E–Learning
Volume 5 Number 2 2008
www.wwwords.co.uk/ELEA
Gameplay, Gender, and Socioeconomic
Status in Two American High Schools
GILLIAN ‘GUS’ ANDREWS
Teachers College, Columbia University, USA
ABSTRACT In a study of 195 high school students, differences by gender and socioeconomic status
(SES) were found in their gaming habits and game literacy practices. Low-SES students generally
preferred console video games, particularly those in the sports genre. They expressed frustration with
the controls involved in long-form computer games such as those in the role-playing and first-personshooter genres. Girls overwhelmingly rejected being identified as gamers, though they actively
engaged in playing casual games in isolation. Very few students in any demographic group were found
to participate in the game literacy practices described by Steinkuehler, and high-SES males were most
likely to engage in these practices. These findings suggest cautious further research when generalizing
from recommendations of how to harness games for education, such as those presented by Gee. Also,
it appears that more attention to sports-themed digital games is warranted, particularly for those
interested in reaching low-SES populations, as both boys and girls at the low-SES school played these
games.
Introduction
Recent years have seen a great deal of interest in the utility of digital games for teaching, with
schools of education and technology contributing a range of approaches to making use of games. In
the field of new literacies, scholars have described the ways games and their player communities
teach game content, and have suggested that harnessing this power for teaching could lead to
highly engaging, motivating education (Gee, 2003, 2004; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003; Steinkuehler,
2004).
Within the research on youth and gaming, there has been some attention to racial, national,
and gender differences in play habits, which I will address shortly (Michaels, 1993; McNamee, 1998;
Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 1998; Suess et al, 1998; Lenhart et al, 2001; Bickerton, 2003; Squire et
al, 2004). This joins a large body of research and theory on differences in play habits which are not
attributed to demographic patterns. Caillois (2001), for example, breaks down games into play
types which offer the appeal of conflict (agon), chance (alia), vertigo (ilinx), or mimicry (mimesis),
while Yee (2005) sees achievement, social interaction, and immersion as motivating to different
players.
However, there has been little attention to class or socioeconomic status (SES) and game-play
differences, either in the literature on gaming or the literature on the Digital Divide. In a panel she
moderated on race, class, and gender in game-like ‘virtual environments’ in 2004, Kafai noted that
the panelists had done an excellent job of addressing gender and some work addressing race, but
had not even begun to consider the impact of class on game play . She called for further work on
the subject. This article aims to fill the socioeconomic gap in this literature.
To investigate the game-play differences between students of high SES and low SES, I
developed two surveys and administered them to the populations of two high schools. One high
school was a private college preparatory school in suburban Connecticut; the other was a public
alternative school in Manhattan which qualifies for Title 1 funding. The results of these surveys
199
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/elea.2008.5.2.199
Gillian Andrews
were analyzed to provide a broad overview of the situation, and also used to identify a handful of
‘average’ students to question further. These students participated in pile sorts of games and
individual interviews. Results were analyzed both statistically and using a grounded qualitative
approach.
The findings of this study indicate that low-SES and high-SES students engage in distinct
practices in game-play, particularly when it comes to choice in genre and platform. Gender
remained a startlingly distinct variable as well. Game-related literacy practices were found to be
practiced by a very small number of students, mostly high-SES white males. In general, the findings
of this study suggest careful attention to student preferences when developing educational games,
as well as rethinking the direction of research on games and literacies.
Definitions
Throughout this research I make a distinction between video games played on consoles like the
PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and computer games, played on PCs which are also used for work,
sending email, or surfing the Internet. This was to try to account for the findings of literature on
the Digital Divide, as well as digital use-pattern literature like that presented by Suess et al (1998). It
is, of course, also a material divide in the games industry, and has long been a bone of contention
among heavy game-players, who argue over whether using a keyboard or controller, console or
desktop makes for a better gaming experience. Wherever I was not specifically asking players about
computer games or video games in my surveys or interviews, I included both types of gaming in
the wording, or else said ‘playing games’ for shorthand.
I also make a distinction between casual games (puzzle, word, card, and other games which
one can pick up and put down with a minimum of effort, and which are often also played on
portable game devices and cell phones) and other computer games in which play evolves over a
long period of time, which revolve around a storyline or complex simulation, and which tend to
have more complicated controls. However, I do not consider ‘computer games’ and ‘online games’
to necessarily be separate, as there are many computer games, casual and otherwise, which feature
both offline and online play modes. The distinction I make is whether these games are actually
being played online. The populations playing these types of games tend to differ greatly, as this
study will demonstrate later.
Games and Education
Much of the work on gaming and new literacies has been theoretical or suggestive. Such is the
work of James Paul Gee. In his book What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy,
Gee describes the ‘how to play’ tutorials included in most games (Gee, 2003). Through a series of
examples taken from commercial, non-educational games, he suggests that schools could learn
from the ways games and their tutorials scaffold new players, give just-in-time advice, and provide
identities for players to try out.
