Review of school violence and trauma

The concept and definition of school violence can differ depending on the contemporary situation and social atmosphere, but the issue of school violence is becoming more intense, showing signs of decreasing student age levels and increasing group activities in addition to the recent increase of brutality and broadening of school violence. Accordingly, numerous studies were conducted in not only the field of education but also sociology, law, psychology, and social welfare. The establishment of various school types, a collaborative system with the police force, and intimate cooperation systems among the related organizations surrounding the community is most urgently needed in order to provide a sound means for students to find relief from the conflict and tension of adolescence (Kim and Rim 2010). For the prevention and measures of school violence, a comprehensive approach is necessary by establishing a cooperation system among individuals, families, schools, communities, and the government.

Henry (2000) pointed out that the traditional definition of school violence was limited to visible violence and overlooked verbal and psychological violence, and proposed that school violence be treated from the overall perspective of the society. In addition, Scandinavian nations, led by Norway, developed a program to eradicate school violence and established its major measures. Through the ombudsman system, programs are provided for children living in unsound environments (Park 2012). In the USA, schools and police work together to seek out solutions to school violence. In the 1970s, school violence was spotlighted as a significant social problem in the USA, and the Police-School Liaison Program (PSLP) was established as a solution to school violence and to form the direction of education as well as economic cooperation. More than 10 % of elementary, middle, and high schools in the USA utilize PSLP. The objective of this program is to secure safety inside schools and prevent the delinquency of students and school violence (Choi 2012).

Despite the active efforts of countries such as the USA and Norway starting two to three decades ago to deal with school violence and develop a program in response, such a school violence prevention and response program is very lacking in South Korea along with the lack of effort and determination to develop such a program. The school violence programs discussed in South Korea have mainly been conducted by organizations and institutions in the private sector. These programs mainly focused on providing information regarding the current situation on school violence, and research from an art education perspective taking into consideration the psychological and social development characteristics of students who have been exposed to school violence has not been pursued (Park et al. 2007). Such related research and programs had numerous limitations, including the fact that they require the separate allocation of time, lead to discomfort as specific students are targeted, are difficult for regular teachers to conduct, fail to catch the interest of the students by providing activities mainly based on showing or listening, are one-time events, and outline roles of the student or teacher that are passive and limited. In particular, the most significant reason that these programs failed to establish themselves in schools was their failure to grab the interest and attention of the students.

Therefore, this study discusses a community-based art education conducted for the healing of the victims and aggressors of school violence as well as shows that such a healing process is highly related with creative education. The art project presented in this research can bring about the interest, attention, and enjoyment of the students than any other class, and the making of art can be a critical key in the prevention of school violence. Through this artistic activity, this paper aims to contribute to fostering the proper growth and development of the students from a creative education point of view. As a part of a comprehensive approach to the problem of teenage school violence, this community-based art education can contribute to the sound growth and development of the adolescents and send them a message of hope while ultimately contributing to the public good. Therefore, this study determined that it is essential to develop an art program that aims to recover the self-esteem of and establish the identities of adolescents who have been exposed to school violence.

Most school violence aggressor students are excessively offensive and destructive, enjoy dominating other children, are easily angered, are impulsive, have difficulty accepting failure, and lack the ability to sympathize with the victim (Olweus 1995; Boxer and Sloan-Power 2013; Conger and Conger 2002). In addition, such students lack the ability to defer the satisfaction of their desires, acting impulsively for instant gratification rather than gaining satisfaction in the future. A survey of children who had engaged in school violence aggression revealed that the rate of these aggressors’ engaging in criminal activity after becoming an adult was high (Chung 2012).

