EDUCATING FOR A VIDEO GAME CULTURE VOLUME 2 KEEP ON PLAYING, KEEP ON GROWING

Video games are no longer marginal pastimes. They are a cultural,<br/>economic and social phenomenon that is able to shape how people<br/>learn, connect and participate in society. As billions engage with<br/>games daily – whether for entertainment, education or creative<br/>expression – understanding their implications for democratic life and<br/>human rights has become an urgent priority.<br/>This volume, the second in the Council of Europe’s Digital Citizenship<br/>Education series, builds on Educating for a video game culture –<br/>A map for teachers and parents (2021). While the first volume provided<br/>accessible guidance for parents and educators, this second volume<br/>seeks to deepen the discussion. It gathers leading international<br/>researchers to examine how video games intersect with the 10 domains<br/>of Digital Citizenship Education, from well-being, creativity and<br/>sustainability to gender, migration, civic engagement, consumer<br/>awareness and gaming disorder.<br/>Across its chapters, the book reveals video games as powerful<br/>environments where democratic values, rights and responsibilities are<br/>continuously negotiated. It highlights opportunities for learning and<br/>participation, but also challenges educators, policy makers and the<br/>industry to address risks, inequalities and ethical dilemmas.<br/>Accessible to researchers, practitioners, decision makers and adults<br/>with educational roles, this volume demonstrates why games matter<br/>for the future of education and citizenship in a digital society. It invites<br/>readers to move beyond stereotypes and recognise video games<br/>as laboratories for creativity, empathy and democratic engagement<br/>– central arenas where the citizens of tomorrow are already being<br/>formed.<br/><br/>Chapter 1 = Summary<br/>Alessandro Soriani, Anthony L. Brooks, Mikko Meriläinen, Alesha Serada<br/><br/>Keep on playing, keep on growing: from Volume 1 to Volume 2 …<br/><br/>When the Council of Europe published Volume 1 of Educating for a video game<br/>culture – A map for teachers and parents (Soriani 2021), that pioneering guide challenged pervasive stereotypes about games and invited educators, parents and other community stakeholders to approach video games as complex cultural artefacts worthy of critical engagement. Soriani’s book was structured around the Council of Europe’s 10 domains of digital citizenship education (DCE) (Council of Europe 2019) and provided practical tools for understanding games as sites of creativity, learning and social connection – while also recognising risks, such as harmful content, problematic monetisation or exclusionary community practices.<br/>Volume 1 was deliberately introductory. The purpose was to equip adults with awareness – to demystify gaming for those without direct experience and to encourage dialogue with young people about their digital lives – by structuring the discussion into three “worlds”.<br/>► Understanding games and gaming culture – whose intention was to provide<br/>readers (mainly adults active in the field of education, such as parents,<br/>teachers, educators, trainers) with a general overview about the medium, its<br/>genres, its history, the social dynamics and the technological evolution that<br/>together make video games so different from any other media and so complex.<br/>► Risks and challenges – where Volume 1 aimed to give a picture of the aspects<br/>of the medium that need to be observed with more attention and that may<br/>represent a risk or a challenge to the development of a digital citizen, such as<br/>disinformation, cyberbullying, violent content, representation of otherness<br/>and dynamic of exclusion.<br/>► Opportunities and educational uses – probably the most interesting part of<br/>Volume 1, this aimed to help teachers, educators and parents to understand<br/>the educational potential of the medium. Video games are a great and unique<br/>resource to foster creativity, learning, civic engagement, cultural literacy and,<br/>of course, digital citizenship education.<br/>This second volume is a significant step forward in scope and depth. While the<br/>first volume’s primary audience were educators, parents and youth workers, this<br/>volume wishes to address a wider audience, including researchers, policy makers,<br/>curriculum designers, advanced practitioners and industry professionals. It moves<br/>from awareness raising to critical scholarly engagement, offering in-depth analyses<br/>of how video game culture intersects with the aims of digital citizenship education<br/>and democratic competence development.<br/><br/>The DCE framework and its relevance to video games<br/>The Council of Europe’s digital citizenship education framework defines a digital<br/>citizen as someone who uses the internet regularly and effectively, engages actively<br/>in society and politics, and respects human rights and democracy in their online and<br/>offline interactions (Richardson and Milovidov 2019; Frau-Meigs et al. 2017). The 10<br/>domains of DCE provide the conceptual scaffolding for this vision.