In a second book, Gee suggests that popular culture texts like games can at times do far better
at introducing young people to ways of knowing and being than schools do when they are trying to
introduce kids to the worlds of scientists, historians, engineers, and other professionals (Gee, 2004).
This echoes earlier observations made by Turkle (1995) on the ways computer spaces (MUDs and
MOOs in her case) provide opportunities to try on new identities in a space of ‘psychosocial
moratorium’. Prensky (2002) similarly posits that the differences between physics, biology, and
human behavior in real life and in game worlds may cause players to reflect on these systems,
developing deeper understanding of everyday situations.
If these conjectures are true, we might expect avid game players to be more able to try on
different ways of being, or prepared to take on ways of knowing in school which they have already
played with at home. However, while Turkle’s (1995) work is grounded in a large body of data, it is
worth keeping in mind that Gee’s and Prensky’s early work on games has been speculative. Both
authors make inferences about the potential of video games from informal observations of players,
personal experience, and literature on cognition and social relations which may not play out, so to
speak, in the everyday experience of game players.
200
Gameplay, Gender and Socioeconomic Status
Others’ work has been more concrete, exploring students’ engagement with these games on a
case-by-case basis or through ethnography. Steinkuehler’s work on the massively multiplayer
online role-playing game (MMORPG) Lineage is an example of the latter. Steinkuehler found
Lineage to be a site of complex, authentic, peer-collaborative learning which offered challenges
exemplifying Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978).
Steinkuehler’s work describes the social networks surrounding these games, in which players work
out complex mathematical models in spreadsheets, teach each other ways to maximize their
income, and write literary texts for fun, contrasting these games, as Gee does, against schools,
where such motivation to complete similar activities is lacking.
Some scholars suggest that commercial, non-educational games on their own may provide
players with skills and tools which may give them an advantage in the classroom. Squire (2004) has
demonstrated that students playing the historical simulation Civilization III developed hypotheses
about historical processes which engaged them in history far more than the mere memorization of
facts and dates would. Students in his study sought out textbook information on history as a means
to ‘cheat’ at the game.
Williamson & Facer’s (2004) investigation of peer gaming networks suggests that as children
read and discuss gaming magazines and websites, they may be developing ‘game expert’ identities
which develop cultural capital in and of themselves. Magazines and websites introduce industry
ways of thinking about technical elements of games like lighting, music, and level design.
Williamson & Facer found students critically reviewing games in light of what they had read, using
the terms found in these texts. They saw students developing this critical understanding as part of a
broader conception of how technical and social networks function in the real world. This
conception included awareness of the roles of game-industry professionals, amateur enthusiasts,
vendors, and their peers. They found this social and technical network understanding lacking in
classrooms, which were divorced from realistic practices.
Leander & Lovvorn (2006) followed a single student between a classroom and his
involvement in the MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies. Comparing the literacy work the student did
surrounding the game with his teacher’s assignments, this study found his game literacies much
richer than the notecards and paper the student produced for a history project on demand.
Lankshear & Knobel also follow a single student’s literacy practices in and out of class
(Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). At the end of their comparison, they worry, as does Gee, that inschool uses of technology fail to jive with those which students develop outside of class. They
believe the potential for conflict between students’ practices and the literacy practices approved by
teachers extends beyond technology lessons, potentially hindering the success of English classes as
well.
This literature indicates that gaming practices matter – both when teachers bring games into
class and when students play outside of class. Games are motivating, help shape student identities,
and can structure effective learning. In order to be sure all students are reached by game-based
learning, then, it behooves us to understand existing differences in the ways different groups of
students play games.
Gender
Gender remains a much-discussed topic at both academic and industry conferences on gaming.
Both industry and academic writing suggests that girls approach video and computer games in a
very different way from boys. A divide in boys’ and girls’ play practices has existed for some time;
imbalances were found in a study on arcade game play in the early 1990s.
Looking at a younger female population, Subrahmanyam & Greenfield’s (1998) review of the
literature presented in Cassell & Jenkins’s edited collection, From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, details a
range of differences that have been found in girls’ and boys’ preferences. The games industry, they
argue, has often assumed that girls’ dislike of violence indicates a dislike of any action at all.
However, their detailed review documents evidence that girls are perfectly happy to engage in
games that involve adventure, creativity, skill, diplomacy, or manipulation, particularly if these are
housed in settings which are collaborative and open-ended, and if they are perceived as having an
impact on a realistic situation.
201
Gillian Andrews
Kafai has done extensive research on gender and games over the years (see
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kafai). Most recently (1998), she has looked at game-playrelated practices in a science-based website for girls. Her earlier research focusing on boys and girls
creating games, rather than playing them, found a number of differences. Girls tended to develop
‘teaching’ games, while boys developed adventure or sport/skill games more like the usual
commercial entertainment fare; she attributed this to the fact that learning games are more often
targeted at girls. While boys developed fantasy settings, girls more often stuck to realistic settings,
which Kafai thought had much to do with non-digital gendered play spaces usually offered to
children.
