Drawn in Class: What Student Desk Drawings Reveal

This research aims at investigating and revealing the meanings behind student-made drawings and writings on classroom desks, often classed as mere doodles or vandalism, and reinterprets them as silent acts of self-expression, identity,resistance as well as a proof of existence.Conducted in Tunisian high school classrooms, the research includes a combination of observational data from twenty-nine desks in two schools of different social classes with informal interviews of five students. The markings differed between the two schools and they were categorized into names, quotes, symbols, and drawings, revealing recurring emotional, social, and cultural themes. Drawing on the theories of Michel de Certeau, James C. Scott, Norman Fairclough, and Pierre Bourdieu, the paper discusses that desk graffiti might be seen as a sort of everyday communication shaped by habitus, power structures, and the desire for agency.The study also touches on Marx’s distinction between 'class in itself' and 'class for itself,' hypothesizing that desk drawings may reflect deeper class-based inequalities in self-expression and social awareness. It further links these expressions to insights in customers behavior, where personal marks, like doodles or brands, serve as identity tools. These findings suggest that even in structured environments like classrooms, individuals find creative ways to retrieve space and voice.