New Publication Released – Exploring Participation with Videogames

31 March 2023

SALTO Participation & Information Resource Centre (SALTO PI) believes and knows that no decision about young people should be made without their involvement. Participation is and should be an integral part of democratic governance on all levels. We create space and capacity for meaningful, inclusive and innovative participation practices in democratic society.  

During the creation of the report Digital Transformation in the Youth Sector: Mapping and Gapping of Existing Resources, we realised that the topic of virtual spaces for meaningful participation is not discussed enough. Joining hands with Michele di Paola – an innovative and experimental trainer, facilitator and youth worker who focuses on designing experiences from which learning can be extracted – we built the idea of exploring mainstream videogames where young people already spend their time. We found playful and explorative examples from Panu Räsänen and Carmine Rodi Falanga to include in this report. 

These case studies were collected and bound into a publication, Exploring Participation with Videogames, which explores the space of videogames as one where democracy can take place to approach the discussion in a gamified way. In this first release, we are exploring participation through 3 different games: Minecraft, Among Us and Civilization.  

This publication is intended to be a pilot study expanded in 2023 and 2024 to involve a wider spectrum of virtual spaces and expand to other education forms.