Other broad surveys have noted other dramatic differences in young women’s and men’s
approaches to game-play. The Pew Internet Project yielded mixed results; while its 2003 paper on
college students (Bickerton, 2003) found that more women than men of this age play games on the
computer (60% vs. 40%), its 2001 paper (Lenhart et al, 2001) on teens had indicated that 57% of
teenaged girls, as opposed to 75% of boys, had downloaded or played a game online. Game
industry research supports their findings about women and computer games: a white paper in 2004
suggested that middle-aged women make up a ‘silent majority’ of gamers, playing card, word, and
puzzle games online, often in social groups.
McNamee’s (1998) findings suggest a relation of gendered space to game-play. She observed
that boys often ‘police’ the computers and game consoles in their homes, protecting them from
siblings but especially sisters. McNamee found that much of the time, in families with male and
female children, computers and game consoles ended up in the rooms of boys, making access even
harder for girls. This simple access issue may contribute to the difference in boys’ and girls’ gaming
habits, much in the way that access shapes the technology experience of low-SES children.
Gaming, Access and the Digital Divide
Literature on the so-called Digital Divide – the disparity in technology skills, access, and resources
between the rich and poor – has not focused in the main on gaming. When touching on the topic
of SES while describing differences in children’s game cultures, for example, Williamson & Facer
(2004) only discuss the ways low-income parents kept their children out of friends’ game-sharing
networks for financial reasons. However, these peripheral results should be noted as having a
possible influence on children’s game-play habits, as well as patterns which may make it clearer
whether differences in game-playing habits are attributable to differences between the games
themselves, or whether they are part of a larger pattern of differences in use, access, and resources.
Some have suggested that today, computer access itself is less often the cause of differences
between the rich and poor than are other factors. In 1999, 97% of US kindergarteners had access to
a computer either at home or at school; the national average for student-computer ratios in schools
as of 2004 was 1:5. As of 2004, Nielsen/NetRatings estimated that 75% of Americans are able to
access the Internet from their homes. With this kind of pervasiveness, disparities are increasingly a
matter of quality of the skills low-income users have, the ways they use technology, and who they
communicate with using technology. However, it is also worth keeping in mind the quality and
frequency of access; some families may have more computers at home per capita, and some may
have poorer-quality Internet access.
Looking at use patterns, Robinson et al (2003) found that in general, level of educational
achievement was a better predictor of how a person would use technology than income. They
found that males of lower education and income levels, under age 35 and unmarried, were more
likely to use the Internet for game playing than other groups. They did not find any correlation of
this practice with race.
Additionally, the study found that more-educated people claim to have about five times as
many social contacts than those who only completed high school. The college-educated were also
twice as likely to contact work or business associates by email. This likely reflects the fact that lesseducated people also had less email access overall. This finding seems to recommend attention to
social configurations of game-play: do low-SES gamers and high-SES gamers seem to have the
same patterns of playing with other friends, with classmates, or with strangers? Would solitary play
reflect a lack of access to technology?
202
Gameplay, Gender and Socioeconomic Status
Looking at the ostensibly more privileged side of the digital divide – students with greater
cultural capital – the Pew Internet Project found that college students spent more time on
computer games and online games than on console video games. Thirty-seven percent of college
students said they had spent once a week or more often; 31% said they played online games that
often, and only 27% said they had played video games that often. Clearly, attention to both the
material and social cultures of play is crucial.
Hypotheses
In light of this assembled literature, I went into this study with the following working hypotheses.
Should it prove to be the case that low- and high-SES players (and boys and girls) play differently,
their preferred ways of gaming could either ameliorate or add to other digital divide problems. I
expected this might happen in a couple of ways: either the gaming preferences of different groups
of students might coincide with each other, or conflict with each other. If they were different, this
might leave some groups of students with less cultural capital. If they were similar, this might give
otherwise disadvantaged game players a leg up in developing relationships across class or gender
barriers.
Population and Methods
Two principals agreed to a survey of their high schools for this study. The first, Miranda Nell High
School [1], is a public high school in New York City, serving grades 9 through 12. Between 350 and
400 students were enrolled at the time of the survey; 162 of those students responded to the initial
survey.[2] Miranda Nell qualifies as a Title I school, meaning over 40% of students qualify for
subsidized lunches. While Miranda Nell is identified as an alternative school, serving students who
were not succeeding in other schools, the principal has some leeway in selecting and inviting
students to the school. The school reports a graduation rate of approximately 60%. The school
participates in a national curriculum reform program focusing on small class sizes and student
participation.
The second school, Tarnover Academy, is a private college preparatory school in suburban
Connecticut, serving kindergarteners through high school. The high school (again, grades 9-12) had
163 enrolled students at the time of the study; 133 of those students responded to the initial survey.
Tarnover has been in operation for over 100 years. Though it is a private school, its principal
reports that as many as half of its students receive some sort of financial assistance to attend the
school.
For the purposes of this study, ‘high SES’ and ‘low SES’ were defined by federal census
poverty guidelines. The census defines a high-poverty zip code as one in which over 9.2% of
households – the national average – live below the poverty line.
