Playful pedagogies for participatory justice

Advancing children's rights through design education for social change

Abstract

As Jamieson (2011, p. 23) observes, prevailing beliefs about children’s reliance “on parents and other adult duty-bearers… often lead adults to see children as objects of protection rather than individuals with rights”. This adult-centric view persists even though international and national legal frameworks, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the South African Constitution, safeguard children’s right to participate in social dialogue. Against this backdrop, this paper explores how play, when embedded as a participatory and pedagogic method, can advance children’s rights and participatory justice within design education for social change. Framed within a South African tertiary design-for-development project, the study situates the inclusion of children in the design of serious games as a civic and ethical imperative. Drawing on Winn’s (2009) Design, Play and Experience framework, the case study illustrates how playful participation mediates interactions between adult design students and children as co-creators. Empirical evidence from student process documentation demonstrates that play facilitated a shift in students’ perception, from viewing children as passive users to recognising them as epistemic agents with valid voices. The findings position play as a means of redistributing voice and agency, as well as a catalyst for mutual learning within intergenerational design encounters. The paper argues that integrating play into design education extends beyond methodological innovation to advance a justice-oriented, critical pedagogy to nurture citizen designers capable of co-creating inclusive and equitable futures with, rather than for, children.