Meanwhile, students who fall victim to school violence suffer from psychological and physical damage as well as social isolation in the school environment. Extensive exposure to school violence can lead to the multiple types of internal struggles including loneliness, depression, and anxiety along with conflicts with fellow classmates and misconduct outside of the school. Victims can be categorized into either passive or offensive victims. Passive victims suffer from more anxiety than regular students, exhibit higher levels of cautiousness and sensitivity, and have low self-esteem. On the other hand, offensive victims are psychologically unstable, making them similar to passive victims, but they show similar levels of aggressiveness toward the aggressors and display a tendency to strike back in response to an aggressive act. This competitive and aggressive response irritates other classmates, resulting in the acceleration of school violence suffering (Olweus 1995). Adolescents who experience school violence have a range of behavioral and mental health difficulties, including traumatic stress, fear, depression, confusion, helplessness, overwhelmed feelings, nervousness, horror, uneasiness, sadness, and academic difficulties. Students who are victims of school violence may feel the world is unsafe, unpredictable, and meaningless (Boxer and Sloan-Power 2013; Conger and Conger 2002; Lynch 2003; Mazza and Overstreet 2000).

Studies found that problems resulting from exposure to school violence include those related with conduct and emotions, school life maladjustment, and suicidal thoughts (Yang and Chung 1999; Yoon and Cho 2008; Kim and Lee 2010; Park 2010). An investigation of the feelings that victim students had after being exposed to school violence by Statistics Korea showed that students had difficulty adjusting to school; had low self-identity; felt fear, loneliness, sadness, and depression; had made suicidal attempts; and exhibited aggressiveness (Statistics Korea 2014). Teenagers who experienced school violence had low self-esteem and high levels of depression and anxiety. Thus, school violence leaves adolescents in a state of anxiety, self-deprecation, and severe depression, resulting in their reduced memory and concentration (Osofsky 1995; Kim 2013a re-cited).

According to a study on the current situation of school violence conducted by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and Korean Educational Development Institute in 2014, 62,000 respondents (1.4 % of the total number of respondents, 498,000,000 respondents) said that they had experienced school violence in the recent year. This corresponded to 2.4 % in elementary school, 1.3 % in middle school, and 0.6 % in high school, showing that the rate of school violence differs for each school level (Table 1).

Table 1 School violence victim response rate per school level (Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (2014))
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Violence is defined as the repeated act of harming another person and such violence is commonly categorized into physical, verbal, and social violence. Physical violence includes recklessly hitting or causing harm through physical contact; verbal violence includes cursing, intimidation, ignoring, and making fun; and social violence includes ostracism, spreading rumors, and playing both sides against the middle. In the case of South Korea, the collectivistic culture has influenced school violence to take the form of group ostracism (Macklem 2003; Cho and Kim 2012).

The most distinctive characteristic of school violence is that the victim and assailant cannot be clearly distinguished from each other. In other words, an act of aggression can lead to bullying from other children or continuous victimization could lead to the victim becoming an assailant at one point. Students who are both the victim and assailant show the most complex psychological attributes—these students have both the characteristics of the victim and the aggressor. This study focused on such a tendency and characteristics of school violence caused by adolescents and proposed community-based art education program which could guide adolescents during such period. In this study, an art education program was organized and carried out for school violence victims and aggressor students to relieve their anger and frustration and reduce their aggressiveness in order to cultivate character.

Role of art and creativity for fostering resilience

Art education programs can play an important role in preventing the devastating effects of trauma by fostering resilience through art. Many schools have crisis teams in place to assist students and teachers in dealing with school violence. Understanding the trauma associated with school violence can inform art education and foster resilience in youth. School violence and exposure to school violence can be linked consistently to a range of psychological problems including traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, aggressive and antisocial behavior problems (Boxer and Sloan-Power 2013; Berson et al. 2002). Resilience from school violence should be a dynamic process encompassing positive adaptation within the context of adversity (Conger and Conger 2002). Since the healing process takes time, and the effects of trauma may reappear at different contexts in a student’s life, educators must be deliberate in responding to students’ reactions to school violence and provide students with healthy strategies for healing that trauma.

