Scholarship
July 3, 2025
Women and Gaming: The Sims and 21st Century Learning
- Author
- Gee, James Paul and Elisabeth R. Hayes
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan, New York
- ISBN
- 9780230623415
- Table of Contents
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Acknowledgments
ch. 1 Introduction: Gaming Goes Beyond Gaming
ch. 2 Video Games and 21st Century Skills: Why the Sudden Worldwide Interest in Video Games and Learning?
ch. 3 The Nickel and Dimed Challenge: Designing New Forms of Socially Conscious Play
ch. 4 A Young Girl Becomes a Designer and Goes Global: Succeeding at 21st Century Skills but Not at School
ch. 5 How Passion Grows: A Retired Shut-In Goes from Making a Purple Potty to Gaining Millions of Fans
ch. 6 Passionate Affinity Groups: A New Form of Community that Works to Make People Smarter
ch. 7 A Young Girl and Her Vampire Stories: How a Teenager Competes with a Best Selling Author
ch. 8 From The Sims to Second Life: A Young Woman Transforms Her Real Life
ch. 9 What Does it All Mean: What Women and The Sims Have to Teach Us About What Education and Learning Will Look Like in the 21st Century
Notes
References
Index
Video games have become both big business and a technological focal point for new forms of learning. Today games are not just played; players engage in game design, write fan fiction, and organize themselves into collaborative learning communities. In these communities players acquire 21st century skills in technology, but, in the best of these communities, they hone these technical skills and strengthen emotional and social intelligence. The authors argue that women gamers—too often ignored as gamers—are in many respects leading the way in this trend towards design, cultural production, new learning communities, and the combination of technical proficiency with emotional and social intelligence. We draw on case studies about women who “play” the Sims, the best selling game in history, to argue a new general theory of learning for the 21st Century. (From the Publisher)