The formation of the awareness and theoretical thinking of a peasant student through comics from the perspective of cultural–historical theory

CASE STUDY Open Access © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit h t t p : / / c r e a t i v e c o m m o n s . o r g / l i c e n s e s / b y - n c - n d / 4 . 0 /. de Araujo Discover Education (2025) 4:475 https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-025-00912-w *Correspondence: Gustavo Cunha de Araujo gustavo[email protected]; [email protected] 1Department of Rural Education, Universidade Federal do Norte do Tocantins (UFNT), http://latt es.cnpq.br/ 30116418786 05040 The formation of the awareness and theoretical thinking of a peasant student through comics from the perspective of cultural–historical theory Gustavo CunhadeAraujo1* 1 Introduction Studies in cultural-historical theory, largely due to the contributions of Vygotsky [61, 1, 63], and his collaborators (Leontiev, Luria, Davídov, among others) on higher psychological functions (memory, awareness, perception, attention, language, thought, Discover Education Abstract Introduction This research aims to understand how the awareness and theoretical thinking of peasants are formed through the language of comics. Method A didactic-formative experiment was carried out with, from a public university in Brazil, using artistic productions, oral reports, and observations of comic classes at the same university to generate data. The data were analyzed using historical and dialectical materialism. For this article specifically, Student A2 is being highlighted because her results represent a larger trend among students. Results and discussion An analysis of Student A2's comics reveals symbolic layers that transcend mere visual representation. Elements such as lines, colors, and composition carry cultural and subjective meanings. It was found that the abstractions made by the student in the didactic-formative experience were important because she could grasp information that was unknown to her in her context. As a result, she became aware of her reality through art. Conclusion The comic strips by the students, as well as by student A2, show that visual signs should be learned at school because they help develop students' higher mental functions by learning semiotic resources. In this sense, the signs in the drawings that she was unfamiliar with helped to shape her awareness, based on the use and knowledge of new signs from the technical language of comics, under the guidance of the teacher with them throughout the process of creating the stories. The article reveals a paradox: comic books, often associated with the urban world, become a tool for cultural empowerment for rural students. Keywords Rural education, Comics, Awareness, Cultural-historical theory Page 2 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 will, concept formation, and emotion), have shown that these functions develop from the interaction of the individual with his social and cultural environment (experiences acquired by this subject during his life) [2]. However, to confirm this thesis, these scholars have relied on the perspective of historical and dialectical materialism to advance in this research and, consequently, to understand the historical and social development of humanity. In discussing the acquisition of written language by human beings, Vygotsky [1] states that this is not the only way that people will try to communicate and relate to the world because learning to write enables them to achieve different ways of thinking, acting, and relating to all the other people and objects of knowledge around them, such as the simple fact of telling a story, writing texts, and making drawings, paintings, and so many other languages. As Vygotsky highlighted, written language is a crucial element in an individual's cultural development. However, the acquisition and evolution of written language must align with personal needs because it is not a purely natural process. Rather, it is a construct influenced by historical and cultural contexts. For example, verbal thought does not arise innately. Rather, it is shaped by social dynamics and acquires unique characteristics that differentiate it from more instinctive forms of communication. In this sense, words transcend their basic function and become pillars for the formation of thought and the construction of consciousness throughout history. Leontiev complements this perspective by defining consciousness as a quality of psychic phenomena that emerges from the interaction between the individual and their social environment. Consciousness is not limited to isolated internal or external processes, but rather, it arises from the psychic reflection of reality and mediates human actions in the world. As activity takes shape in tangible objects, consciousness consolidates itself as the basis for these actions, revealing itself through socially constructed meanings. Thus, consciousness is a subjective reflection of objective reality and a product of the social relations that permeate human experience. In turn, Kosic emphasizes that reality is not a static scenario presented to the individual but rather a dynamic field in which they act sensitively and practically. In this space, the subject not only observes but also creates representations and notions that capture the phenomenal dimension of the world. The subject is not passive but actively engages by establishing social relations and exercising a historical role. Thus, reality is constantly reinterpreted and transformed by human action, integrating knowledge, practice, and social interaction. Art and science themselves, topics in dialogue with educational research and which I raise in this research, are very similar to what one might imagine, since both have creativity, invention, and the curiosity of the researcher as important elements for the development of scientific research when seeking to solve problems that arise before, during, and after any investigation. In this regard, I agree with Barbosa (59, p. 28) when he points out that visual representation makes a significant contribution to verbal communication and that this can be related to the graphic productions of comics made by students of rural education, because "the visual arts also develop visual discrimination, which is essential for the literacy process … Words are learned through visualization". Having said that, according to Chaves, Tuleski and Girotto [3], pedagogical practices based on the visual arts can Page 3 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 offer didactic resources and rich possibilities for the full development of teaching and student learning because "educational practices should prioritize musicalization, didactic procedures with canvases, teaching to be enchanted by characters in stories, and by the rhythm and movement of poems and songs" [3, p. 131]. In line with this research, recently, studies on comics in education have addressed issues related to education, art, and rural education [4–7], highlighting the need for new studies on this language in rural education (an area where there are still few studies on comics), especially regarding the study of awareness formation, an important category of analysis in cultural-historical theory. Based on these initial considerations, this article presents the continuity of a larger study1 on reading and writing processes with young and adult peasants, based on comic books as aesthetic literacy, developed at the Federal University of Northern Tocantins (Universidade Federal do Norte do Tocantins—UFNT), Brazil. Specifically, in this article, the research problem is to answer the following question: How is the awareness and theoretical thinking of peasants formed through the language of comics, analyzing