Design Principles for Critical Game Literacy Learning Environments: Findings From a Critical Game Jam

• In Event: Critical Game Literacies for the Abolition of White Supremacy and Hetero-Patriarchy

Abstract

Objectives

This paper reports the results of a study on how to design learning spaces and activities that support critical game literacy learning, as well as Afrofuturist development (Colleagues and Author, 2023), a process in which young Black people imagine and prototype futures where they can thrive. The author co-designed an Afrofuturist and abolitionist-themed critical game jam and studied how participants learned during it, how the design of the game jam supported this learning, and what could be done better in the future. Based on these analyses, the author generated design principles that can inform future learning environments featuring critical game literacies and Afrofuturist development.

Theoretical Perspectives

The study was informed by critical sociocultural learning theories such as historical actor theory, which holds that young people can produce possible liberated futures through playing and designing games (Author, 2019). It is also informed by abolitionist approaches to critical digital literacy learning (Benjamin, 2019; Discussant & Author, 2021), and Afrofuturist Development, which is a “theory, design lens, and praxis for Black child, adolescent, and emerging adult thrival” (Colleagues and Author, 2023).

Methods and Data Sources

The study involved participatory design research (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016) on a critical game jam where participants played, analyzed, and designed games related to themes such as Black liberation and abolitionism. Participants included nine young adults; eight were Black, two were Latinx; four identified as nonbinary, four as men, and one as a woman. During the game jam, participants played a prototype of an abolitionist videogame the author created about young people learning in unpoliced futures and gave feedback on it through think-alouds and semistructured interviews. They also began to design their own games in response to collective design prompts and activities. Pre-and post-assessments, observations, pre and post self-recorded video reflections, and recordings of workshop sessions documented the learning process. The author conducted an inductive and deductive reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) of this data, analyzing participants’ learning experiences and their relationship to the design of the game jam.

Findings and Significance

Through the analysis, the author generated eight design principles. This paper will focus on two of them: “Building affinity spaces around Black liberation” and “prototyping and rehearsing unpoliced futures”. Consistent with previous literature (Gee and Hayes, 2010), participants built an affinity space, a learning environment that cohered around shared passions and interests. But in this case, the shared passions involved using game design to prototype and rehearse strategies for liberating their Black communities from anti-Black racism and white supremacy. Prototyping in this context meant creating unfinished, imperfect models of a liberated Afrofuturistic world and iteratively improving them through feedback; rehearsing meant practicing skills needed in movements toward such a liberated society. These principles could inform future learning environments that support critical game literacies and Afrofuturist development. These findings also challenge researchers' assumptions that affinity spaces transcend racial-ethnic identities (Gee, 2013 ). Notably, participants' visions for Black liberation were expansive, including queer liberation and the end of all forms of policing, including policing of race and gender.

Author

• Matthew Coopilton, University of Southern California