Tinkering With Identity: Exploring How Youth Use Gaming as a Tool to Navigate and Empower Identity and Everyday Life

• In Event: Critical Digital Pedagogies: Educators, Parents, and Rsearchers Co-Designing Consequential Learning Through Play and Transformative Agency

Abstract

Recognizing that digital gaming platforms are valid learning spaces (Gee, 2003; Olson, 2010), our research sought to explore how presentations of identity during gameplay transcend digital spaces affecting real-world identity formation and community-building. We asked: How do youth use gaming to navigate and empower their identities? Specifically, we investigated fluidity in presentations of race, gender, and sexual preference that came up through play in Roblox and Minecraft.
We also examined how the construction of identity in these platforms acted as a springboard for dialogue, community building, and transformative learning among the youth and adults engaged in these digital spaces. Understanding that relationships are foundational to the construction of a learning environment, and that access and opportunities within classrooms are generally mediated by power dynamics that reflect our oppressive societal norms (Gutierrez et al. 1995), we were intrigued by the potential that digital gaming spaces offered in dismantling colonial power structures and reforming educational relationships between youth and adults.
In pursuit of these objectives, researchers engaged in gameplay with youth ages 6-14 years-old on Roblox and Minecraft over a five-week period. Two modes of gameplay were used: one-on-one play and group play. For one-on-one play, a researcher joined a youth in a
Roblox game with consent and observation youth’s guardian over a concurrent Zoom call. Research on group play was collected through a collaboration with a public library’s middle school Minecraft Club. During each gaming session, ethnographic data was collected via fieldnotes and audio/video recordings and these data were transcribed for qualitative data analysis.
Three themes emerged through our analysis of these gameplay sessions. First, gaming provided youth with insight into how actions and consequences function in the world without having to go through the trials in their “real lives.” Playing in a digital space situated youth in a low stakes environment, which prompted eagerness to experiment and challenge themselves. The character-building features of Roblox & Minecraft prompted youth to experiment with their character’s identity, e.g. playing as a different race or gender. Second, youth asserted their identity through gaming, using it as a platform to talk about sexuality/sexual preference. During group play on Minecraft, youths’ creation of queer monuments catalyzed dialogue with themes on identity and acceptance in “real life.” Finally, classic instructor/pupil hierarchy disappeared when pupils had ownership and expertise within their environment. Since youth were more familiar with all of the games, they directed play within them, often taking over an educator’s roll.
Our findings underscore the power of gaming for educational purposes. Specifically, our research suggests that (1) digital settings allow for a freer expression of identity and/or identity performance; and (2) gaming settings are (mostly) unencumbered by the classic instructor/pupil hierarchy that dominates a classroom space. These findings have strong potential for classrooms and learning settings. As such, we advocate that educators prioritize engagement with youth via digital gaming spaces, but strongly advise that the adult’s role be a co-collaborator and equal within that space.

Authors

• Michael Zang, MetaMedia, EvanSTEM

• Andy Castro, San Francisco Unified School District

• Amie Scroggins, Phoenix Union High School District