one of the stories (out of a total of 40) produced by one participant in this research? In proposing the research topic, I tried to characterize and delimit the problem to be answered and analyzed within the theoretical and empirical fields relevant to this research. This research is important for the field of knowledge, since studies on the formation of awareness and theoretical thinking of rural students in public universities (rural students are understood here as men and women who live and work in the countryside and go to the city to study at university) are still rare [8], as well as studies on comics in rural education [17]. In fact, this research can contribute to filling the gaps on the contribution of art, in these case, comic books, in rural education. The article is structured as follows: first, the methodological procedures of the research are presented, with the aim of highlighting how this study was conceived, planned, and developed. Then, some aspects of the theoretical review carried out in this research are highlighted, which are important for the reflections constructed in the text. Next, the data will be analyzed in light of cultural-historical theory. Finally, some conclusions and implications of the study are mentioned. 2 Methodology 2.1 Research approach and method Vygotsky's rejection of the methods of experimental psychology led him to search for new research methods related to dialectical historical materialism [9]. From these assumptions, the formative experiment emerged through the studies of Vygotsky and his main collaborators—Davídov, Leontiev, and Luria—who believed that it was an efficient method to study the mental development of the individual through experiments and therefore an appropriate method to understand higher psychological processes. Based on this method, other theorists of cultural–historical theory, Zankov [10] and Davídov [11, 12], created the didactic-formative experiment in the field of developmental didactics, which focuses on the development of human mental processes through the activity of study. In fact, this method is the development of the genetic experiment method created by Vygotsky (genetic-modeling method). 1 See Araújo, Miguel and Araújo (2021). Page 4 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 The method used in this research was the didactic-formative experiment, which was carried out in ten classes of the comic strip subject of the rural education course, in which the students produced verbal and non-verbal texts (drawings) in certain tasks and actions proposed in the experiment. The texts produced by the students cover various topics. Of the forty students enrolled in the course, thirty-nine produced these texts. Of these, eighteen focus on imaginative stories, fourteen refer to everyday life/life experiences, four concern fanciful stories of the imagination, one deals with religion, and three stories represent real/true events. Davídov [11] emphasizes that this method is based on the structure of new teaching programs and procedures for their implementation. Thus, the developed teaching and education do not take place from a mental level already formed in the students but through the mediation of the professor, through procedures aimed at activating another level of mental development in the students, which makes it possible to advance/ improve knowledge. In other words, you have to start from the abstract to get to the concrete, and not the other way around, because you have to start from what the person already knows. In the case of this research, young people and adults in rural education use words as an instrument of communication, and the experiment and consequently the activity (tasks and actions) developed trigger the formation of concepts. Based on this statement, it is possible to say that studies on the formation of concepts are materialized by the didactic-formative experiment. According to Aquino [13, 14], the didactic-formative experiment emerged from the work of Vygotsky and his main collaborators: Davídov [11, 12], Leontiev [15], and Luria [16], who understood this method to be efficient and suitable for studying the development of the higher psychological functions of the individual, based on activities and tasks to be developed, as shown in Fig.1, which summarizes the experiment conducted. In this sense, I understand the didactic-formative experiment as: ... active intervention of the researcher in the mental processes he studies. In this respect, it differs substantially from the verification experiment, which focuses only on the already formed and present state of a particular mental formation. The formative experiment presupposes projection and modeling of the content of new mental formations to be formed, psychological and pedagogical means and ways of their formation [11, p. 108]. From my perspective, the didactic-formative experiment is a method of cultural–historical theory that organizes teaching by enabling young and adult students to develop their psychic functions during concept formation and, consequently, to build their integral development, with learning as a factor in this development. In other words, this experiment is an investigative tool that makes it possible to study transformations in the mental development of individuals based on the mediation of the researcher during the experiment. The data collection instruments generated in the research field were the field diary of observations made during the experiment, the video recording of the experimental classes, and the audio recording of the semi-structured and individual interviews conducted with the students during the experiment, which lasted about six months, as well Page 5 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 Fig.1 Excerpt from a comic strip produced by student A2. Source: Prepared by student A2 Page 6 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 as the visual recordings of the comics produced by the students in this experiment.2 Specifically, in this article, we share a snippet of these data: we have analyzed part of them 2 Other data analyzed such as observation and other comics, which dialogue with the data presented in this article, can be found in full in: Araújo [17]. Fig. 1 (continued) Page 7 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 (a fragment of the comic created by the student from a rural background). It is important to point out that the analysis of only one story does not invalidate or generalize the results of the research, since the data analyzed are in line with the other data collected (observations, comics created by the other students/participants in this research), since the reflections constructed here dialog empirically and theoretically with the other stories produced by them in the research carried out. In other words, rural students developed a visual perception based on the dialectical relationship between words and images, text and visuals in the comic strips they produced. This perception broadened their understanding of rural reality and the importance of these signs in shaping their consciousness as historical subjects. Their social relationships with the people around them lead to their humanization, which is fundamental to the maturation of their psychic formations and advancing their conceptual learning. Specifically, the student in this article developed her aesthetic perception and recorded her knowledge of the Brazilian countryside. She rejected the common depiction of reality in didactic books, commercial comic books, and the discourse of public authorities, which "ignore" the essence of the countryside and show a reality that is urban rather than rural. Thus, art competently demonstrates that the peasantry reveals information unknown to most people. Therefore, the