www.ijcer.net A/r/tographic Inquiry for The Transformation of Pre-Service Art Teachers' Concept of Social Justice

This study seeks to enable sophomore-level students in the Department of Art Teaching to make inquiries about their environment and to critically interpret some visuals through a/r/tographic practices. Therefore, it draws on a/r/tographic inquiry, which is one of the art-based research methods. The participants of the study are 13 sophomore-level students (6 female, 7 male students). The data were obtained from reflective diaries, semistructured interviews and document analysis, and analysed through content analysis. The researcher organized 5 different travel plans for the students in Erzincan, a city located in the Eastern Anatolia of Turkey. The focus trips were made to a shopping mall, a market, a local bazaar, a modern street and an old settlement. The students completed their trips within a period of 10 weeks. The findings of this study showed that the students were able to make critical inquiries about the environment they live in, gained awareness about social issues thanks to the auditory or visual experiences they had in daily life and reflected this awareness to their artistic works.


Introduction
An increased emphasis on social issues has emerged internationally in the visual arts practices and in art education. This social shift in art education has included a broadening of the field to embrace all areas of visual culture, including folk art, performance, environment, and digital visual technologies, and to consider the range of visual culture forms, media, and processes as having inherent capacities for teaching and learning (Freedman, 2003). Social issues in arts and design education directly help one understand the world. Adults and young people get help of art to convey their own opinions and see it as means of expressing their beliefs, values, attitudes, and ideas on major social issues that affect the world and the environment. Although this is not the primary purpose of arts, arts also seek to explain social movements and personalize social issues. The social perspective of arts education is based on beliefs. So much so that the visual arts education is vital to all societies and cultures. Arts education aims to understand communication, diversity, socio-cultural complexity (Freedman, 2000). "In the broadest sense, social justice is about equal rights and opportunities for all people in all segments of society. Social justice and the experiences related to it always involve issues on power and social equality" (Anderson 2010, p. 2). According to Watts and Guessous (2006), "A central aim is to articulate the relationship between the collective [struggle] against social ills and the advancement of personal well-being" (as cited in Maguire and Lenihan, 2014). "Social justice education brings together the goals and perspectives of feminist, multicultural, disability rights, environmental, community-based, critical pedagogy, social reconstruction and visual culture art education" (as cited in Garber, 2004, p. 5).
A curriculum of visual arts education focusing on social justice helps students see things in a thoughtful manner, thus developing democratic ways of thinking and becoming informed consumers. Learning about how visual arts affect people can allow children to decide how they allow themselves to be influenced by others. Students can learn early on how civic leaders use imagery to represent self and influence people"s voting choices. To promote social responsibility, children should begin to learn about the ways in which groups of people are represented in popular culture imagery. Through art education, they can come to understand the damaging effects of visual stereotypes (Freedman & Stuhr 2005; as cited in Stuhr, Morris and Daniel, 2008, p. 93).
The strategy of teaching social justice in arts education can be implemented through both visual and performing arts. In arts education, students are a key component of social justice education, and art provides additional selfexpression opportunities for students. Art, whether it is puppetry, dancing and singing or painting and using visual media, offers a distinct means of conveying their ideas and expressing their beliefs on issues related to social justice. In-class strategies used by primary school teachers lecturing on social justice enable students to think about contemporary and historical events critically and creatively. Many of these strategies engage students in multiple perspectives and allow them to develop empathy for those who live at different times, places or cultures. Social justice teachers recognize that it is important to integrate students" hearts as well as their minds into the learning process and to give them opportunities for expressing their thoughts and feelings through role-play, simulations, artwork, and singing. Thus, students are provided with in-depth, challenging, and meaningful learning experiences in their elementary classrooms (Wade, 2007, p. 73).
Students should experience sociological contexts, policies, social movements in history and philosophy and social justice through art in art education (Desai, 2010). Therefore, a/r/tographic inquiry, which is one of the artbased research methods, has been in use to allow students to question life and to experience life-related issues through art.
In recent years, art-based research methods have been popular in art education, and a/r/tographic practices have been particularly included in research methodology (Wilson Kind et al., 2007;Kalin et al., 2009;Irwin et al., 2009;Beer et al., 2010;Richard, 2012;Hannigan, 2012;Irwin et al., 2015). A major shift in academic research began in the 1970s, and by the 1990s, arts-based practices constituted a new methodological genre. This shift is in part the result of work in arts-based therapies. Health care researchers, special education researchers, psychologists, and others have increasingly turned to the arts for their therapeutic, restorative, and empowering qualities (Sinner, Leggo, Irwin, Gouzouasis, & Grauer, 2006; as cited in Leavy, 2015).
Arts-based research (ABR) inquiry is uniquely positioned as a methodology for radical, ethical, and revolutionary research that is futuristic, socially responsible, and useful in addressing social inequities. By integrating into the arts multiple methodologies along with the post-modern ethics of participative, action-oriented, and politically situated perspectives for human social inquiry, arts-based inquiry has the potential to facilitate critical race, queer, feminist, and border theories and research methodologies (Finley, 2008, p.71).
Epistemologically, ABR assumes the arts can create and convey meaning. "The practice of ABR is based on aesthetic knowing or, as Neilsen (2004) suggests, "aesthetic work." This research approach uses the arts in order to disrupt the ordinary and to stimulate change, transformation, and even transcendence in turn. With respect to the aesthetics or "beauty" of the research product itself, the beauty elicited by ABR is explicitly linked to how it fosters reflexivity and empathy in the viewer (and researcher)" (Barone & Eisner, 2012;Neilsen, 2004;Dunlop, 2004; as cited in Leavy, 2015, p. 26). As an evolving paradigm for research, ABR is also interchangeably referred as Arts informed research, Arts informed inquiry, and Arts based inquiry amongst other subtle variations (Barone and Eisner 2012;Knowles and Cole 2008;Ewing and Hughes 2008;as cited in MacDonald & Hunter, 2018).