Rutter (2012) considers resilience as a dynamic concept and an ongoing developmental process and not a fixed attribute of an individual (Rutter 2012). Benard (1991) describes resilience as a set of qualities that foster a process of successful adaptation and transformation despite risk and adversity. Resiliency factors facilitate recovery from traumatic events. Resilient students face fears and try to solve problems, exhibit optimism, become positive role models, and show flexibility (Haglund et al. 2007). Resilient children are adaptable, flexible, effective problem solvers, have a strong sense of self-esteem, show independence in their thoughts and actions, have insight, show a high tolerance to distress, have a strong sense of the future and the ability to look at things from alternative viewpoints. Resilience is the “power of recovery” (Ibeagha et al. 2004). Resilient students usually have four attributes in common: social competence, problem-solving ability, autonomy, and a sense of purpose and the future. “Social competence” is the ability to elicit positive responses from others, thus establishing positive relationships with both adults and peers. “Problem-solving ability” includes planning that facilitates seeing oneself in control, and resourcefulness in seeking help from others. “Autonomy” is a sense of one’s own identity and an ability to act independently and exert some control over one’s environment. “A sense of purpose and the future” involves goals, educational aspirations, persistence, hopefulness, and a sense of a bright future (Henderson et al. 2007; Krovetz 2007; Benard 1991).

As Heis (2014) pointed out, art is a meaning-making endeavor that develops creative problem solving, flexibility, and resourcefulness, and addresses various perspectives and requires persistence and vision. Lowenfeld and Brittain (1975) focuses on the importance of elevating the role of art for mental and emotional health. Art educators can emphasize the role of a positive attitude in resilience through art by including lessons in their art classes that focus on artists who overcame great obstacles in their lives. Themes such as humor, identity, lifetime achievements, and so on can be addressed through art. Additionally, the therapeutic role of art can be pointed out for discussing resilience. Wexler (2004) also demonstrates how the therapeutic process of painting can resolve issues of isolation in people dealing with illness or disability. He maintains that a specific characteristic of painting is its conveyance of psychological, social, and cognitive health. Through the art class, students gain a greater sense of appreciation for life. Metzl (2009) points out the relation between resilience and creativity in art. He examined the role of creativity in fostering resilience after natural disasters, that is, Hurricane Katrina. He linked creativity and resilience and found that originality and flexibility were significant predictors of successful adaption, which suggests that originality and flexibility were significant predictors of well-being when personality traits and demographic variables were taken into account. He maintains that resilience is facilitated by creative thinking and art making, and specific aspects of creativity appear most pertinent to the process of emotional resilience (Metzl 2009).

Therefore, it is a very persuasive assertion that I need to develop and implement art classes in order to foster resilience. Then, I must ask, what is the role of art and creativity in fostering resilience? In this study, creativity, which has been discussed in the field of art and regarded as an important human quality, is viewed as fostering resilience. Creative people tend to cope well with and be open to new experiences. Art therapists asserted that the creative process promotes mental health, and art therapy research often demonstrates the use of art and creative production in promoting mental health. Creative tools have been used to explore resilience (Flach 1988; Metzl 2009). Creativity can provide a safe shelter for individuals in times of stress. Creativity also helps individuals learn from experiences and be better at problem solving in the future (Heise 2014; Wolin and Wolin 1993). Creativity is the ability to bring something new into existence. The human act of creating always involves a reshaping of given materials, whether physical or mental. Resilience is mostly defined as bouncing back through positive adaptation and reshaping as a response to a given condition (Barron 1969; Metzl 2009). Creativity has been discussed in relation to an ability to distance oneself from stressors through active engagement, sometimes termed “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi 1996; Metzl 2009). Accordingly, creativity through art making has long been discussed in relation to elastic thinking, flexible thinking, openness, and expressiveness (Torrance 1995; Dollinger et al. 2004; Metzl 2009).