data from the unique story analyzed in this article aligns with other collected data, thus validating the results presented. In defining the methodological procedures and approaches of this research, the perspective of the cultural–historical theory was considered, which helped to define the research problem and objectives presented in this research. Thus, while writing the methodological part of this study, I established some criteria for selecting the subjects of this research, namely: (a) The students had to be enrolled in the comic book class of the Rural Education course with a major in the arts (visual arts, performing arts, and music) and present their attendance. (b) The institution to be studied had to be a public university, in this case the Federal University of Northern Tocantins—UFNT. It is important to note that during the didactic-training experiment, we videotaped the comic classes that took place in this experiment with the aim of uncovering information that is relevant to this research, especially regarding the development of reading and writing by adolescents and adults in rural education based on this sequential art. A summary of the experiment can be seen below (Table1): This is how I constructed the didactic training experiment. From the experience of this research, in accordance with the data generated, analyzed, and interpreted, as well as the empirical research developed in the investigation, I understand that this experiment made it possible to promote the development of students by improving their learning. There were difficulties in adapting this experiment to my Comic Strip Discipline Plan, the discipline in which the data for this research was generated (experiment, interviews, and classroom observation) because it was thought that I, as a researcher, would not be able to analyze the plan I had drawn up. The main challenges were adapting the Discipline Plan to rural students' realities, breaking with their traditional backgrounds, and using accessible language considering their reading and writing difficulties resulting from previous educational experiences. Page 8 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 Historical-Cultural theory greatly helped me design, implement, and analyze the experiment, breaking with traditional teaching based on "hearing, reading, and writing what is correct." The theory reveals that the reality experienced in school is often fictitious and far from the essence. Additionally, it helped me identify the conceptual core of teaching planning in the Didactic-Formative Experiment using comic strips with young people and adults in rural education. The course plan included a description of the conceptual core, problematization of learning, the relationship between content and concepts, objectives, study tasks, and assessment [21]. Activities such as problem situations, narratives (including comic strips), and films encourage students to engage with the material. These activities involve mathematical, artistic, philosophical, and historical concepts and allow students to appropriate the concept as a thinking tool. According to Historical-Cultural Theory, this promotes the rise from the abstract to the concrete. Knowledge should not be handed over as finished products; students should develop it from their experiences, reality, and needs through questioning and problematization. Thus, learning is a factor of development, not the other way around [11]. However, from the readings done, it was possible to understand that the culturalhistorical theory, as well as the theoretical contributions of this experiment, helped in its elaboration based on this discipline and helped to understand that research is more than a simple production of knowledge; it is something that must transform the human being, both me as a researcher and the young and adult subjects who participated in the research. It is understood that if the university does not transform the individuals who attend it, in this case the students, then it is not adequately fulfilling its role as an educational institution for the full development of its students. In addition, the plan was modified to propose advances in the content and its teaching, which dialogue with developmental learning and the assumptions of this theory that we bring to this research. The main idea of the didactic-formative experiment, based on the cultural–historical theory, is that the teaching organized in this way increases the quality of learning and, consequently, the full development of the students [14]. Table1 Experimental didactic system Didactic-formative experiment 1st Stage Theoretical research and diagnosis of the reality studied (Rural Education in the State of Tocantins, Brazil) Based on the cultural–historical theory, a bibliographical review was carried out, which allowed us to understand the essence of the reality under study 2nd Stage Designing the Didactic Training Experiment The experiment was based on the teaching program of the subject History in Comics, with the aim of proposing an advancement of the content worked on according to developmental learning 3rd Stage Development of the didactic training experiment The experiment was carried out in 10 (ten) experimental classes that lasted 6 (six) months in the subject of comic history, with study tasks that were carried out by the farmers. Each class in the Comics subject over these six months lasted four hours a day. The comic book productions were evaluated and analyzed in their entirety (drawings, writing and creative process) 4th Stage Categorization, discussion, and analysis of the data generated in the experiment The data was produced in the experimental classes (reports from the semistructured and individual interviews with the students in the class, observations of these classes, and the comics they produced) and analyzed using cultural-historical theory. For the purposes of this article, I've cut out an excerpt from one of the comics produced Source: Prepared by the author, based on Araújo, Miguel, and Araújo [8], Aquino [9, 13, 14], Miller [18], Pereira, Resende and Aquino [19], Freitas and Libâneo [20] Page 9 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 In addition, the experiment allowed me to see the development of the students and their new intellectual formations developed in this experiment, as well as to intervene, as a researcher, in the psychic formations and in the didactic and pedagogical processes constructed in the experimental classes. In this context, the aim was to propose a teaching method that would allow rural youth and adults to progress in their learning so that they could develop their higher psychological functions (awareness, perception, memory, concepts, and thinking, among others) through a study activity involving visual signs and writing. When we talk about this type of teaching, we are referring to developmental learning, which seeks to break with the traditional teaching model that sometimes proposes ineffective and complicated activities and tasks that do not consider the reality and development of the student [22]. In other words, this type of learning aims to propose actual progress in the student's learning because when they learn, they develop (and not the other way around) because in the cultural–historical theory, learning is a factor of development. However, to achieve this, it is necessary to propose a specific type of activity from the perspective of cultural–historical theory. This activity is called study activity. The study activity is a specific learning activity that takes place in school (but does not exclude that it can take place in other educational spaces), as long as its process includes an organization of teaching by the professor who allows students to develop tasks and actions that lead