The purpose of art-based approaches is to integrate aesthetic concern into research process with the consideration of various components. The reflections of aesthetic and art-based forms on educational research started to be used in 1990s with various approaches such as narration based works, autobiography, art and movement, exploratory and reader theatre, multimedia hyper-text, visual arts, photograph, music, poem, creative interpretation, creative writing, drawing, film, dance, music, visual reading, visual formation, collage and cartoon based approaches, the approaches based on digital art and application, and reflective drawing. This evolvement proved to be useful for researchers (Sullivan, 2010;Leavy, 2015;as cited in Bedir Erişti, 2015). "A/r/tographical work is a specific category of arts-based research practices within education research. A/r/t is a metaphor for artist-researcher-teacher. In a/r/tography these three roles are integrated creating a third space" (Pinar, 2004, p. 9).
A/r/tography, as a new research methodology, is a practice-based approach involving the practices of artists (musicians, poets, dancers etc.), educators (teachers/students), researchers (investigators). It has been considerably associated with action research. Also, it offers a unique perspective that renders action research into a living practice, a utilitarian approach (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987;Deleuze, 1990; as cited in Irwin, Barney and Golparian, 2016, p. 192). A/r/tography, which combines art and education and presents a living practice, makes it possible to question studies once again by offering an alternative perspective. In this sense, a/r/tographic practices in art education are notable in the relevant literature (Boulton, Grauer and Irwin, 2017;Barney, 2019;Lee, Morimoto, Mosavarzadeh and Irwin, 2019;Marin-Viadel, Camison-Coello and Varea, 2019;Marshalsey and Sclater, 2019;cited from Adams, 2019;Palau-Pellicer, Mena and Egas, 2019). As noted by Barney (2019), who applied a/r/tographic research and practices in art education, applying this method to a number of metaphors and artistic concepts turns a/r/tography into a pedagogical strategy, which functions as a generative artistic concept and metaphor for exploring through various means of course and curriculum design. Furthermore, Nicole Lee, Ken Morimoto, Marzieh Mosavarzadeh and Rita Irwin"s (2019) article explored walking as a form of a/r/tography, using three propositions of walking as an artistic enquiry with a focus on how walking and a/r/tography complement each other, since both provide the conditions for lingering with emergence. To improve the curricula, Ricardo Marin-Viadel, Alicia Camison-Coello, and Ana Varea discussed a research project in schools around Honduras where curriculum was developed through participatory action research in the form of an a/r/tographic image dialogue, which is deemed to be an active visual conversation that proved transformative for learners and teachers as well as the researchers. In another research, Lorraine Marshalsey and Maddy Sclater performed an art-based action study based on the life experiences of students. Employing participatory action research, their study focused on students" lived experiences of studio learning in the UK and Australia, and revealed the impact of technology-enhanced learning on meaning-making in relation to student values, and the effect of educational environment on students" engagement, learning and practice, and their creative practice in design education (Adams, 2019). A research by Adrienne Boulton, Kit Grauer and Rita L.  focused on a/r/tographic practices with pre-service visual art teachers. Their study entitled "Becoming Teacher: A/r/tographical Inquiry and Visualising Metaphor" discussed recent research that explored secondary visual art teacher candidates"/new teachers" processing of visual metaphors to provoke their a/r/tographical inquiry regarding their perceptions on the practice. Another study was conducted by Paloma Palau-Pellicer, Jaime Mena and Olga Egas (2019). Their study entitled "Arts-Based Educational Research in Museums: "Art for Learning Art", an a/r/tographic Mediation" drew on the a/r/tographic inquiry in museum education.
In Turkey, several a/r/tographic research and practices have been conducted in the last five years. A book edited by the Turkish researcher Bedir Erişti (2016) was published for the purpose of clarifying and popularizing the a/r/tographic inquiry. Güler (2015) transferred music, which is a distinct field of study, to her working field, and conducted a/r/tography inquiry on her paintings, which can be regarded as an original study. In this study which aimed at observing the effect of knowledge on to what extent one"s sense of hearing intuitively could develop, George Gershwin"s composition Rhapsody in Blue was painted. Coşkun (2017) applied an a/r/tographic research method to a study. Coşkun"s study aimed to determine how students realized the process of creating a "self-history project" in the frame of the artworks created by the participant students, who, throughout the project, made use of their own life experiences, researched into cultural values and historical events, and utilized interdisciplinary relations. Keser and Narin (2017) set out to understand what kind of methodology a/r/tography applies, how it is shaped, and on which research processes an a/r/tographical research is based on. To find answers to these questions, five a/r/tographic articles that described and explained the project in Richmond, Vencouver, Canada, were examined. It is understood that the ultimate goal of a/r/tographic investigations is not to find answers and solutions for research problem and questions, but to form artworks and visual images related to research problem. Additionally, Güneş (2018) explored a/r/tography practices in painting studio art class as an alternative method in training prospective art educators. In this study, a/r/tographic inquiry process in the studio art classes was structured by the students who generated some meanings by means of living inquiry and metaphors. With the help of a/r/tography practices, artist/researcher/teacher-learner identities of the students were revealed. In 2019, a study by Mavioğlu questioned the subconscious effects of visuals, the relational contexts of visuals, and examined the mitigability of subconscious effects through inquiries. The primary method of this study is to find in-depth meanings through experiencing inquiry. In another study by Özcan (2019), the theme of a subjective artistic inquiry was chosen, and the concept of procrastination was examined under an a/r/tographic approach.