Students at both schools were coded as living in high-SES or low-SES neighborhoods based
on their reports of zip code. By this measure, about 72% of students at Tarnover lived in a high-SES
zip. An equivalent percentage – about 73% – of students at Miranda Nell lived in a low-SES zip.
Further, 64% of the respondents from Miranda Nell lived in zips where the percentage of families
living below the poverty line was more than double the national average. Conversely, 59% of
respondents from Tarnover lived in zips where the percentage of families living below the poverty
line was less than half of the national average.[3]
In the analysis in this article, I only included records from high-SES students at Tarnover and
low-SES students at Miranda Nell. This left me with an N of 95 at Tarnover and an N of 119 at
Miranda Nell from the first survey.
Two surveys were administered by teachers in school advisory groups (homeroom classes).
The first survey collected basic demographic information about the students. It also asked multiplechoice questions about their computer and video game usage and ownership, with whom and
where they played, and what access they had to the Internet, and asked them to indicate on fourpoint Likert scales much they enjoyed computer and video games. It also asked who they would
look for in their classes for advice on games. Finally, it asked whether they would be willing to
participate in further research.
203
Gillian Andrews
A second survey was administered only to students who agreed on the first survey that they
would participate further.[4] This group included 52 students at Miranda Nell, and 66 students at
Tarnover. The second survey consisted of questions about the literacy practices students engaged
in related to the games they played. Students were specifically asked about reading game-related
magazines, books, and websites, and about contributing, viewing, and creating multimedia
materials in online communities.
Based on information from the first two surveys, I identified a smaller group of representative
students at each school to follow up with in pile sorts and interviews. These were chosen from the
group of students who agreed to continue in the study. My aim was to find students of both
genders from each group who represented ‘average’ students from their schools – not heavy
players or those considered expert ‘gamers’ by their peers. Criteria for selecting this group were:
• Students at Tarnover from high-income neighborhoods; students at Miranda Nell from lowincome neighborhoods
• Reported number of hours of computer and video games they had played in the last week was
near the average for their gender and SES group at their school
• Reported playing, in the past year, the game genres most popular with their gender and SES
group at their school
• Did not report playing, in the past year, the game genres least popular with their gender and SES
group at their school
• Reported preference for computer or video games was close to the average for their gender and
SES group at their school
Pile sorts are intended to give the researcher a sense of the organic categories a culture uses to
define themes, people, or other beings or inanimate objects. To that end, I gave the students a
selection of game boxes (the games were not inside, in order to discourage students from making
fruitless requests to play the games right away!) and gave them the following abstract guidelines for
sorting, in four successive rounds:
• Round 1: Which of these have you seen(/heard of) and not seen(/heard of) before?
• Round 2: Sort the games into the piles ‘which make the most sense to you’.
• Round 3: (If they did not develop these criteria on the previous question.) Sort the games into
piles based on what kinds of games these are.
• Round 4: (If they did not develop these criteria on a previous question.) Sort the games into piles
based on what kind of people would play them.
All games were used in each round of sorting, even if students indicated in the first round they had
not seen those games before. If students looked for guidance on how to sort past the initial prompt,
I reminded them I was most interested in knowing what they thought, and they should develop
categories themselves. I also told them it was fine to move games once they had established piles,
or to identify games which could be put in more than one pile. When students switched piles,
looked confused, paused, or otherwise gave an indication they were working on a decision, I
prompted them to vocalize what they were thinking.
After students had completed a pile sort, I asked them for a more detailed explanation of why
they had chosen those categories. I videotaped pile-sorting sessions in order to gather more
narrative responses from participants, as well as keeping written records of which games went into
each pile.
In all, I interviewed and did pile sorts with three males (Davon, George, and Eduardo) and
three females (Marianne, Amanda, and Shameka) at Miranda Nell, and four males (Robert, Liam,
Janak, and Dave) and three females (Lacey, Brecken, and Lauren) at Tarnover.[5] Pile sorts were
conducted individually, with dyads, and with triads, because of scheduling issues at both schools
(which also accounted for the imbalance of numbers). In two cases – with a group of two girls at
Miranda Nell, and with a group of three boys at Tarnover – a student visitor sat in on pile sorts,
arriving late or leaving early but making some comments on the pile-sort process. All interviews
were conducted individually. I recorded interviews on videotape or audiodisc, supplemented with
extensive note-taking. As one student’s recording was lost due to mechanical error, these notes
helped reconstruct the data.
Once data were collected, simple frequency counts and crosstabs were run on numerical and
scalar data from the surveys. I charted commonalities in students’ classifications of games during
204
Gameplay, Gender and Socioeconomic Status
the pile sort. I then used some genre categories which emerged from the pile sort and interviews –
sports games, fantasy games, casual games, and computer games – to guide another round of
analysis. I also attempted to determine whether genre preference influenced student participation
in online game-related literacy practices.
