Gaming in Multicultural Classrooms: The Potential of Collaborative Digital Games to Foster Intercultural Interaction

Abstract

With growing cultural diversity in European educational settings, acculturation processes at schools have become more complex as well as 'problems' associated to cultural essentialisms in everyday classroom practices. The use of digital games has found to be an effective tool to reinforce teaching/learning practices. Several studies have already shown the benefits of the use of digital games in educational contexts. However, most of these studies are focused on how digital games can be used for knowledge acquisition. The present research proposes a new approach for the study of digital games in the field of education. Drawing from collaborative approaches, in this chapter, we explore the potential of digital entertaining collaborative games to foster intercultural interaction in culturally diverse classrooms. The mechanisms of intergroup contact theory serve to explain the importance of intercultural interactions for the long-term process of integration.

4. Looking Beyond Persuasion Through Rule-Based Representations in Digital Games: Designing Games to Shape, Reinforce, or Change Attitudes

“…We know that persuasive games can be applied to a great variety of persuasive goals that can be aimed at multiple target groups and can be played in different contexts and situations (Jacobs, Jansz, & De la Hera, 2017). For example, we can talk about games that aim to change eating habits (Orji, Mandryk, Vassileva, & Gerling, 2013); influence children's attitudes toward sports (Staiano & Calvert, 2011); foster empathy toward refugees (Kors, Ferri, van der Spek, Ketel, & Schouten, 2016;Raessens, 2010); change players' views in relation to climate change (Raessens, 2018(Raessens, , 2019a; or foster multicultural or intergenerational interactions (Alencar & De la Hera, 2018;De la Hera, Loos, Simons, & Bloom, 2017;Loos, De la Hera, Simons, & Gevers, 2019). We can also talk about mobile games (Winter et al, 2011), online games (Wen, Kow, & Chen, 2011), virtual reality games (Raessens, 2019b;Reid, 2002), and pervasive games (Walz & Ballagas, 2007).…”