Research Goal
Addressing social issues through visual arts practices and art education curricula helps students understand the relationships between objects and cultural identities, political actions and extra-curricular activities, circumstances and discourses. This study seeks to enable sophomore-level students in the Department of Art Teaching to make inquiries about their environment and to critically interpret some visuals through an a/r/tographic inquiry. Accordingly, this present study aims to answer the following questions regarding the vicinity of students, 1. What did the students bring to the forefront regarding culture? What did they experience? 2. What did they question regarding this specific culture? a) What issues did they question and experience regarding this culture? b) How did they perceive and interpret the concept of social justice? 3. How did they reflect the issues they questioned and experienced regarding this culture in their art works?

Research Model
The present study is based on a/r/tography, which is one of the art-based research methods. A/r/tographic research method is a practice-based/art-based form of research in art and education. Alongside other art-based, art-related, and aesthetically defined methodologies, a/r/tography is one of many new research investigations that consider art as a means of re-exploring the world to improve understanding (Springgay, Irwin, Leggo, & Gouzouasis,2008;Springgay, Irwin, & Wilson Kind, 2005). To be engaged in the practice of a/r/tography means to inquire the world through a process of art making and writing while assuming the role of an "artist (a), a researcher (r), or a teacher (t)" (Springgay, Irwin, & Wilson Kind, 2005). A/r/tography means not trying to look for answers to questions or to offer linear procedures that result in well-thought answers. Rather, it is a form of living inquiry. It is engaged with an ongoing investigation surrounding these questions and aims for a deeper understanding. Relational facts and experiences from one"s active engagement are taken into consideration (Wilson Kind, 2006). Rita Irwin (2004) explains that a/r/tography is based on the premise of three realms of knowledge proposed by Aristotle, which are theoria (knowing), praxia (doing) and poesis (making). "Taking on multiple roles as artists, researchers and teachers, a/r/tographers draw attention to where the simultaneous use of languages, images, materials, situations, space and time is meaningful. They create conditions to generate knowledge and understanding through artistic and educational inquiry processes" (Irwin and Springgay 2008, p. 119). Therefore, we can infer that a/r/tography is a research approach involving an existing and living inquiry process by finding and embodying meaning through artistic and literary interpretations and experiences as well as artistic and literary expressions. "While a/r/tography researchers focus on the development and transformation of their research-oriented questions throughout the process, they are competent to make sense of their visual and literary works of art based on their own research questions" (Springgay et al., 2008; as cited in Irwin, Barney and Golparian, 2016, p. 192).

Participants
The participants of the study are 13 sophomore-level students (6 female, 7 male students) attending the course of painting art major workshop in the department of visual arts education. The research was carried out in the 2018-2019 academic year with the participation of students from Erzincan Binali Yildirim University, Fine Arts Education, Department of Art Teaching in Erzincan, a city located in the Eastern Anatolia of Turkey. The study drew on the criterion sampling method for the selection of the participants. "The criterion sampling method studies the cases that meet a set of predetermined criteria. Criterion or criteria can be determined by the researcher or a pre-defined list of criteria can be used" (Yıldırım and Şimşek, 2011, p. 112). One of the criteria of this study is that students should have the knowledge of basic design principles and elements. That is why the participants were selected from sophomore-level. Other criteria include attending the course of painting art major workshop as well as participating in and reporting about focus trip experiences. The researcher organized 5 different travel plans for the students around Erzincan, Turkey. IJCER (International Journal of Contemporary Educational Research)

Data Collection Tool
"A/r/tographic researchers benefit from many qualitative approaches in the data collection process and are mostly concerned with personal stories, memories, and photographs. They can draw on some forms of social sciences (observation, interview, focus group) as well as their own artistic and educational inquiries to collect data in a/r/tographic research" (Irwin, Barney and Golparian, 2016, p. 194). Since a/r/tography is also an approach that allows examination on perceptions, artists can comprehend the power of an image, a performance, and a word, and make connections between them to create different meanings. In this context, a/r/tographer provided the students with structured interview forms and travel instructions during the course. The students collected data from photos, shot videos, made interviews, and prepared reflective diaries covering a period of 10 weeks, using their own perspectives and paying attention to the key points in the instructions. Reflective diaries: Following each trip experience, the students wrote diaries reflecting their opinions with the addition of both visual images and texts.
Semi-structured interviews: The students were interviewed for once time during this study. They were asked about their trip experiences, the issues they questioned, their research process and their artistic works.
Document analysis: The written and visual documents created by the students during the a/r/tographic project, their artistic works, the short interviews they made during the research, the photos and videos taken by them were used as data for analysis.

Data Analysis
This study used content analysis method for the data analysis, and reception analysis for the interpretation of the visuals. The content of the interviews, field notes and documents are analysed with the use of content analysis method. In this method, the measurement units focus on communication, especially the variety and frequency of the messages, how many times a particular speech pattern or phrase is used. "Content analysis looks for insights in which situations, settings, styles, images, meanings and nuances are key topics" (Merriam, 2009, p. 195). On the other hand, reception analysis is based on the empirically verifiable validity of the actual interpretation of the viewers, audience, or readers in understanding an image.
According to Hall (1980), "Audience do not directly accept the preferred meaning of a text; viewers, on the other hand, form their own meaning regarding the image or imaginary stance they perceive; that is, they are active recipients, not passive recipients" (Duncum, 2016, p. 16). The students received and interpreted the images they encountered in their surroundings, the places they photographed and the artistic works they created in the a/r/tographic process.

Researcher's Role
While designing this study, the researcher drew on the sample practice she participated in the a/r/tographic course led by Professor Rita Irwin at the course of visual research methods in the PhD program in Art Teaching in 2015. In this practice, Rita Irwin asked her PhD students to take three photos, one about the building they were in, one of their own choice, and one associated with education. The students took these photos within the specified time and explained why they took each photo one by one. The students were unaware that they underlined a problem. The photos showed an empty classroom, an empty corridor, a room with old items. These photos made them question the following: "Why are there no students?", "Where are the students in the middle of the educational year?" So, they started to question problems regarding education and students. Professor Rita Irwin enabled them to gain awareness regarding their own thoughts and showed them how a problem arises. Today, the researcher aims to offer a living inquiry process for the students by enabling them to realize the things that went unnoticed in the city where they pursue their education, to inquiry about their own life, and to make sense of the visual culture they are in. Also, the researcher wondered about what the students would question based on their own life experiences and how this process of thinking would transform into an artistic product. Thus, the researcher decided to carry out a particular study by integrating the a/r/tographic inquiry into the course of painting art major workshop in the department of Art Teaching. In the a/r/tographic inquiry process, the researcher embraced the identities of researcher/teacher and artist as follows: Firstly, the researcher explained the key points of the trip experiences by the students and helped them find an idea to question; secondly, she created an opportunity for discussion on issues with the help of her researcher identity and guided the students; thirdly, she evaluated the ideas that the students proposed in relation to art education with the occasion of her teacher identity, and drew on her artist identity in the process in which the students turned their ideas into artistic products.

Figure 1. The Practical Part of the Research
Embracing a perspective of critical pedagogy, the students adopted five travel plans in their close surroundings to reveal a living problem or a problem about life based on what they see in their environment. There was no pre-defined problem or research question. The students decided on a problem or a theme based on their observations in the places they visited, their visual records and reflective diaries. They first took photos to visualize these problems. Then, they wrote reflective texts with the help of these visuals to express their opinions. Among these visuals are images, videos, snapshots, books, book covers, cartoons, art objects, in short, everything they encountered in their daily lives. For some students, the things that they saw during their trips reminded them of some movies; some used art works to design their artistic products whilst others combined their observations and the books they read before. At the end of the process, they created an art form by using their impressions and inferences from the things they had encountered. Making connections between the art forms they created and the themes they identified through their experiences, the students looked at their ordinary lives from different perspectives to produce multi-layered meanings.