Findings
Platform Patterns
Video games
Computer games
Tarnover
(females)
Miranda Nell
(females)
Tarnover
(males)
Miranda Nell
(males)
Key:
4. A lot
3. Some
2. Not much
1. Not at all
Figure 1. ‘How much do you like these games?’ Likert scales, percentage of students by gender and SES
205
Gillian Andrews
The initial surveys yielded distinct patterns of use and preference when it came to console (e.g.
Xbox, Nintendo, PlayStation) versus computer use for gaming. On Likert scales where they were
asked to rate how much they liked certain games, low-SES students expressed substantially less
interest in computer games than in console video games. Just over 60% of high-income students
reported they liked computer games ‘some’ or ‘a lot’, while about the same number of low-income
students reported they liked them ‘not much’ or ‘not at all’. Low-SES students felt more strongly
about this dislike, as well; 27.59% said they liked computer games ‘not at all’, while about half that
many (13.83%) high-SES students disliked computer games that strongly. By gender, 29.4% of lowSES males, compared to only a quarter of low-SES females, expressed strong dislike for computer
games (Figure 1).
Most students seemed familiar and comfortable with games on portable devices. Over 70% of
students at both schools said they had played games on cell phones, with no difference by
SES. Low-SES students, meanwhile, were much more likely than their high-SES counterparts to
have played games on a PlayStation Portable. Anecdotally, girls in the interviews and on surveys
referred fondly to having played games on GameBoys at a younger age.
Genre Patterns
When the pile sorts and interviews revealed that students placed fantasy and sport, computer and
casual games in distinct categories, and that they associated particular groups of people with these
games, I ran analyses by these categories on the initial survey data to see whether play habits and
literacy practices differed along these lines.[6]
I classified by these genres the games students indicated that they had played most over the
past year. When a student reported that they had played a game not included in the pile sort, I used
the genre attributed to the game on the popular website Gamespot.com to sort games into these
categories. Through this process, I classified students by whether they had or had not spent time
playing a sports, fantasy, casual, or computer game over the past year, and ran crosstabs.
Grouping by genre the top three games students said they had played over the past year,
there were significant differences between students of different SES and different genders (Table I).
Casual games
Computer games (non-casual)
Fantasy games
Sports games
High-SES
(Tarnover)
%
22.6
19.4
16.1
19.4
Casual games
Computer games (non-casual)
Fantasy games
Sports games
Boys (both
schools)
%
4.5
14.3
16.1
47.3
Girls (both
schools)
%
29.7
7.7
5.5
15.4
χ
df
p
6.007
11.001
3.934
14.462
1
1
1
1
.014
.001
.047
.000
2
Low-SES
(Miranda Nell)
%
10.0
4.5
7.3
44.5
χ
2
24.023
2.173
5.591
23.159
df
p
1
1
1
1
.000
.140
.018
.000
Table I. Significant differences in the types of games played
by low- and high-SES students, and by gender (n = 214).
Sports was the only genre which low-SES students were more likely to have played than high-SES
students. High-SES students were more likely to report playing the other genres as one of their top
three games played over the past year. All in all, high-SES boys were more likely to play non-casual
computer games than other groups.
About twice as many boys as girls reported playing non-casual computer games, but because
the number of computer-game players was small (16 males, 7 females), this difference did not
register as significant. The number of students at Miranda Nell playing non-casual computer games
was small; low-income students were significantly less likely to report these games as one of the
206
Gameplay, Gender and Socioeconomic Status
top three they had played in the past year (19.4% of high-SES students vs. 4.5% of low-SES
students, n=214, x2 11.001, df 1, P = .001).
In the pile sorts and interviews, low-income students explained that non-casual computer
games were ‘too complicated’ or ‘confusing’:
Interviewer: What is it about computer games? Like, why are they – why are they different?
Davon: Like, people, like …
George: People do other things on they computer.
Davon: Basically, you want the TV, you want to control, but you play it on the computer, you
gotta (pokes at table)
George: It’s hard.
Davon: You got certain buttons you gotta put.
They specifically cited a dislike of using complicated keyboard controls to play (‘it’s hard’, ‘certain
buttons’), echoing a complaint long voiced by console game fans when arguing their games are
superior to computer games. Davon and George also seemed to want to treat the computer as a
machine separate from gaming (‘people do other things on they computer’).
This critique of computer games was mostly levelled at simulations, role-playing and strategy
games, and first-person shooters, however. It did not seem to apply to ‘casual’ puzzle, card, arcade,
and word games on the computer. Casual games tend to have simpler, more intuitive controls.
Casual games were the one genre which more girls than boys said they’d spent most of their
gaming time playing in the past year. Low-SES females were, notably, more likely than high-SES
females to report having played a sports game (27.3% vs. 4.3%, n=91, x2 9.249, df 1, P = .002).
In general, pile sorters at both schools classified card, puzzle, arcade-style (think Pac-Man) and
other casual games as games for ‘everyone’, from young children through to their parents and
grandparents. The boys at Miranda Nell admitted they would play these games, but claimed they
would not choose them unless their consoles were broken or they were bored for other reasons.