to the formation of concepts [23]. In addition, this type of activity encourages students to reflect on the evolution of their learning, highlighting, among other things, how they overcame their limitations and how they evolved during this process. Nevertheless, it is possible to say that the activity developed by the young and adult rural students was the production of a comic book, from this theoretical and methodological perspective, with the cultural-historical theory as its epistemological basis. Thus, the experiment was developed based on the syllabus of the comic book course and on the studies of Davídov [11, 12, 24, 25], Vygotsky [1, 26, 27], and Aquino [9, 13, 14], mainly three authors who contributed greatly to my ability to construct the experiment. As a result, it was possible to develop it with tasks and actions carried out in each experimental class by the young and adult students, based on verbal and visual readings and artistic productions (drawings), totaling 10 classes in one semester; i.e., the experiment was developed in 10 classes of the comics subject over 6months. The main idea behind the didactic-formative experiment is that the teaching organized in this way increases the quality of learning and, consequently, the full development of the students [14]. This historical subject who was part of this research, who usually wakes up at dawn to travel all day to get to the university (if he doesn't travel for days), sometimes on horseback or on foot, and who lives in this reality that is not shown to most people, is the farm-based worker, who fights for the land and for better conditions to live and work on it. In addition, when he arrives at the university, he is confronted with a reality that is completely opposite to the one in which he was born, grew up, and built his knowledge, identity, and culture: more difficult and with problems that he will not always be able to solve. Faced with this scenario, it was necessary, throughout the experiment, to ask them about their learning needs and interests, clarifying that theoretical thinking was Page 16 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 to these appropriations. In this sense, concept formation, an important category in cultural-historical theory, occurs. In other words, Vygotsky [62] contributed to the development of cultural–historical theory because he believed that human behavior should not be understood from the perspective of mechanistic biology but from the interaction of the individual with culture and other people, as he defended the thesis that people learn as they develop in social relationships. To clarify this idea, Puentes and Longarezi [32] point out that the creation of the psychological and pedagogical foundations of Marxist education after the establishment of the Soviet state served to support and create the necessary conditions for the emergence of theories that sought to study, analyze, and understand human awareness, as well as the process of thought and language formation and the development of human psychological functions, in addition to the interaction of the individual with the social, cultural, and institutional environment for the development of these functions. Thus, education would play a fundamental role and would be responsible for providing the conditions for the development of the individual, since "it should be the responsibility of education to provide the biosocial conditions, through the production of ideas, concepts, values, symbols, habits, attitudes, and skills, which, together with material goods, are necessary to master and transform reality [32, p. 251]. The development of awareness as a higher form of manifestation of the psyche is, in this sense, a real activity that relates the subject to reality. The content of awareness (mental image) is therefore dialectically produced by human activity, through which it becomes possible to transform the objective into the subjective [32, p. 250]. This quote is important because it helps us understand that the individual, through the development of awareness, can internalize the object and socialize it to other people through language (with this study, comic books), which is important and fundamental for communicating with the surrounding reality. In fact, cultural-historical theory, the theoretical matrix of this research, has helped to guide the analyses presented in this article. In addition to these reflections, it is important to note that a lot of research on comics has been produced recently [33–41], addressing different topics and international contexts of study, including some in dialogue with Cultural–Historical Theory [8, 17], but with one similarity: Comics are like a frontier: they are in the visual arts, in technology, in literature, in the social sciences, in the exact sciences, in health. …in other words, it's possible to say that this language is hybrid and allows a rich exchange of information and experiences between researchers from different places and fields. Thus, by connecting with different fields, subjects, and audiences, and by not being specific to a particular field and objective, comics can offer teachers, researchers, and students new ways of teaching and learning based on the image, text, and creativity of the individual. This theoretical summary illustrates how the historical-cultural theory intertwines language, consciousness, and social practice. It reveals a profound understanding of human development as a dialectical and collective process. Page 17 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 4 Results and discussion About theoretical thought, Kosic [42] states that the ascent from the abstract to the concrete is not the passage from the sensible to the rational, since the abstract denies the sensible and the immediate. Thus, this movement of thought is the method of knowing reality, since the method of ascending from the abstract to the concrete is the method of thinking,in other words, it is a movement that acts on concepts, on the element of abstraction. As you can see, teaching that focuses on the development of theoretical thinking enables students to learn to understand an object in a broader way, to develop their creativity, to develop as a person, to transform the surrounding objects, and to have autonomy and self-control over their actions. This article explores the intersection of comic books and Historical-Cultural Theory in the context of rural education, drawing from the work of Vygotsky, Davídov, and other theorists. The following analysis explores how these theories manifest in educational practices with rural students, emphasizing cognitive development, cultural mediation, and transforming reality through visual language. 