Children facing war: their understandings of war and peace

The study was conducted to understand the development of children’s understanding of war and peace and how they differ conditions of being exposed to war. Analysis of drawings of war and peace by children was utilized to access children’s conceptions. Syrian (n = 357) children who had been exposed to war and Turkish children (n = 285) who had not were included in the study. Hiloglinear comparisons of the frequencies of coded categories in the drawings of the two groups of children were undertaken. It was observed that war exposure had an effect on understandings of both war and peace. It was observed that war exposure was more influential on children’s conceptions than their developmental level. The implications of these findings in terms of resiliency were discussed.