Girls generally listed casual games as the games they had played most over the past year.
High-SES females were about twice as likely to report a casual game – these games are associated
with computers and handhelds – in their top three choices over the past year than low-SES females
(40.4% vs. 18.2%, n=91, x2 5.388, df 1, P = .020). Girls at both schools identified strongly with
casual games. This is not altogether surprising; it suggests lifelong patterns contributing to the rise
of middle-aged women as a formidable audience for puzzle, card, and arcade games.
Given that students of different genders and SESs appear to be playing different games, one
might expect to find these different groups to engage in differing game practices surrounding their
play. I will delve into this possibility in the next few sections.
Social Patterns in Play
In line with the findings of digital-divide literature, low-SES males appeared to engage in less social
online play than high-SES males. Significantly fewer low-SES males than high-SES males reported
playing online with friends, online with strangers, or at net cafés/LAN parlors (see Table II). Even
compared their overall tendency not to play with others, low-SES males were far less likely to
report playing with strangers online. Meanwhile, more high-SES males reported playing with
strangers online than with friends online.
With one friend online
With bunch of friends online
With strangers online
At a LAN parlor/net café
High-SES
%
37.0
39.1
50.0
15.2
Low-SES
%
16.2
17.6
10.3%
4.3
Table II. Significant differences in the social patterns
of gaming among low- and high-SES males (n = 114).
207
χ
df
p
6.395
6.531
22.309
4.211
1
1
1
1
.011
.011
.000
.040
2
Gillian Andrews
For girls, gaming seems to be a solitary activity. In interviews at both schools, girls claimed to be
unaware of other girls’ gaming habits. They were also significantly less likely to report playing with
anyone else, or in locations outside their own homes (Table III). Contrast these findings to the
popular image of teenage girls as heavy users of social technology; they may be spending time on
MySpace or IM talking with friends, but when it comes to gaming, they are playing alone.
% girls
(n = 98)
36.7
% boys
(n = 114)
57.9
χ2
df
p
9.452
1
.002
With 1 friend online
4.1
24.6
17.246
1
.000
With many friends in person
28.6
57.9
18.360
1
.000
With many friends online
4.1
26.3
19.347
1
.000
With strangers in person (arcade, net café)
1.0
6.1
3.804
1
.051
With strangers online
3.1
26.3
21.683
1
.000
With 1 friend in person
At a friend’s house
37.8
58.6
9.254
1
.002
At a relative’s house
23.5
40.5
7.014
1
.008
At a game store
2.0
17.2
13.307
1
.000
Table III. Where and with whom do girls and boys play? (n = 214).
Related Literacy Practices, Outside of Gaming Itself
A very small percentage of students at either school indicated they engaged in any reading, writing,
seeking or posting images, or participating in online websites related to gaming (see Table IV).
Fewer students had been involved in producing online texts related to games such as reviews,
comments, art, screenshots, and movies than had been reading or viewing these texts.
Tarnover (n = 36)
Male
Female
Total
View screenshots
14
2
16
Miranda Nell (n = 17)
Read magazines
Male
Female
Total
7
1
8
Read magazines
12
0
12
Use walkthroughs
5
1
6
Use walkthroughs
11
1
12
View screenshots
5
0
5
Read comments
6
4
10
Post scores
2
1
3
Read reviews
5
3
8
Read comments
2
1
3
View movies
6
1
7
Read reviews
3
0
3
Read books
2
3
5
View movies
3
0
3
Take surveys
2
1
3
Take surveys
2
0
2
View art
1
2
3
Post comments
0
1
1
Post comments
2
0
2
Post movies
1
0
1
Post scores
0
2
2
Team up
1
0
1
Post art
1
0
1
View art
1
0
1
Post screenshots
1
0
1
Post art
0
0
0
Team up
0
1
1
Post reviews
0
0
0
Post reviews
0
0
0
Post screenshots
0
0
0
Post movies
0
0
0
Read books
0
0
0
Table IV. Number and percent of students at each school saying on the
econd survey that they had engaged in game-related literacy practices.
Some groups appeared proportionally more likely to participate in literacy practices related to
games. Students who reported spending a lot of time on a non-casual computer game in the past
year were significantly more likely to say that they had read comments, used walkthroughs, or
208
Gameplay, Gender and Socioeconomic Status
viewed screenshots related to games online, compared with students who had not. Students who
did not report playing computer games were less likely to have engaged in these activities. It is
worth considering the interaction of SES with these results; recall that low-income students were
less likely to have spent time playing a computer game in the past year.
Walkthroughs – written or written/illustrated instructions on optimal ways to beat a game or
level which can be found on a number of game-related websites – were one of the most significant
markers of difference between groups’ literacy practices. Not only were males and computer game
players more likely to have used them than females, sports game players, and those who did not
play computer games, but students who reported spending time on fantasy games were also more
likely to have used them. Viewing screenshots and reading magazines also appeared to be more
highly related to some groups of gamers than others.