4.1 The visual language of comics produced by a farm-based worker For Davídov [11], appropriating a concept means being able to mentally reproduce the content of an object. Thus, Davídov defends the relationship between teaching methods (didactic knowledge) and content (specific knowledge) in the student's learning process through the resolution of tasks. In this reflection, Davídov differentiates between theoretical and empirical thinking. In the latter analysis, abstraction, generalization, and the concept are based on external features; in the former, on the internal features of the object. The latter are expressed in words and the former in mental actions. For Kosic [42], theoretical (dialectical) thinking takes place in movement and in constant transformation, unlike empirical thinking, which is based on the facts that emerge from experience and systematizes them as absolute truths. In summary, Davídov [11] understood that empirical thought is formed from the comparison of objects and their representations, which makes it possible to separate their most common (general) properties. This general property is known and allows certain objects to be isolated in a given class so that they can be analyzed [8]. At this point, the initial relationship between the integral system and its essence is discovered. Thus, empirical thinking (expressed in words and terms) is reflected in the external properties of objects. On the other hand, theoretical thinking arises during the process of analysis carried out on this integral system,that is, it is mentally elaborated when the objects are transformed, moving from mere representation to mental action. Thus, theoretical thinking (expressed through mental activity) explains the particular and singular manifestations of this system, from the general to the particular. As you can see, teaching geared towards the development of theoretical thinking enables students to learn to understand an object in a broader way, to develop their creativity, to develop as a person, to transform the objects around them and to have autonomy and self-control over their actions. Therefore, for cultural–historical theory, creating concepts means producing scientific knowledge; it means making the student think and not just reproduce what is already Page 18 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 ready, that is, “appropriating the concept of an object implies carrying out a certain action aimed at the ‘transformation’ of the object, but not necessarily the ‘transformation’ of its internal nature, but rather its modification from an unknown object into a known object”. In other words, the appropriation of theoretical thought enables the individual to develop new psychic functions. Thus, the comic strip analyzed (a fragment of its history, given the length of this article) portrays farm-based worker life through visual and verbal signs. I mention the production of student A2 (identified by code to preserve her anonymity), who, in addition to living in the countryside and being the daughter of farmers, is a primary school teacher in a rural school in the interior of the State of Tocantins, Brazil. An excerpt (Fig.1) of the narrative she produced during the didactic-formative experiment is socialized below: As can be seen in the story above, based on the content worked on in the experiment, student A2 could construct her story using different visual signs characteristic of this language, such as different types of balloons to express the signs (thought, speech, and animal sounds); captions to show the narrator's speech (in this case, hers); and various cinematographic shots in the scenes and frames of different sizes, which, together with the context of the story, produced the reality of the countryside, revealed sequentially through the drawings and words. In this way, his story clarifies that life in this place is very different from life in the city, especially when the city doesn't consider the peculiarities, identity, and culture of the farm-based workers. Research shows that comic book production is a creative act that involves artistic expression and transforms students' perceptions of themselves and their environment. A2's statement that art "organizes the mind through images" reflects the idea that art "reconfigures consciousness." By drawing her life in the countryside, A2 not only records facts but also critiques and reframes them. This idea echoes Kosic [42], who argues that comic strips allow students to look beyond the "appearance" of phenomena, such as the romanticization of rural life, and access their "essence," including inequalities, cultural identity, and labor relations. Analyzing the comics produced by rural student A2 reveals symbolic layers that transcend mere visual representation. Art education experts such as Eisner [43] argue that art is a form of visual thinking in which elements such as lines, colors, and composition carry cultural and subjective meanings. In A2's drawings, we observe the use of speech bubbles and onomatopoeia. These resources not only organize the narrative, but also reflect farm-based worker’s oral tradition by integrating sounds from nature, such as those of animals and tools, into written language. According to Dondis [44], this exemplifies the syntax of visual language, in which abstract forms (e.g., wavy lines representing wind) encode sensory experiences typical of rural life. The framing and perspective are also notable,the scenes prioritize open shots, such as agricultural landscapes, suggesting a sense of belonging to the territory. According to Arnheim [45], the use of less realistic perspectives may indicate a collective awareness of space common to rural communities where the environment is shared. Barbosa [46] highlights that A2's use of elements from urban comic books, such as speech bubbles, represents cultural hybridization. In this case, the global language of comics is reinterpreted to express local identities. However, Paulo Freire's cultural analysis of comics reveals the representation of rural work. The hoe drawn by A2 is not merely Page 19 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 an instrument but a symbol of resistance. According to Freire [47], visualizing everyday tools in art is a political act because it reveals the exploitation of peasants. The research presented in this article links the drawings to Historical-Cultural Theory, but experts in art psychology could further expand on this analysis. Vygotsky would argue that, in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), creating comic strips acted as a mediation tool that helped A2 internalize abstract concepts (e.g., "work" as a social category). According to Vygotsky [48], art is a semiotic device that transforms elementary psychological functions (e.g., perception) into higher ones (e.g., abstraction). This analysis is important because it allows us to conclude that art has an emancipatory function. Comics enabled A2 to process traumas, such as social invisibility, as Vygotsky proposed in Psychology of Art (2019). In this work, Vygotsky argues that artistic creation reorganizes emotional experiences. It's worth noting that comic strips can be used in education as a methodological resource [8, 49], since they offer students a deeper understanding of the topics being worked on in class, as well as creative possibilities through an artistic language that relates text and image. They can also serve as relevant pedagogical support, working with concepts related to the content that the teacher intends to work on in class with his students through written and visual texts, promoting theoretical thinking in the students, and being a language very close to the universe of children, adolescents, and adults, contributing to meaningful learning and teaching of better aesthetic quality. By working with comics in the classroom, students will be able to select the visual elements present in this language, determine better conditions for creating and recreating the surrounding reality, develop their awareness, and improve their readingand writing skills. They can also apply concepts that contribute to the teaching and learning process by using sequential language in a more dynamic and creative way. In this sense, I understand that knowing the elements that make up the visual language of comics becomes important in the creative process of producing the texts of the stories. Eisner [50] reinforces the argument developed here by pointing out that the sequence of images in the stories, together with visual signs such as onomatopoeia, drawn words, and others, create the so-called "visual grammar" of comics. This is why the text of comics can be read as an image because it not only represents words, sounds, and thoughts but also drawn words that, by expressing emotions, sounds, etc., according to the reasoning of the story, harmonize