Even though it is a bit novel for us to think about creative thinking and resilience models, there are several studies on the relation between creativity and resilience, as I have discussed so far. Therefore, this study maintains that art is a meaning-making process that can help students process a tragic event and begin to make sense of their world. Projecting medium through visual art is crucial for students who may lack words to describe their feelings and emotions (Loock et al. 2003). Thus, art education creates an environment that allows students’ creative expression and the opportunity to engage in the aesthetic process. Rather than dwelling on the traumatic event and unresolved trauma, art educators have students redirect their focus to the assets that helped the students survive. Students’ strengths thus become a source of ideation for art making.

Various previous studies were conducted regarding the healing nature of art education. Beginning in school, which is the first social organization during growth, teenagers face difficulty in forming relationships and being sociable, and the issues that these teenagers face can be overcome through art education. Art encourages students to creatively express their emotions and thoughts through various artistic techniques. Also, by actively participating in an artistic activity, students are able to engage in a rich, aesthetic experience and cultivate an artistic sensibility (Kim 2012). Artistic experiences obtained through art aids in the development of rich emotions, the development of aesthetic perception and understanding, and the strengthening of creativity. Also, art education allows a person to understand what is proper, beautiful, meaningful, and valuable; and it becomes the groundwork for leading a plentiful life—all to attain a moral, humane, and beautiful character (Lee et al. 2012). Therefore, art education fosters healthy, harmonious growth through the release of bodily energies and the expression of emotions for individuals in their childhood and adolescent periods. Art education is needed to heal the symptoms resulting from school violence including aggressiveness, anger, violence, and group ostracism by providing the opportunity for the healthy release of adolescent emotions.Footnote 1Direct aggression transfers into constructive energy during an artistic activity as has been shown in case studies of aggressive and violent children and teenagers. Aggression is reproducible and learnable based on learning theory. The human, in front of a work of art, objectively investigates his or her desire and energy and, through this, breaks free from himself or herself by objectively confronting their rampant desires. In other words, art releases a person from emotional confinement through sensual expression.

School violence can be considered a result of the limiting of aggression inherent during the adolescent period filled with energy into restrained, suppressed energy rather than natural and flexible release. Taking this point into consideration, punishing adolescents for displaying aggression, violence, and anger is not ideal. Rather, the significance of art education, which can bring about the creative and flexible release of such emotions and behavior, needs to be acknowledged. The acclimation of emotions through art education becomes an important topic at this point.

Especially, on a personal scale, art affects the aesthetic growth and feelings of adolescents along with their emotional growth (Lowenfeld and Brittain 1975). Additionally, art enables teenagers to improve their communication and social relationships with other individuals and groups (Chung et al. 2007; Dewey 1934). Additionally, artistic experiences can offer teenagers the opportunity for emotional acclimation for the expression of positive and negative emotions. Artistic activities and experiences allow adolescents to project psychological issues, tensions, a sense of alienation, intimidation, and hope as art or visual language (Rubin 2005), and students can cultivate self-confidence and self-esteem to creatively overcome personal issues. Not only that, aesthetic activities develop adolescents’ sensibility and help their aesthetic growth by fostering various types of information literacy through a visual culture. Moreover, group artistic activities provide valuable opportunities to understand and respect others. Such aesthetic growth can significantly contribute to character growth through art. Therefore, students can connect the violence they suffered or perpetrated to the topic of art, recognize the seriousness of the problem, and develop the capacity to understand each other and resolve issues.

In addition, art classes in community-based art education allow learners to experience the cultural facilities and cultural heritage sites of the region. Such programs can contribute to fostering resilience from school violence through creative and collaborative works. They provide opportunities to understand social topics, thus ultimately contributing to the development of the regional community (Kim 2009). Also, community-based art education enhances the individual’s quality of life by increasing their life satisfaction through in-depth understanding of their community culture.Footnote 2

The teaching methods of community-based art education include interactive teaching, behavioral collaboration, media utilization, and service learning. Art experience activities of community-based art education utilizing regional culture facilities can enhance the ability of teenagers who have been exposed to school violence to express their inner emotions; develop emotional acclimation, character cultivation, and sociability through communication among students; and improve their self-esteem and help establish self-identity by providing the opportunity during the art experience activity to sincerely think about the future and plan for the future.