The correlation of computer games with walkthroughs does make sense in light of the fact
that walkthroughs are probably more useful to players of computer and fantasy games. A highly
structured fantasy ‘quest’ story lends itself to narrative instructions better than do casual or sports
games, which involve more procedural play that is likely to change from one play session to the
next. And seeking walkthroughs is likely more convenient to computer-game players, as they
probably do not need to go to another machine to look for walkthroughs on the Internet.
More males than females said they had visited websites about games (64.5% of males vs.
45.5% of females), though this finding was not significant (n=62, x2 1.903, df 1, p = .168). This
might be attributable to the fact that many casual games can be accessed on websites. In general,
almost all game-related literacy practices showed more male participants than females, but these
differences were only significant (p < .01) for reading magazines about games, using walkthroughs,
or ‘surfing’ websites about games.
These differences raise questions about player communities. In seeking out walkthroughs and
in reading magazines, do computer gamers find themselves participating in different communities
of practice than gamers who do not? How do walkthroughs function as an artifact in the social life
of gaming, and what do more isolated game players – girls and low-income youth – miss out on if
they are not using these media and talking about them with other game players? Which players are
aware that walkthroughs exist? How do the websites that different student groups visit in their
game-related activity contribute to divides between different communities? While this study cannot
yet answer these questions, it appears we cannot treat all players as if they have access to the same
social capital when it comes to literacies surrounding games.
Discussion
This study makes it clear that students’ gaming habits should not be considered monolithic. Their
genre and platform preferences, social play groups, and literacy practices are often divided along
gender and socioeconomic lines. When we study, develop, or teach with games, we have to
account for these very real differences.
The digital divide appears to still manifest when it comes to computer games. This may be in
part because of the quality of computers and Internet connections to which low-SES students have
access, and in part because of a discomfort with keyboard-based interfaces. More research on the
nature of these students’ distaste for computer games is probably in order.
It is worth paying attention to indications that computer-game players are more likely to
engage in online literacy activities, and that high-income males seem to be more likely than other
groups to play these games and to play with others. Lacking the ability to join online games may
seem trivial, but some tech-industry magazines have been calling World of Warcraft ‘the new golf’ –
the recreational pastime where high-tech elites fraternize, relax, and build business contacts, much
as they might once have at a country club. If this holds true, and if women and low-income
students are as much less likely to play socially as this study indicates, we can expect the play spaces
of power to remain segregated.
There are research reasons for attending to this inequality in MMORPG gaming, as well. To
date, fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as World
of Warcraft, Lineage, and Star Wars Galaxies have figured prominently in research on games and
literacy practices. All of these are computer games which require computer play, a heavy time
209
Gillian Andrews
investment, and a taste for fantasy content; they also require a great deal of social play, often with
strangers, to advance to high levels of the game.
It is not wholly surprising that many students do not play these games. Doing the math, it
appears likely that no more than an average of 16 students in every North American high school
play World of Warcraft, one of the most popular MMORPGs.[7] In light of this study, scholars
should be cautious when presented with research regarding young people’s participation in
MMORPGs. While these games are gaining in popularity, this form of gaming may still be
considered marginal by many students. It seems important to reconsider the weight placed on
studies of MMORPGs considering these numbers, student preferences expressed in this study, and
the fact that average students at the low-SES school did not play these games. In pile sorts, in fact,
low-SES students claimed not to recognize these games or know anyone who played them.
Because of these demographically disproportionate play patterns, we should not be quick to
assume that players of casual computer games and console video games are as accustomed to
literacy practices related to their favorite games as are their classmates who play complicated, longform computer games. We may not find they are spending time discussing strategy in forums,
assisting strangers with their quests, joining extra-local teams, or writing poetry about their
characters’ exploits, despite Steinkuehler’s (2004) detailed observations of these practices and her
suggestion that the newfound popularity of MMORPGs has made these practices widespread.
Beyond MMORPGs and literacy practices, this study puts the basis of other scholars’
conjectures and observations in question. I deliberately included a number of the games Gee
discusses in the pile sorts, even though few of the students had mentioned these games when
naming the top three games they had spent time on over the past year. When asked to identify
games they had seen before, these high school students indicated they had never seen many of the
games Gee mentioned. Consider, for example, Civilization, a computer game where you shape the
course of history. Civilization has been the subject of many a loving, exploratory piece on games in
education, including the work of Squire, Gee, popular writer Steven Johnson (2005), and myself
and my colleagues at Teachers College. This was another game most students in the pile sorts,
even those who played computer games, claimed never to have seen.
This is not to say, of course, that we should therefore ignore Civilization and other complex
computer simulation games as potential teaching tools. However, we should be very wary when
popular writers such as Johnson (2005) suggest that our students are spending their free time
playing these games and somehow improving their minds by doing so.
When bringing these games into the classroom, teachers should get a sense of their students’
comfort levels with such games, and not expect them to be immediately fluent with the more
complex controls computer games may have. In light of feedback from students at Miranda Nell,
this appears to be especially true when dealing with low-SES students.
