Design for Change With and for Children
Elisa Rubegni, Monica Landoni, Letizia Jaccheri
Abstract
Gender stereotyping in child development and education is a known issue but as yet little attention has been given to the design for change, or at least attenuate, stereotypical thinking. In our research we explored how Digital StoryTelling (DST) could support children in their awareness of negative gender stereotypes. Following a participatory design-inspired approach we involved 43 participants; children and adults (teachers and experts in the domain), in three workshops with the purpose of exploring this design space. Here, we describe this full process and its outcomes: nine concepts to guide the design of a DST tool. The workflow and toolbox used during the process are instances of an approach that could be replicated in other contexts and/or to challenge other types of stereotypes. The main contribution of our research is towards the design for change with and for children. We hope that our work will inspire members of our community to address these issues.