Sample lesson: art making that encourages resiliency and creativity

With regard to the planning and operation of the community-based art education program for healing from school violence, collaboration with the regional community and local governments was significant. Cooperation among the local government office, police station, middle school students, and graduate school art education program students was key for organizing and implementing the art education program for the prevention and healing of school violence. This system can be described as the basic structure of collaboration among the regional community, school, and local government. Particularly, the liaison program between the police and the school that was applied in this research was similar to the case in the USA and can be described as a model case showing a measure to solve a social issue. The school violence program was evaluated as effective in providing psychological treatment and stability by the police officers who participated, as the program provided an opportunity for participants to express their inner self through art (Park 2013).

Furthermore, this program offered by art education graduate school students by the support of Gwanak-gu Office was conducted with the objective of treatment, making itself available to school violence aggressor and victim students as well as potential aggressor and victim students along with socially alienated students. Information about these students was provided, allowing for more effective education. With the establishment of an intimate cooperation system between the art education graduate school students and Gwanak police station, this program was able to lend a helping hand to many adolescents suffering from school violence by offering an community-based art project which utilized information about teenagers related with school violence that the regional police station possessed and provided.

Therefore, the community-based art project which was conducted in this study for the reduction and prevention of school violence was composed of three periods. The first period of art project was “Self-seeking travel: A treasure map within me.” Students reflected on a difficult time, and then they list all of the things they did to cope. Also, students made collage visual images on a board that reflected their future self they aspire to. By making a visual board, students were able to think about who they might be or what they might do in the future and become hopeful of the possibilities the future may hold for them.

The second period of art project was “I am ooo style.” Students created and edited a video of messages about how they felt during their experiences of school violence. The video medium was not only comfortable and familiar for teenagers but also had impacts them significantly. Through the process of creating a video, students were able to think about the subject from more in-depth and diverse perspectives.

The third period of art project was “I am a tree.” Students were asked to artistically elevate their personal story about their experiences of school violence. Students were able to express their stories through book art, monoprint, and stencil technique. The final productions of artworks were bound together into one book for each student—a collection of the voice within each student (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Community-based art projects for healing and prevention of school violence

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This community-based art project discussed above resulted in the following effects with regard to art education for school violence reduction and prevention. The first effect of three community-based art projects was the opportunity to experience enjoyment, interest, and aesthetic sensibility. At the center of violence are despair, a distorted sense of pleasure, and numbness to the emotions and acts of oneself and others. Art not only expressed negative sentiments flexibly and pictorially through the use of various sensible media, subjects, and techniques in order to reduce tension but also aroused enjoyment and interest to activate aesthetic sensibility. Artistic play permitted students to represent their own ideas about the nature of objects and the rules that govern social interactions (Bickley and Phippips 2003).

In the community-based art program, the enjoyment of creative activity was introduced to students through various media including collage technique in the first art project, UCC (User-Created Contents) creation in the second art project, and print creation in the third art project. The impressions the students had about the first art project and the second art project were as follows: 10 students out of 12 responded “it was fun” and two students responded “I should work harder” and “I should try harder.” In this manner, self-expression through art enables students to express their emotions and feel emotional freedom by allowing them to flexibly, symbolically, and visually express ideas using various media and techniques in order to reduce aggressiveness. Art making was found to be a powerful forum of healing for school violence.

The second effect of three community-based art projects was that the process of creating art allows students to have flexible and creative thoughts, which frees the students from the trauma of school violence and recover their original state in a flexible manner. Many students who participated in the art project mentioned creative/flexible thinking. For instance, one student who participated in the art project said, “I was able to think flexibly about failure during the process of making the artworks, and this process allowed me to heal the wound that was made through school violence (Kim 2013b).” Creativity through the second art project made the adolescents distance from stressors through active engagement, which is “flow.” Art assessment evaluates a student’s flexible thinking, as well as the principles and elements of design.