the meaning that the message told by the author wants to express. The text presented in this way is called lettering, which visually acts as an extension of the visual text. It's important to note that during the production of her story, student A2 said: “In early childhood education, this issue of visual reading, reading images, and writing is critical, and this can help with reading and writing, because images organize our minds more”. In other words, she said that in the same way as phonemes, images could help improve writing and reading. When justifying her argument, she said that “a child looking in the mirror and seeing the shape of their mouth when they pronounce a letter helps them to write that letter”. A2's statement shows that visual signs should be learned at school, and can help in the formation of the student's awareness, as they help in the development of the student's higher psychic functions through the learning of semiotic resources. Page 20 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 For Davídov [11], it is difficult to develop abstract and theoretical knowledge without the help of visuals in the schooling process, as visuals help to shape human thought. The work of art itself becomes a mere illustration if its meanings, perception, and the production of emotions and senses it provokes in the viewer are not worked on. It is in this line of thought that Vygotsky [61] states that in this way aesthetic skills are not worked on in the student, nor is it possible for them to experience the work of art, as it ends up “replacing” the moment that should be aesthetic learning with a moment of moral learning, which leads many students to dislike the subject they are working on. By working with comics in the classroom, the student was able to select visual elements present in this language, determining better conditions for creating and recreating the reality around her, developing her awareness and improving her reading and writing (since she had to write and rewrite the text of the story and carry out readings of it throughout the production… and this was one of the pieces of evidence I was able to identify in the research). In addition, the student can also apply concepts that contribute to the teaching and learning process, by using sequential language in a more dynamic and creative way. In this sense, knowing the elements that make up the visual language of comics becomes important in the creative process of producing the texts of the stories. What I want to make clear is that art significantly develops the intellectual aspects of the student, as it enables them to do better at school, as well as being able to better understand the reality of which they are a part, becoming a more creative, critical, and participative individual, with an awareness of reality, which is important for broadening their knowledge of the world, culture, and aesthetics. It is within these psychological connections, according to the cultural–historical theory, that the individual develops and expands their awareness. In this sense, awareness enables the subject to coordinate, resulting in a transformation of reality. In this process, speech is considered an important element in raising awareness through communication, since the subject, through this language, for example, can appropriate other cultures and transform themselves internally. However, the activity carried out by one of the research participants was a comic based on the production of verbal texts and drawings. Therefore, in this research, comics are considered a learning activity that enables the development of higher psychological functions in young and adult farmers through reading and drawing comics. From the same perspective, pointed out by Puentes [51] and Puentes and Longarezi [32], Libâneo [21] mentions that Davídov tried to take Vygotsky's studies on concept formation and generalization to another level. Thus, in his studies, he found that the content of students' study activities is theoretical knowledge, as he concluded that teaching based only on empirical, descriptive, and classificatory knowledge taught in schools is not sufficient for learning. From this moment on, Davídov [11] developed ideas and assumptions about teaching aimed at the development of theoretical thinking, which should occur through the transition from the abstract to the concrete. In other words, the Historical-Cultural Theory posits that human development is influenced by cultural instruments, such as artistic language. In the case of comic strips, visual elements such as speech bubbles, onomatopoeia, and framing act as signs that mediate the relationship between the student and knowledge. For instance, when creating her story, student A2 reproduced her rural reality and reinterpreted it through visual Page 21 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 signs she had not previously encountered. This illustrates Vygotsky's concept of internalization, whereby external signs (such as drawings) transform into mental tools that allow one to advance from empirical thinking, which is based on appearance, to theoretical thinking, which is based on the essence of reality. This analysis is important because it highlights the cultural mediation and visual signs present in this process. From this perspective, in order for students to be able to master the content studied in the classroom with greater confidence and autonomy, they need to form scientific concepts and develop their thinking based on abstraction (abstract to concrete: theoretical thinking), as they will then have more autonomy in the development of the activities they perform and, consequently, a more critical awareness of reality [11]. Student A2's comic shows that visual signs should be learned at school because they help develop students' higher mental functions by learning semiotic resources. According to Davídov [11], it is difficult to develop abstract and theoretical knowledge without the help of visuals in the school process. In other words, the visual aids the formation of human thought. The work of art itself becomes a mere illustration if its meanings, perception, and the production of emotions and senses it provokes in the viewer are not worked on. In other words, art, being the fruit of human labor in history, a form of knowledge, and an expression of reality, makes individuals aware of the transformations in their reality. In this way, as an aesthetic object that communicates ideas, desires, and knowledge not only individually but also collectively, it enables the individual to appreciate life and the human experience recorded in the object/work. Davidov emphasizes that theoretical thinking emerges when students move beyond merely observing phenomena to understanding their internal relationships. Comic strips facilitate this process by combining images and text. For instance, when A2 portrays the horse as "transportation" and the hoe as a "work tool," she does more than describe objects; she contextualizes them within a system of social and historical relationships characteristic of the countryside. This demonstrates how comic strips can serve as vehicles for concrete abstractions, helping students connect everyday elements to scientific concepts, such as work, production, and culture. These analyses are essential to understanding how Historical-Cultural Theory manifests in the context of using comic strips with students ("Theoretical Thinking and Abstraction in the Rural Context"). The abstractions made by Student A2 clarify this process. Theoretical thinking is the movement of thought that the student must carry out, starting from a study activity, so that he can mentally reproduce the image and content of a given object, which he previously could not do without the teacher's help. After