Findings and Results
The findings from the a/r/tographic inquiry process are grouped under three themes: Focus group experiencesexploration, through life-realizing and transformation of ideas-creating. These themes represented the students" experiences. As too many visuals were obtained during the trip experiences of the students in the research process, each theme referred to different trip experiences of different students.

Focus trip experiences-Exploring
The students conducted 5 different trips in Erzincan, a city with a multicultural environment in the Eastern Anatolia. They wrote travel notes, took photos, and shot videos by following the instructions given by the researcher before each trip, even interviewed some people in the places they visited and had new experiences.

Through life -Realizing
Based on the observations in each trip, students had an increased level of awareness regarding an issue about the geography and culture of the city they lived in. Social awareness was one of the concepts they referred in their experiences. Writing reflective diaries in each trip, the students made sense of the photos they took and the texts they wrote. Overall, the students followed this process: Trip experience-photographing-taking videos-interviewinterpretation-realizing. It was observed that the students repeated this process each time. Following these five trip experiences, the students made rhizomatic connections between the trips and their experiences. For example, they made semantic-textual and visual connections between their first and fourth trips.

Transformation of ideas-Creating
Based on each event and phenomenon they experienced in the first and second themes, the students identified a problem and turned it into an artistic product.

Focus trip experiences-Exploring
The findings and interpretations on the first research question "What did the students bring to the forefront regarding culture? What did they experience?" are presented under the theme of focus group experiencesexploring. The expressions and phrases that were brought to the forefront under this theme are written in bold letters.

The first trip experience: A local bazaar-Coppersmiths" Bazaar
In this trip experience, the students were provided in the instructions with key points on copper embroidery in the region of Erzincan. These key points were copper embroidery, copper history and Erzincan, copper as craft, cultural values in copper bazaar. The students were asked to capture interesting images. They visited the underground bazaar located in the center of Erzincan, and each of them took photos using their own perspective according to the key points in the instructions. Some of them interviewed the copper masters to obtain information, while some had hands-on experience with copper embroidery. Tarık evaluated copper embroidery in his reflective diary as follows: "Our Traditional Turkish Handicrafts are a rich mosaic made up of the cultural heritage of various civilizations with thousands of years of history in Anatolia. Each of our traditional handicrafts have a cultural value. Some of our handicrafts have both cultural and have economic value, and allow us to contribute to our national economy by marketing them both in the domestic and foreign markets. The only way to hand down our handicrafts, the treasures of our culture, to the next generations as an heirloom is to protect, preserve and refine them. Some masters, albeit few, in Anatolia are in effort to carry on the profession of coppersmith. The master, who meticulously draws Seljuk and Ottoman motifs on copper products such as pitcher, churn, oil lambs and plates, etc., stated that the profession of coppersmith is looked down" (Tarık, personal communication, November 2, 2018). Salih obtained information on copper embroidery and interpreted the visuals in a cultural sense in his reflective diary as follows: "When we analyse how this is made and consider the techniques in a theoretical way, we can say that mostly stylized tulip, leaf, flos granati, cypress motifs, animal figures, geometric shapes are used... As seen in the photos, they are an indispensable part of the life, omnipresent in our daily lives. So much so that the Alevi culture, the football logo in the axis, the portrait of Atatürk, and the Ottoman coin, these are all the values of our society; in short, copper tells us about us" (Salih, personal communication, November 2, 2018). Inci experienced copper embroidery in this trip and explained the reasons for lack of interest in copper embroidery today as follows: "I experienced copper embroidery with the help of Master Erdal in the copper bazaar, whom I visited to experience this embroidery art and to explore copper embroidery. It was very difficult to do it. Because it was difficult to work with an iron tool on a hard copper plate… Technological age is the reason why coppersmith, which has been a part of their lives for many years, is not valued as much as it once was… And today"s generation does not have an interest in art and craftsmen in such a technological age… "(Inci, personal communication, October 21, 2018).

The second trip experience: A trip to the market
In this trip experience, the students were provided with the following key points in the instructions: Give your opinions on the bazaar culture, and its economic, social, and environmental dimensions, people's behaviours, visual and auditory images and situations in the bazaar. The students were asked to capture interesting images based on these key points, and to comment on them. "District bazaars, which create the historic fabric of the shopping culture, still survive today against the tens of thousands indoor shopping malls in Turkey, maintain their dynamism and the shopping tradition as well. District bazaars are the temple of the street shopping culture and contain all kinds of sounds, colours, and smells, making them a place visited by people of all ages. Bazaars contribute to social cohesion and national consciousness. In bazaars, producers display their products. This prevents unfair competition and allows for a fairer sales system. Sellers initiate their products by shouting slogans, singing songs, promote their sales by folk songs and chansonnettes, which is an integral part of the bazaar culture. Amidst the sellers shouting, "If I had money, I would buy it", "Come sister, choose, and buy; if you do not, you will regret it, and if you do, you will feel lucky," one may experience sweet and fun back and forths" (Mahmut, personal communication, November 28, 2018). Tarık established a link between his trip experience and the book he was reading, and highlighted issues such as producer-consumer, labour-effort, oppressing-oppressed from a different perspective as follows: "Everyone in a bazaar is a consumer; indeed, there is no producer. For example, the book I am reading "Animal Farm by George Orwell" on animals tells us about how passive people are and explains that people dominate everything without producing anything… This trip experience enabled me to look differently even to an ordinary bazaar shopping" (Tarık, personal communication, November 4, 2018). Inci described what she experienced in the bazaar and expressed her opinions by drawing attention to large differences in living standards as follows: "One of the sellers in the bazaar, who was cooking and selling what he cooks on a stall in a corner, caught my attention. He graduated from the Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences five years ago. As he could not be appointed as a teacher by the Public Personnel Selection Examination, he currently made his living by selling chicken sandwiches in the bazaar. I realized that the seller selling potatoes in the visual was doing something different with potatoes. He brought a gas cylinder and put it in the front of his stall, and boiled potatoes in pots. I was very surprised to see it, since I had never seen such a thing in a bazaar. …There were many women selling different stuff in the market. One of the photos (See Figure 8) shows the old woman sellers in the bazaar. They reproach people for selling these natural products (mulberries, apricots, dried fruit roll-ups, dried apples etc.) they produce in their fields "(Inci, personal communication, November 3, 2018).

