Imagining New Relations through Play: A Cultural-Historical and Ecological Approach to Multilingual World-Making

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 9:45 am - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Systems and Stories: Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Development and Equity

Abstract

This study explores how a Social Design-Based Experiment (SDBE) in an out-of-school robotics program supported multilingual youth’s relational play—a form of play centered on building subject-subject relations with peers, family, and the more-than-human world. Using Minecraft, youth designed digital neighborhoods grounded in cultural histories, ecological knowledge, and lived experience. Mediating artifacts such as journals, poems, and family interviews deepened youths’ understandings of sustainability and shaped their evolving designs. This study asks: (1) How does relational play support multilingual youth in designing for cultural and ecological sustainability? and (2) What forms of mediation supported more relational approaches to sustainable designs? Findings suggest game-based ecologies can support relational learning grounded in the cultural histories and ecologies of non-dominant communities.

Author

• Edward Rivero, Teachers College, Columbia University