this process of mental action, the student goes on to conceptualize it and then to understand and explain it. However, Davídov [11] understood that the organization of teaching needed a method that, based on the assumptions of cultural-historical theory, should study the development of students' thinking. He points out that one of the main characteristics of this method is the active intervention of the researcher in the mental processes he studies. Based on these reflections, it is possible to understand that the relationship established between these drawings and the words is fundamental in helping young people and adults in rural education to make the movement of thought, arriving at the theoretical Page 22 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 concept because since drawing is the first gesture besides for those who learn to write, according to Vygotsky [26], and to strengthen their writing (a thesis that I defend in this research), It develops if the student manages to internalize the concept of the study tasks performed, not only in the verbal text, but also in the visual one, assimilating this learning, which is important to progress from social experience (inter-psychological) to individual experience (intra-psychological), which, according to Vygotsky, is fundamental for the development of human awareness. In light of this thinking about awareness, Davídov expands on the process of developing awareness in the following excerpt: Man, as a social being, has many material and spiritual needs. The search for and finding the means to satisfy them leads the individual to structure images of the objects of these needs to the emergence of needs about the corresponding objects of material and spiritual culture, which incite the subject to activity. In the context of social life, the individual cannot directly obtain the object required by the motive; this object must be produced. This object becomes the object of action. In searching for and proving the purpose, the individual defines the task in the performance of which he can produce the required object. To solve the task, the individual must find and test the corresponding action, which must then be produced [11, p. 44]. I would like to compliment him by saying that the drawing of the comics constructed by student A2 was fundamental for her to mature her higher psychological functions and to motivate herself for the proposed activity, since the drawing, as well as arousing this interest in her, helped her to represent her life, initially built in the countryside, through the mental operations carried out during the tasks of studying the experiment. It is worth highlighting in the analyses that living with artistic languages—painting, photography, music, drawing, among others—can bring young students and adults in rural education into contact with a visual and cultural universe that is not always dealt with in school and university, and when it is, it is in an inadequate or superficial way (formal logic). That's why we tried to propose tasks that would promote the effective development of their learning, making them more autonomous in carrying out the different activities they will have to do throughout their lives. Given that both schools and universities are spaces of intense contradictions, it is essential to identify them to transform the reality of the peasants who attend these institutions. This is why the abstractions made by the participants in the didactic-formative experience are important. They were able to grasp information that, for most of them was unknown to their reality. In this sense, developmental learning [22, 52] is advocated when working with young and adult peasants because, based on a learning activity (activities and comic tasks developed with them, from the perspective of cultural–historical theory), they can develop their higher psychological functions and modify their reality as historical subjects, becoming aware of their reality through art. It is important to note that this type of learning is based on the formation of theoretical thinking (psychic activity: movement from the abstract to the concrete, i.e., from simple to complex thinking). However, this process cannot be taught but is learned by the student through a study activity [22, 52]. Page 23 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 The development of awareness as a higher form of manifestation of the psyche is, in this sense, a real activity that relates the subject to reality. The content of awareness (mental image) is therefore dialectically produced by human activity through which it becomes possible to transform the objective into the subjective [32, p. 250]. In the research carried out, it was necessary to look for new ways to enable young and adult students to understand and progress in the curriculum content. This progress was only possible through a study activity that promoted this development. In this sense, the didactic-training experiment is related to this type of activity, since it proposes the development of the higher psychological functions of the student in education, a theory defended by Vygotsky, Davídov and collaborators, and developed in this research. Consequently, this experiment made it possible to plan the activities (readings and comic production) to be researched and carried out with the students and to set them in motion based on the tasks (readings, drawings, etc.) carried out. I would like to emphasize that the visual and verbal signs that students A2 worked on in the comic helped them to develop their thinking. In this analysis it is possible to conclude that she produced concepts and no longer representations, since a concept arises as a "mental activity through which the idealized object and the system of its relations are reproduced …" [11, p. 128]. In other words, the student from a rural background, mentalized the content, and this led her to understand and explain the object, to understand its essence. In this sense, the signs in the drawings that she was unfamiliar with helped to shape her awareness, based on the use and knowledge of new signs from the technical language of comics (onomatopoeia, balloon sounds, among others), under the guidance of the teacher with them throughout the process of creating the stories. The student was confronted with a series of phenomena that were present in her daily life, that penetrated her awareness, but that were not true. For Kosic [42], since they are characterized by external objects that give the impression of being natural, by human witchcraft, and by the appearance of things that reveal nothing of their true essence, although the phenomenon manifests itself directly, the same does not happen with the essence. That is why it is so important and necessary to reveal it in rural education. It is important to note in these analyses that the process of producing the comics, reading these magazines, and the stories themselves that the student produced were related to the reality of the rural people. As a result, she began to produce inferences, hypotheses, comparisons, and generalizations during her reading that could give them new meaning and humanize them as historical subjects who produce social relations and knowledge from them. Therefore, when the individual internalizes the object, it can be socialized to other people through language, such as artistic, oral, and written language. However, this is only possible with the development of awareness and activity, through which the individual has created material and immaterial instruments to communicate with the world. The comics are the conceptual core of this research, because the student synthesized the object studied and formed concepts. From this, she assimilated the general relationship of the content and internalized