The third trip experience: Shopping mall
In this trip experience, the students were provided with the following key points: Compare the things you encountered and observed in your previous trips. Express your ideas on people"s behaviours, consumption, and human factor in the shopping mall, and take photos of the things that attract your attention and try to determine the strategies that are used to promote consumption. In her reflective diary, Zehra explained how people become consumption monsters in the capitalist system and how this system affects our lives as follows: "With the rise of the consumption culture, leisure time no longer means free time or spontaneity; rather, it is a time full of unnecessary consumption. It is a pity that people visit shopping malls at the slightest opportunity and spend their time alone, or with their friends or children there…Shopping malls… Consumption frenzy… As for children, they always need to run and move regardless of their age. Some parents think that they make their children feel happy when they take them to the shopping malls; yet, this is a big misconception. Children should run and play not on the marble and stone floors of malls, but on natural ground, soil, grass… Where we stand now is unfortunately an indisputable victory of capitalism. It has such a great impact and control on our lives that it enslaved us and turned us into consumption monsters by using every means available to it" (Zehra, personal communication, December 9, 2018). Figure 10. The trip of Feride to the shopping mall and her experiences: "Game is the beginning of the fine arts" In her reflective diary, Feride reported that she realized the strategies used by shopping malls to encourage people to spend more time in shopping malls. She semantically interpreted every visual and colour she saw as follows: "Shopping malls attract us to trap us. As it never gets dark inside shopping malls, one cannot understand how time passes… Research demonstrates that colours and symbols influence people, particularly when it comes to consumption. For example, bright orange attracts attention and is appetizing; it is thus used at sales points and fast-food venues. Also, yellow is used for attention or warning. For instance, the yellowblack combination is often used as a stimulant on the walls of car parks. The blue-green combination means hygiene and health at the sub-conscious level" (Feride, personal communication, December 7, 2018). Figure 11. The trip of Salih to the shopping mall and his experiences Salih commented on sales policies and visual perception management in his reflective diary as follows: "Today, advertising has turned into a fast-developing sector. Everything from digital signs to posters, from big billboards to magazines have become colourful. So, there are large and small posters in every shop, which causes visual pollution; this being the case, shopping malls also do the same… Another sales strategy is giving "20% discount to any customer who takes a picture in front of this image and shares it on social media with the address." That is, the seller promotes his/her products for free through someone else who shares it online, and then the customer has 20% discount thanks to his/her social media account that s/he uses every day. There are also some shops that give their customers a free cup of Turkish coffee when they share their location, etc…The old men and women who set up their stalls early in the morning in the coppersmiths" bazaar or markets are very different than these neat people in shopping malls, but they are not as sincere as bazaars. Bazaars bring together the public by offering sincere conversations and keeping the culture together… Yet, shopping malls are based on herd mentality as the goods are sold at fixed price" (Salih, personal communication, December 9, 2018).

The fourth trip experience: Ordu Street-A modern settlement
In this trip experience, the students were asked to analyse the key points in the city center, including architectural buildings, art spaces, commercial buildings, cafes, shops, etc.  Sibel investigated and interpreted why there are many murders of crows according to an urban legend in her reflective diary as follows: "Although crows, which residents of Erzincan see as a major problem, are scary and ugly, they are actually the smartest of the bird species. There are some people who believe in a myth circulating in Erzincan. Although it is a folk legend, it impressed me. According to this myth, crows feed on the corpses of the people who remain trapped under debris after the Erzincan earthquake, and they are waiting to feed on more corpses to be caused by the next earthquake, thus reproduce" (Sibel, personal communication, January 13, 2019). In his reflective diary, Salih emphasized that the street leads to visual pollution and aesthetically evaluated it as follows: "It is not possible to notice and pay attention to the architectural details among the coloured, large and small, illuminated and non-illuminated signs along the street. The architectural structure of the official institutions is much better than the signs on their exterior decorations, which causes a severe visual pollution… On this trip, I had the opportunity to review the places I had previously visited more thoroughly. From a closer perspective, I noticed the beauty of ordinary things. I just noticed the sculpture "İnönü" completed by the sculptor Ratip Aşir Acudoğlu in 1948 (See Figure 14)" (Salih, personal communication, January 14, 2019).

The fifth trip experience: Pavyonlar Neighbourhood
In this trip experience, the students were asked to observe and examine the cultural and sociological structure of an old neighbourhood in the city. They were asked to compare this one with their previous experiences.

Figure 15. The trip of Salih to Pavyonlar Neighbourhood and his experiences
In his reflective diary, Salih reported that he learned about why this neighbourhood is called "Pavyonlar Neighbourhood" (Pavilion Neighbourhood) with an interview with an old person in the neighbourhood. The student further mentioned about a great socio-cultural difference and questioned the modern life after his trip as follows: "In the Erzincan earthquake, the buildings of that time were devastated with such a massive destruction. Tent cities were established immediately after the earthquake. The remaining families took the orphans to tent cities. The location of Erzincan in Anatolia and harsh winter conditions delayed the work. There were architects of the Greek families living in Trabzon, and the Greek architects were commissioned to design a new settlement by the governor of Erzincan in a short time and economic way. The name of this neighbourhood was born here. In Greek architecture, the houses are built adjacent to each other, making the houses stronger and the construction cheaper as the wall of one house is the wall of the other. To get rid of these ruins quickly and to allow for a more economic construction, buildings in PAVILION style were constructed in new Erzincan… The story behind the name of the neighbourhood, which survived till today, is accounted by the old man named Caner as above… I see a big cultural difference between the previous trip to Ordu Street and this old neighbourhood. They were close to one another, but in fact, they were very different structures from different cultures. It is notable in Ordu street that the buildings were assimilated from their own cultures, alienated from each other and insincere conversations were made for the sake of interest… It was very touching when the people passing by invited us to their home and offered us coffee. How heart-breaking it is to see the people in these two different places were so different and alienated from their culture. At the end of this trip, I asked myself the last question: Do I prefer a life that is "MODERN or NOT MODERN?" (Salih, personal communication, January 24, 2019).     Yasemin mentioned about different cultures, social inequality and justice based on her experiences from all the trips as follows: "POSHAKS have a different culture. It is believed that their origin is from Romania. So, this may be the case for these people to be called as Gypsies. This is a place where many Romanian gypsies live, and they are scattered in many places. Poshaks, particularly women and children, make a living by panhandling. Some of them sell textile products door-to-door, which is called peddling. Most men do not work; some of them drive women who are panhandlers or peddlers to where they work. These people that we often see as spending time with the family on a roadside or in a corner of the park are aware that they are excluded... It has mixed residents. In fact, they reside in the southern part of the city. When I consider Ordu Street and here, I do not feel close to either of these places. The current urban life seems outdated and inadequate. We experience many problems under urban culture. I have encountered so many things on this trip… Colourful houses attracted my attention most; although they were very old, they were painted in blue, which I liked very much… We can easily say that they did not change their old lifestyle. I realized in my interview that the families with low income deal with severe problems to survive; their life standards do not meet today's conditions and they live a forced life… We saw cultural handicrafts in the coppersmiths" bazaar and liked them very much; it is a world-renowned profession as it serves tourists, but it is losing its popularity now. We discussed the economy in our trip to the bazaar, which offered a warmer environment than shopping malls. On the other hand, people tended to consume more as we saw in our trip to the shopping mall. We described the modernity of the houses in Ordu Street surrounded by a green environment and its revival after the earthquake. We learned about class difference and the fact that everything depends on the economy, and realized how unreliable people may be; we learned so many things in these trips" (Yasemin, personal communication, February 20, 2019).
Under the theme of "Focus Trip Experiences -Exploring", the students had experiences regarding culture in their first trips to the coppersmiths" bazaar, mostly characterized by cultural values, economic values, social values, cultural heritage, intangible cultural heritage (such as traditional crafts, myths, the Alevi culture), tangible cultural heritage (sculptures, architectural building, decorations), multicultural nature, ideological thoughts, women's role in art, arts and crafts. In their second trips to the bazaar, they had opinions and experiences on shopping culture, social cohesion, national consciousness, folk culture (songs, chansonnettes, folk songs), the balance between the strong and the weak and life inequality. In their third trips to the shopping mall, they commented on consumption culture, social class difference, capitalism, sales policies and herd psychology, and visual culture. Further, in their fourth trips, they expressed their opinions on architectural structures, the effect of modernism, the effect of the earthquake, alienation, myths and art spaces and sculptures in the city. In their last trips to Pavyonlar Neighbourhood, they observed socio-cultural differences, income inequality, equal opportunities in education, multicultural nature, the Greek architecture, Poshaks, and Romanian gypsies. In these trips, the students took photos and made interviews, thus had experiences on the social, economic, and cultural aspects of the culture they live in.

