Research in co-design methods and children’s participation in design has addressed aspects such as adapting design activities to children’s interests and abilities as well as overcoming power imbalance while co-designing with adults. Less attention has been paid towards methods for empathic design with children, which consider children’s emotions in design. Role play, as a co-design method for empathic design, has been studied mostly with adult participants and in a Western cultural context. We conducted four role-play sessions with children in rural India, to explore how they perceive and understand an empathy- and emotions-focused role-play and what lessons, challenges and opportunities can be identified which may inform research in interaction design and children. We observed a strongly ingrained gender and teacher-student hierarchy dynamic, which led to challenges with engagement and potential biases on what children understood and shared with us. We suggest further exploring how co-design methods for empathy, and especially expanding such methodological investigations to diverse cultural contexts.

Establishing good practices for promoting Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) in schools helps children acquire important life skills. SEL has a growing focus in schools from Western countries. However, there is a lack of evidence on SEL practices in the Global South, especially in India. This paper presents an exploratory study to explore the current status of SEL experiences of rural Indian public school teachers through the conceptual lens of TPACK. It covers qualitative data collected from 3 public rural schools by conducting focus groups with 24 teachers. Using a thematic analysis, we identified a gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application of SEL among teachers. Their SEL understanding and practices were intuitive rather than consistent or aligned with research-based frameworks. Future works suggest further exploring training teachers with a holistic vision of SEL education, e.g., incorporating TPACK and CASEL components.

Empathy games are a promising yet new research avenue that explores how to design empathic game experiences that would help children to understand and address the emotions of other people. Research in this field was primarily done in the USA and there is a research gap in understanding how empathy game design can apply and differ from the contexts of other countries. Our study replicated a study earlier conducted in the USA, aiming to explore the dynamic of the PD process, and identify specifics and challenges for PD methodology related to empathy and game design in the Indian context. We conducted a series of participatory design (PD) sessions with 18 Indian children between 7 and 11 years old. This paper reports our preliminary findings, including the following: (1) it might be challenging for Indian children to discuss and design for empathy and emotions-related topics, (2) using the English language can be a barrier while working with Indian children of 8 years old and younger, (3) cultural context affects roles children play in the design process. This paper contributes insights on identifying areas for further methodological work in PD for the Indian context.

This paper discusses applications of the Social Constructivist learning approach in the design of virtual reality (VR) games to promote empathy in children. Early Childhood Development (ECD) research provides guidelines for engaging children in empathy development activities (i.e., learning through interactions, reflective activities, role-taking, dialogical inquiry), which are grounded in Social Constructivist Learning Theory. VR researchers suggest the affordances of VR technologies to create immersive learning experiences for empathy development in children, but this research is still at its early stages. This research aimed to explore ways to engage children in empathetic interactions with VR characters based on social constructivist principles. We developed a VR Empathy Game and conducted a qualitative study with 14 children (6-9 years old). Based on the thematic analysis, we found gender differences between the gameplay experiences of girls and boys. Girls were more interested in interacting with VR characters and, as a result, spent more time than boys asking them questions, listening to them, and using the role-taking features to explore the game world from the characters’ perspective. We suggest a follow-up research study exploring ways to better scaffold empathetic experiences for boys.

This article explores how computer games can be developed to engage young children in critical discussions of cultural awareness and empathy in or out of classrooms. In order to answer the question "How can we expose children to different cultures and help them develop cultural awareness and empathy?" we are building a computer game for young children (5 to 7 years old) based on a Russian traditional fairy tale "The Magic Swan Geese." As a framework for designing the game, we draw on research on computer game design, early childhood development, and fairy tales literature. Through creating a pilot game we will test the feasibility of translating the theory of the design framework for into practice. This paper presents the design framework, the design of the game, and data from this on-going research and development project.