this object through the verbal and visual signs of the comics. In addition, she was able to create and recreate reality and interpret it through the signs of the drawings that she hardly dealt with to develop awareness, i.e., the comic book genre. In other words, by developing her writing and reading skills through Page 24 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 learning this art, she developed her psychic functions, just like the other farmers taking part in this research. Therefore, it is not art at the service of reading and writing, but language at the service of developing the awareness of young and adult peasants. In fact, by understanding its core aspect, they develop theoretical thinking and finally arrive at the concept, which enables them to have more autonomy to carry out their tasks. These analyses are important because they reveal rural areas as an emancipatory alternative with socio-ecological, cultural, and institutional foundations engendering various forms of resistance and existence (van den [53]. Along these lines, the territory is also considered a collective space for socio-territorial movements [54]. Furthermore, the countryside is not only a place for cultivating the land, but it also fosters sustainable living and knowledge production [55]. However, it is crucial to emphasize that peasants must be recognized as cultural subjects and as the protagonists of social transformation within their cultural and political environments [56]. Before moving on to the conclusions of this research, the data analyzed allowed us to understand that by using comic strips as a teaching methodology, students may be better able to interpret certain content, as was the case with the study carried out with the student A2, because this language is represented by text and images, helping them to read the stories. This can help to draw students' attention to academic content and, consequently, to develop better comprehension skills and a critical sense, which are important for excelling in different fields of language (visual, audio, and others) [57]. The analyses validate and expand upon the original findings of the article, demonstrating how comic book language can promote social transformation in rural education. 5 Conclusions Theoretical thinking, constructed through scientific concepts, plays a fundamental role in education by transforming learning into an active mental process. In the case of Student A2, this approach enabled her to not only assimilate knowledge but also relate it to her reality. This increased her creativity, autonomy, and ability to transform the world around her. This demonstrates how a teaching approach focused on developing theoretical thinking can go beyond memorization and enable students to understand objects and situations more broadly and critically. The article reveals a paradox: comic books, often associated with urban culture, become a tool for cultural empowerment for rural students. By creating their own stories, students confront stereotypes and reaffirm their identity. However, the research also points out limitations. For example, teachers need training to work with the language of comic books beyond "illustration" and integrate it into the teaching process. This requires a curriculum that values farm-based worker’s culture as a foundation for theoretical thinking. Based on these findings, the challenges and potential of rural education are evident. Another limitation of this study is that the drawings should be interpreted as products of a specific context: Tocantins, Brazil, where limited access to educational resources shapes visual expression. Nevertheless, future research is recommended that contrasts A2's comics with the work of urban students to identify the specific characteristics of rural visuality. In a rural context, this type of thinking takes on an even deeper meaning. Students' reality is not only social but also historical, shaped by the relationships they build in their Page 25 of 28Araujo de Discover Education (2025) 4:475 daily lives. As they develop their theoretical thinking, they begin to see their surroundings from new perspectives. The horse becomes more than just an animal; it becomes a means of transportation. The hoe becomes more than just a tool; it becomes an instrument of labor within a productive system. The cycles of farming take on scientific meaning. Even mathematics and the arts, when contextualized, help measure land and value local crafts and music as legitimate cultural expressions. Therefore, this educational approach is not limited to transmitting content. It seeks to empower students by allowing them to recognize and transform their reality through knowledge. By combining theory and practice, rural education can become a powerful tool for human and social development that respects the historical and cultural particularities of these communities. Most of the drawings produced by the rural students show not only life in the countryside but also their creative process, as in the case of student A2. The visual language of the comics allowed her to develop her psychic formations through the elements of the comics that many of them did not know. This confirms Vygotsky's studies on how individuals develop through their interaction with the social and cultural environment around them, as she drew a subject that not only represented her reality, but also gave her a new aesthetic perception through art. It is essential to point out that the story produced by student A2 refers to a reality recreated by the student herself, because art, as an artistic and aesthetic phenomenon, the fruit of human labor, made this transformation possible through the articulation of visual and verbal signs. In this way, the student generated a new awareness of this reality by drawing up a story that made her think more critically about everyday life, portrayed through comic strips. In other words, through this story, the student was able to reflect the essence of reality and not just its appearance, based on the totality analyzed and in which her work is inserted. With this statement, it is possible to say that art is a reflection, expression, and creation of reality. The research also made it possible to understand that the creativity of the students allowed them to internalize the content of the comic’s subject, which is fundamental for them to understand and interpret reality. In fact, it can be said that theoretical thinking is the raw material of this creative process. Like the other students who participated in the research, A2 created the story out of necessity, to satisfy an interest of hers, not just because she had to. In response to a human need, the words and drawings in her story mediated her relationship to reality and to her awareness. This was important because the comic book produced by this farm-based worker improved her understanding of being in the countryside and also in the city. The research also indicated that the student appropriated and used literacy practices to become aware of reality. This was possible because the language of comics, characterized by its verbal and visual form, helped her advance in her learning and awareness. However, for this to happen, it was necessary to work with this language as a learning activity. In other words, through this specific type of activity, the student synthesized the object studied and formed theoretical thinking (ascending from the abstract to the concrete and not vice versa). From this, she assimilated the general relationship of the content studied and internalized this object through the elements of comics (visual and verbal). In this way, she was able to create and re-create her reality and interpret it through these elements, of which she knew little, to develop her awareness.