Through Life -Realizing
The findings and interpretations on the research questions such as "What did they question regarding this specific culture?" and "What issues did they question and experience regarding this culture?" are presented under this theme. The students had some impressions in their trips and gained social awareness. They were asked seven questions on their trip experiences. Two of these questions aim to understand the nature of the awareness they gained. The first one involved the use of a metaphor: "This trip experience is like a/an… For me.
Because…" The second question is: "If you were going to discuss an issue after these trip experiences, what would it be? Why?" After their trip experiences, most of the students addressed the issue of social justice, with emphasis on social and economic inequalities. All these trips took me on a constant journey. In a dark journey within myself, I compared the past and present of today's modern men. The past was a cultural journey, a tunnel for time travel.

Social Inequality, Cultural Differences Factory
Thanks to this experience, I eliminated my prejudices.
Because the children who grow in bad neighbourhoods are uneducated due to their environment. We need to eliminate prejudices and approach them with love.

Watercolour technique
At first, I did not know what to do… Then I realized how to take photos and what to observe. Just like colours spread on a water surface and blend, the trips became interconnected.

City and Crow
Life I saw new places and met new people on these trips... I gained experience; there were two places with different social classes in the city.

Social Class Difference IJCER (International Journal of Contemporary Educational Research)
Hourglass I was in a constant conflict and adopted a critical approach on all trips. The conflict and comparison of old and new things… the comparison of past and present.

Autumn wind
This travel experience made me long for the past times, which are cold, sad but very familiar to me. A wooden door and a worn door and several poor childhood memories.

Entertainment venue
This trip experience taught me to see things that I did not notice. It was nice and fun.

Pavyonlar Neighbourhood and Culture Colour
This travel experience enlivened my life. My trips led me to empathize and to obtain more information and made me think more.

Cultural Values -Copper Embroidery
Seed A small step I took gradually turned to big steps. As my steps grew, I targeted at greater goals and achieved them.

The Things Destroyed by the Earthquake Colours on the palette
We can discover new colours on a palette. This made me learn about new cultures, see the differences between cultures and lifestyles.

Copper Embroidery and Art Light
In a dark environment, we try to see everything illuminated by the light. This was such an experience for me. I learned not only to look, but also to gaze and to see and to question.

Modern World
Time travel I realized that cultural differences and socio-economic differences are great in such a small settlement. I visited both old and new settlements. I travelled to two different worlds on two streets very close to each other.

Differences in Social Stratification
As seen in the reflective diaries written by the students and the metaphors used by them, most of the emphasis is put on the issue of "social justice." The students considered the negative events or situations they observed regarding the examples of social injustice, which were witnessed and experienced by the students themselves, as their own problems; they also defined the concept of social justice as an inequality of (economic-educationalcultural) opportunity.

Transformation of Ideas -Creating
The findings and interpretations on the research questions "How did they perceive and interpret the concept of social justice?" and "How did they reflect the issues they questioned and experienced regarding this culture in their art works?" are presented under this theme.
In each of their trip experiences, the students were engaged in a constant questioning. After they gained awareness in Through Life -Realizing stage during the questioning process, the students designed a product on an issue which raised awareness in them. Accordingly, 10 out of 18 artistic products designed by 18 students and the descriptions of the students are presented below. "In almost all the trips, I focused on the metallization in Erzincan architecture and the robotization of people. From a bird"s eye view to Erzincan, I saw that there is a systematic urbanization with no crooked system, which we call grid shape. However, despite this systematic urbanization, the city cannot help but cause visual pollution, and the architecture is an eyesore and is not aesthetically pleasing. This is the point of departure that impressed me most. I tried to reflect Erzincan using the materials matching with the destinations from a bird"s eye view as well as the metals that I collected from the places I had been during my trips. In the first step, I thought of dividing the board into four equal parts and painting it to build the city on it. I made sure that these colours contrasted with one another, and I created a sub-floor in the second stage... I downloaded the photos of Erzincan taken from the satellite and put them at the bottom" (Salih, personal communication, April 14, 2019).