The third effect is the cultivation of problem recognition and problem-solving skills. Through the creative activity of the second and third art projects, the meaning and enjoyment of aesthetic experience is acquired as well as the recognition of violence eruption, insight into the reasons and solutions for violence reduction, and resolution skills. Students were told to create pieces satirizing Korean educational society so that they can develop a critical mind toward community and society. Students were also instructed to visually express solutions that could resolve the problems of community and society. Additionally, participants in the second and third community-based art project used visual art to share their feelings, tell stories about themselves and the world, and heal. These narratives resulted in individual and community resilience, honoring collective courage and strength (Heise 2014).

The fourth effect is the cultivation of community spirit and sociability as a result of engaging in flexible, cooperative activity through the second and third art projects. Negative emotions such as tension, stress, despair, anger, intimidation, and alienation were released through voluntary, flexible, and exploratory student-based art activity rather than the indicative learning method (which presents a prohibition or suppression of violence, or a strict method where punishments are given when a set rule is violated). A common emotional code is shared, and the cultivation of responsibility, cooperative relationships, community spirit, and sociability is possible by the diversification of understanding others through a flexible attitude toward the problem and group activities. A total of 4–5 students compose a team to create artwork; thus, each student can have responsibility to create cooperative relationships by helping each other complete the group artworks.

The fifth effect is to help students reframe adversity in order to see within its context possibility instead of despair. Art makings in three art projects made the adolescents reshape the given visual materials to create new physical or mental matter. This shifts the focus from the trauma to their sources of joy and strength. It helps transform their thinking from that of a victim to that of a survivor, using art to celebrate and encourage strength and a positive emotion that may benefit them in future challenges (Heise 2014). Art provides an opportunity to the victim and aggressor students of school violence as well as students of potential aggressiveness to visually and symbolically express themselves, as a common aspect of all these students is that they have closed hearts. By sharing through the active expression of their troubles and feelings rather than verbal or passive expression, a communication medium or forum is made available where students can sympathize with others and open up their hearts naturally.

Finally, these three community-based art project helped students to recognize human dignity through self-exploration. Through artistic activities, the students become more confident that they are valuable beings and can become more confident and brave. Students do not think pessimistically about themselves nor give up on themselves, but they also recognize that their fellow friends are as precious as they are. Therefore, consideration for others and generosity are nurtured naturally, helping them to improve their relationships and recover from their trauma. Through cooperative learning with friends, skills for improving relationships are also cultivated. Making artwork allows students to think about whether the artwork can bring about understanding from others and the process of overcoming difficulties to ultimately complete an artwork that allows students to gain self-confidence. Art making involves human expression that may lead to relief from trauma. Creative art making tends to make the individual self-sufficient, resourceful, adventurous, autonomous, independent, and perceptive.

Conclusion

In this study, art is defined as a creative endeavor that gives expression to emotion and thought, and is a gateway to the response of resilience. The role of community-based art education is considered a process of resilience in response to school violence. Creative thinking comes from art-making projects that play a role in models of resilience directly or indirectly.

Art experience activities in community-based art education are based on real-life issues that are relevant and important to students. Students are engaged in problem solving and are given choices in the process. An inquiry method is used to stimulate critical and creative thinking and promote engaged student learning. Students obtain mastery over art media and techniques and develop fluency and flexibility as they experiment with multiple solutions to the art problem. Through art, students develop vision and a sense of purpose (Heise 2014). In this context, this study brought about new motivation to teenagers in despair within an environment of school violence so that they may begin new lives. Through the community-based art education, adolescents were able to freely express their inner selves, sublimating their internal struggles and pain into artworks.

Additionally, this study showed that community-based art education also provided character training to adolescents so that they can ultimately grow into well-rounded individuals. Character is an element that is required in global society in the twenty-first century along with creativity. The development of such fostered creativity and character, lead to reduction in school violence and contributing to the establishment of a happy school culture.