Teacher Positions and Play Qualities in Esports at Specially Planned Youth Education Programmes

This paper examines how teacher roles influence gaming activities within esports programmes offered at Specially Planned Youth Education (STU) in Denmark. The STU programmes cater to young people with developmental, cognitive, and psychosocial challenges, who are unable to participate in mainstream education. This paper introduces play theory as a valuable framework for understanding how teachers facilitate gaming, especially in the context of structured esports programmes. Traditional approaches to game-based learning often focus on goals, achievement, and knowledge transfer. In contrast, this study emphasizes the affective and sensory dimensions of gameplay using concepts from play theory. Our study is based on two years of fieldwork at three different institutions. We collected data through observations, interviews, and video recordings. The empirical data is based on observations and presented in the form of three detailed narrative vignettes, each illustrating a specific teacher-student dynamic while playing either League of Legends or Counter-Strike. These narratives demonstrate how changes in teacher positioning influence the emotional flow of the gaming environment, with shifts between moods such as devotion, intensity, tension, and euphoria. In the context of STU institutions, we find that teacher presence plays a crucial role in helping students regulate emotions, stay engaged, and connect socially. A teacher can help calm a high-intensity situation or raise the energy and focus of a group through timely intervention. These dynamics are especially significant for students with special needs, who may rely more on adult cues and support to navigate social situations. Our findings highlight that successful facilitation of esports in special education settings depends on teachers’ ability to read and respond to the emotional and sensory dynamics of play. Teachers who can shift roles fluidly not only affect game-related performance but also contribute significantly to the social and affective experience of the students. This paper provides new insights into the potential of esports as an educational tool and proposes that play theory offers a valuable framework for understanding game-based learning beyond a narrow focus on learning outcomes.