Figure 22. Social Stratification 3 rd Step and 4 th
Step "The third step shows side by side the sketches of the locations of all five trips that I made. In the picture in the fourth step, I placed my materials according to the design of the city. Yet, this created confusion in design. So much so that I could not think of it even when I was in other classes. In the class of Contemporary Art, while the lecturer was talking about non-figurative abstract art, I saw Piet Mondrian's work titled "Mondrian" and associated it with my assembly that was always on my mind. This work, which is divided into squares, looked like a sketch, and my assembly seemed very complex as its bottom was very dark. In this design, I established a link between my work and that of Mondrian" (Salih, personal communication, April 14, 2019).   Figure 24). The copper metals I used symbolize the copper embroidery, and the bright metals symbolize the location of shopping malls. I put the metals in the right colour and shape appropriate to each area" (Salih, personal communication, April 14, 2019).

Figure 25. Copper Bust
Inci referred to the subject of "woman and art" by using the double-headed eagle symbol and the female figure together. She emphasized the importance of copper embroidery with the image of women as follows: "What I want to discuss with the work that I designed and named as "Copper Bust" is copper, copper embroidery and hand embroidery. The trip that attracted my attention most and excited me most is the trip to the Coppersmiths" Bazaar. I envisioned my trip plan prior to my assembly work. I focused on "Copper Embroidery and Hand Embroidery"… I decided to draw the "Double-headed Eagle" motif belonging to the Seljuk Period. The double-headed eagle means protective dominance. That is, I believe that the double-headed eagle motif emphasizes the value that copper embroidery and hand embroidery deserve in the sense of dominance, and that we need to maintain hand embroidery for the craftsmen who are engaged in copper embroidery and embroidery in general… I preferred the bust to be of a woman for a particular reason. Women are at the forefront of all types of hand embroidery, except for copper embroidery where men remain at the forefront. We should give the same value as we attach to copper embroidery to all types of hand embroidery performed by women, and therefore my bust belongs to a woman… I wanted to highlight the differences between hand embroidery and today"s mass production and the value that should be attached to hand embroidery. The purpose of this work is to protect copper embroidery, arts and craftsmen and make them valuable" (Inci, personal communication, April 15, 2019).  Ahmet described his work with references to social inequality to such a scale as follows: "My assembly work focused on the children whom I remember most from my trip experiences. The fact that the children do not have equal rights while growing up and that the poor have to panhandle or try to find food on the streets as well as the structure of the houses they were brought up and the neighbourhood they live in considerably affect the future of those children. On the other hand, the children, who live in the villas in the neighbourhoods with rich and luxurious houses in Erzincan, receive education in private high schools and own many toys, have a bright future ahead of them. Yet, the poor children do not have a single toy just because they grow in that neighbourhood, which is not their fault.
In this inequality, those children panhandle when they are kid and become thieves or lifters when they grow up. Those children, who may succeed in life, are wasted just because of other people around them.
In such unequal circumstances, we cannot except those children, who do not have a single toy to play, to be successful. As the first need of those children is love, compassion, and mercy, they will be ready to receive education once they experience these feelings… I describe this inequality using rusted iron and wood. I painted the rich part in gold and the poor part as it is -rusted and like wood-to describe the worn-out lives" (Ahmet, personal communication, April 7, 2019).

Figure 30. Frustration
Inspired by the city myth, Sibel used crows in her work. In her diary, she referred to her work as follows: "Crows… They say crows feed on the corps of those who died in the 1939 and 1992 earthquakes. In this work, the log at the bottom symbolizes the piece of land. Just above it, there is a palette divided into three parts, which tells about the Erzincan earthquake. The colours on the palette represent the ruined lives, hopes and joys. The crows on the palette point to that they feed on the corps of the people who died in the earthquake. Two crows on the branch are looking at the centre of the earthquake; they mean that people were psychologically affected in that earthquake. This work of mine is called Frustration. Why? Because people tell that after the Erzincan earthquake, there is no joy, hope and life, and this work shows that the pain turned into disappointment" (Sibel, personal communication, April 14, 2019). "I chose the subject of consumption to write about my trips. As I thought that this may be the common subject of all trips…The new aspect of the modern life is consumption. Those who are bored, those eating something, shopping, resting, searching for something different and meeting their needs…The battery mechanism under the chin of the mask and the broken wires mean that our energy is not enough for all this consumption, and our ongoing consumption will only stop when we are faced with a vital situation. The green colour of the mask symbolizes the people poisoned by excess consumption… The plane is white, which represents a starting point and salvation for people. Just as white is produced by the combination of all colours, this turmoil around the mask will come together and lead to a new birth like white. Black lines in the plane, which resemble an inverted ladder, symbolize the rises and falls in this transformation" (Yasemin, personal communication, April 15, 2019).

Figure 32. Modern Hanger
Focusing on modernism and consumption, Vedat explained his work as follows: "I chose modernism as the main theme of all the trips I made. While the people of the old times blossomed like a tree sapling, today's modern men look like a barked tree. While we are in search of modernisation, we have been turned into a hanger by this capitalist system… There is a human mask in the middle of the plane as I wanted to emphasize that it is people who consume. The red lips of the mask symbolize women whilst the moustache represents men. The spiral wire around the red lips tells how modern life draws us into its vortex, and the word "modern" means that everything is marketed under modernity. The spiral wire on the eyes of the mask, which resembles glasses, represents the hypnotized gaze of modern life onto the conception of consumption. The tiny spirals on the forehead of the mask describe the process whereby even our smallest wishes are shaped by this modern consumerism with no limit. The larger spiral wires on the right and left tell us how our brains were turned into a monster in the vortex of consumerism. The straight spirals in the middle symbolize consumption, which is unclaimed, pointless and does not mean anything in any way. The blue colour in the colourful plastic things placed at ear level symbolizes imprisoned freedom, whereas the green colour symbolizes imprisoned naturalness. They are looking downward, which means that we have been overwhelmed with our modern consumerism, taking over everything" (Vedat, personal communication, April 7, 2019).