<br/>► Access and Inclusion – equitable participation in digital life<br/>► Learning and Creativity – using digital tools for knowledge creation and<br/>self-expression<br/>► Media and Information Literacy – critical understanding and production of media<br/>► Ethics and Empathy – acting with respect and understanding in digital spaces<br/>► Health and Well-being – balancing mental and physical health in digital<br/>engagement<br/>► ePresence and Communication – constructing and managing digital identity<br/>► Active Participation – democratic and community engagement through<br/>digital tools<br/>► Rights and Responsibilities – awareness and exercise of digital rights<br/>► Privacy and Security – protecting personal data and ensuring safety online<br/>► Consumer Awareness – navigating the economics of digital environments<br/>It is clearly important to understand how video games intersect with these domains.<br/>The intention of this publication is precisely to explore deeply the possibilities that<br/>video games can offer to critically reflect on today’s most important challenges – the<br/>same challenges that digital citizenship education (DCE) faces every day.<br/><br/>Overview of the contributions<br/>The contributions gathered in this volume span a wide range of perspectives, but they<br/>converge on the central question of how video games can be understood through<br/>the lens of digital citizenship education. Taken together, they trace a trajectory from<br/>the intimate realm of personal well-being, through the creative and social dimensions<br/>of learning and cultural participation, to the larger political, economic and structural<br/>contexts that shape digital play.<br/>In the opening chapter, Alessandro Soriani, Anthony L. Brooks, Mikko Meriläinen and<br/>Alesha Serada summarise the way Volume 2 has grown out of Volume 1 and they<br/>go on to examine digital citizenship education and its relevance to video games.<br/>Chapter 2, by Andrew Burn and Bruno de Paula, explores how the act of making<br/>games can be a powerful exercise in cultural citizenship, enabling young people to<br/>rework canonical texts and popular media into interactive forms. Their case studies<br/>show how creativity and learning are inseparable, and how games can serve as<br/>bridges between established cultural traditions and contemporary identity work.<br/>This emphasis resonates strongly with DCE’s commitment to learning, creativity<br/>and media literacy, positioning games as fertile ground for democratic access to<br/>cultural production.<br/>From this focus on the creative and educational dimensions of play, Chapter 3, by<br/>Anthony L. Brooks, situates games in relation to health and well-being, offering a<br/>historical account of their use in clinical and rehabilitative settings. His pioneering<br/>work with biofeedback-driven systems and immersive environments has exemplified<br/>how play can be harnessed not only for entertainment but also as a therapeutic<br/>intervention, reinforcing the DCE framework’s attention to balanced, responsible and<br/>inclusive engagement with technology. This perspective on well-being foregrounds<br/>the ways in which digital citizenship must include questions of care, access and<br/>human dignity – matters often sidelined in popular accounts of gaming culture.<br/>Creativity is also central to Gaia Amadori’s Chapter 4 on sustainability, which turns<br/>attention outward to global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss.<br/>By analysing titles like Alba: a wildlife adventure and large-scale educational uses<br/>of Minecraft, Amadori shows how games can model environmental stewardship,<br/>encouraging players to see their choices as part of larger ecological systems. Here,<br/>digital citizenship education extends into the realm of planetary responsibility: to be<br/>a digital citizen is also to be an environmental citizen, capable of connecting virtual<br/>play with urgent real-world concerns.<br/>The political implications of such connections are developed further in Chapter 5,<br/>which addresses migration and refuge. Through an analysis of “refugee games”<br/>such as Bury Me, My Love, Path Out and Not Tonight, Beatriz Pérez Zapata and Víctor<br/>Navarro-Remesal illustrate how interactivity can cultivate empathy, critical reflection<br/>and solidarity. These games invite players to inhabit perspectives that are often<br/>marginalised in mainstream media narratives, making them powerful tools for<br/>intercultural understanding and civic education. In this sense, digital citizenship is<br/>not only about participation within one’s own community but also about fostering<br/>transnational awareness and inclusivity.<br/>Questions of inclusion also frame Maria Ruotsalainen and Mikko Meriläinen’s Chapter 6 on gender in gaming culture. They ar