Figure 33. Art and Capitalism
Tarık used crows and humanity in his work on injustice in life, and expressed his opinions as follows: "Based on the trips and observations that I made for a period, I believe that people are never equal and cannot come together… I used red for the base of my design as red means sensuality, happiness, and indispensability in art. The meaning of the red colour in my assembly expresses the existence of art, the art itself and the fact that the art will not perish. The house and a few human figures on the art represent capitalism. Today, everyone undermines each other, and people do not even have time to work as they always exploit each other. One has no more strength to contemplate on where the humanity is heading to and what the world and arts turn into. The figures that I used represent those people who reside in the pavilions and crawl to get into their ruined home, and those with low income. Unfortunately, people in higher positions cannot see others sometimes. The tubby figure on top of the other represents the employers. There is a crow on the houses and the piece of art; nobody likes crows. The sounds of crows are disturbing and people find them ugly. Indeed, they are right. Because crows symbolize evil, death and darkness. Now, everything, whether it is art or social class, under one thing, that is, under the wings of the crows; both are almost extinct and wait for their time to come to" (Tarık, personal communication, April 14, 2019).
The students demonstrated their perception of the concept of social justice at the end of the a/r/tographic process through their artistic products. They discussed social justice and interpreted it as "inequality in income, family and education opportunities or even gender inequality, cultural class differences, the balance between the strong and the weak, and injustice caused by the capitalist system." As required by the nature of a/r/tographic studies, the students were first engaged in questioning with their trip experiences at the beginning of the research, and then turned their opinions into their products based on the observations they made. The students reported in the interviews that this process was indeed the first of many inquiries into several issues.

Discussion and Conclusion
In this a/r/tographic study, the students visited the places in their city that they had never been before, and experienced the social, economic, and cultural lifestyles of the Eastern Anatolian culture. Some of them made interviews whilst others gained awareness on the social issues they encountered. Under the theme of "Focus Trip Experiences-Exploring", the students had experiences regarding culture in their first trips to the coppersmiths" bazaar, a place mostly characterized by its cultural, economic, social values and its role in cultural heritage, intangible cultural heritage (such as traditional crafts, myths, the Alevi culture), tangible cultural heritage (sculptures, architectural building, decorations), multicultural nature, ideological thoughts, women's role in art, arts and crafts. In their second trips to the bazaar, they had opinions and experiences on shopping culture, social cohesion, national consciousness, folk culture (songs, chansonnettes, folk songs), the balance between the strong and the weak, and inequality in life. In their third trips to the shopping mall, they commented on consumption culture, social class difference, capitalism, sales policies and herd psychology, and visual culture. Further, in their fourth trips, they expressed their opinions on architectural structures, the effect of modernism, the effect of the earthquake, alienation, myths and art spaces and sculptures in the city. In their last trip to the Pavyonlar Neighbourhood, they observed socio-cultural differences, income inequality, unequal opportunities in education, multicultural nature, the Greek architecture, Poshaks, and Romanian gypsies. In these trips, the students took photos and made interviews, thus had experiences on the social, economic, and cultural aspects of the culture they live in. They questioned the concepts of justice, social inequality, educational inequality based on the things they encountered in Pavyonlar Neighbourhood and the impressions they had about the children there. They visited these places in the city they are studying and learned about the culture, nature, lifestyles, and shopping culture of the city through real-life experiences. They personally observed and questioned the class difference and the gap between the rich and the poor created by the capitalist system. After these trips, the students emphasized that cultural values disappeared, and that everyone is the same, and understood the importance of preserving cultural values and traditional handicrafts. The findings above are congruent with the findings of the study of Kazmarski (2017). Kazmarski asked secondary school students to carry out art practices and analysis on social issues through a practice based on social justice during the arts education course. In this study, the students reported that they learned through experiences and by asking questions, which is different from their previous learning experiences. They further stated that each trip offered a different perspective for them and they gained awareness towards social life. They also examined the places, which they frequently visit, with a critical eye. These findings support the arguments of Garber (2004) and Ploof and Hochtritt (2018) on social justice in art education. Applying the social justice theory to pre-service teachers, Garber helped them understand their cultural values, experiences, the world, and their identities in consumer society. In addition, they cooperatively produced the dominant and widespread culture away from their own cultural values through art. In Garber"s study, the pre-service teachers realized how painful racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination are. They also discovered racism and the movements against it. Ploof and Hochtritt (2018) put forth that social justice practices in art education encourage critical thinking, reveal the balance/imbalance of power in society and make people think about personal and social realities.
The reflective diaries written by the students and the metaphors used in them under the theme of "Through Life-Realizing" mostly focus on "social justice" as the main issue. The students considered the negative events or situations they observed regarding the examples of social injustice, which were witnessed and experienced by the students themselves, as their own problems. They also defined the concept of social justice as inequality of (economic-educational-cultural) opportunity. Stevens (2015) performed a study on art-based social justice and included her own experiences as a student. This study discussed social justice under two titles: Inequalities faced by students in education and inequalities in social life. These findings are congruent with the study of Hochtritt, Ahlschwede, Dutton, Fiesel, Chevalier, Miller and Farrar (2017). Their study observed that encouraging students to ask questions in a course that focuses on issues related to social justice would reveal their understanding of public, education, power and privilege, increase the importance of such alternative learning areas, and offer various answers and inquiries.
The students in this study reported that the trip experiences under the theme of "Transformation of Ideas -Creating" enriched the artistic creativity of themselves and allowed them to present ideas with different ways of thinking. This supports of the arguments of Desai (2010) on the relationship between art education and social justice education. Desai (2010) expressed that social justice programs and art practices transform learning processes in art education programs, and claimed that these programs allow for thinking and rethinking, and that such free practices in education improve the thinking style of students and encourage creativity. The students in this present study reported that their perspectives were changed and enhanced thanks to the trip experiences within a short period of time, and that they visited different places and assessed their cultural and social aspects. They also stated that with the knowledge and perspective they obtained from these trip experiences, they discovered how to add a meaning to their lives and the images they would paint. Based on these experiences, the students, who argued that people do not have equal rights in any way, questioned their lives in terms of social justice. They exhibited these forms of inquiries through the artistic works they created after their trip experiences. In these works, the students first wrote on, then experienced the issues of social stratification, injustice, capitalism, the effect of geography on culture, class diversity, multiculturalism, human becoming a consumption object, culture shaping art, craftsmanship and artistry, and eventually turned these issues into a product. While designing these products, the students assigned a meaning to everything they encountered during their trip experiences, including their observations, the photos they took, the people they talked to, their research, and accordingly created their designs. They created these products by questioning their experiences. A similar piece of finding was obtained by Sosin, Bekkala and Pepper-Sanello (2010). They carried out art practices in high school visual arts curriculum as a branch of social justice education. The students produced images to provide insights into social awareness and their perceptions of working in today"s global environment through their powerful, realistic, and fantastical images. Thus, they learned about the issues they put into question, and reflected them through different modes of artistic expression.
In sum, the students in this study acted as learners in a real-life research process by questioning the concepts of justice, equality and life in their trip experiences, set out as artists by creating designs based on the concepts they questioned in their artistic works, and turned into researchers by investigating the things they encountered and the opinions they obtained in the research process.