Does this unfamiliarity mean that low-income students will reject computer simulation,
strategy, or MMORPG games out of hand if these games are brought into the classroom? Not
necessarily. Squire’s findings about the excitement of the low-SES students he had playing
Civilization suggest that the sheer novelty of computer games in the curriculum may pique
students’ enthusiasm even if they don’t play these genres on their own time (Squire, 2004).
However, as many students sorted games like these into ‘games for nerds’ or ‘games for computer
heads’ piles, educators should be prepared for the possibility that some students will make the
distinction between their own favorite games and ‘uncool’ educational computer games.
Meanwhile, the research community has neglected sports games. It seems it would behoove
those looking to serve low-income urban populations to begin to do more in-depth research on this
genre – the ways students play, attendant activities surrounding the games, and the ways sports
game mechanics might be used to serve pedagogical goals. For example, students could replay
sports games and experiment with their settings for lessons on probability and statistics.
For educational game developers seeking to create original games, I would recommend
keeping games thematically light or non-specific. Students associate fantasy, sports, military, and
cartoon themes with specific groups of students to which they may or may not belong (‘boys’ and
‘kids’ in my pile sorts), so some groups of students may end up rejecting games with strong themes
of these sorts. Some academic subjects clearly suggest a theme for a game (for example, history,
literature, or biology), but with less thematically specific subjects, such as math or language
210
Gameplay, Gender and Socioeconomic Status
learning, it may be worth developers’ time to learn more about the preferences of their target
audience.
Developers should also note that games played on handheld devices may be more welcoming
to a broad range of students than desktop computer games. We might therefore look to the
exploratory projects at the University of Wisconsin, MIT, and other schools for their pathbreaking
work on the possibilities of deploying educational software for the PalmPilot.
It should be noted that other studies caution against looking at SES alone. Hung’s (2007)
research has found that, unlike the students I spoke with, low-income Chinese immigrant students
in NewYork City spend extensive time in LAN and computer gaming. A survey in Britain found
that immigrant families often develop more facility with computers than native-born low-income
families as they maintain digital contact with relatives overseas. Clearly, other factors such as
ethnicity and immigrant status will influence how these results play out in particular communities.
This work attempts to argue not that SES alone informs game-play patterns, but rather that it is
one of many factors we must consider in developing a meaningful picture of play.
Finally, it must be noted that this research presents broad patterns, and there are always
exceptions to these rules. Certainly, there were students at each school who went against the norm
for their gender or SES. There were girls who played shoot-em-up console games at Tarnover,
boys who dabbled in MMORPGs at Miranda Nell, and kids at both schools who spent time on all
sorts of marginal games, from Dance Dance Revolution to Nintendogs. However, this study aimed to
understand the ‘average’ gamer in each group and avoid rhapsodizing about the exceptions. In the
main, girls did go out of their way to avoid being associated with anything but casual games, calling
many games ‘violent’ and ‘for boys’. Low-SES students did disproportionately report playing sports
games, and high-SES males were more likely than other groups to play long-form computer games.
Given that gender and SES disparities still exist, academics should be addressing the cultural,
sociopolitical, and economic pressures on students –and on the game industry – to understand why
these differences are so stark. Clearly, those seeking to understand the game-play of different
groups of students must situate students in global networks of capital, gender, and culture, rather
than maintaining a one-dimensional view of the player as existing in play alone.
Notes
[1] Both school names used here are pseudonyms.
[2] The survey was distributed in advisory sessions at both schools, and the lower percentage of
respondents at Miranda Nell on the first survey was largely due to whole advisory groups failing to
return their surveys. Nevertheless, this did not make the overall age distribution at Miranda Nell
unexpectedly different from that at Tarnover (see Table NI). Miranda Nell’s status as an ‘alternative’
high school, for students who had trouble at other schools, may account for the higher proportion of
older students.
Age
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Count at MN
4
39
28
31
27
10
2
Count at T
2
43
31
20
30
2
0
Table NI.
[3] I did not ask questions about parents’ income, and did not ask about parents’ education level until the
second survey, in which fewer students participated. Overall, as one might expect, parents of
students at the private school appeared on average to be better educated than those at the public
school. As a result of the small size of my data sample on parents’ education level, however, I
classified students solely on the basis of the poverty levels in their neighborhood.
The use of zip and census data is obviously a crude measure of SES. It relies on monetary
judgments rather than on families’ social capital. Ideally, I would have asked more about family
211
Gillian Andrews
background, but the measures I used were deemed to be less invasive and more likely to yield a
greater amount of data without arousing suspicion on the part of participants. However, the fact
remains that Miranda Nell students do predominantly live in neighborhoods with high percentages
of poor or working-class people, and attend a Title 1 public school, while Tarnover students attend a
college preparatory school and live in a relatively well-to-do section of suburban Connecticut. This
suggests a higher probability that these students have access to the social capital correlated with the
average income levels in their neighborhoods.
[4] This was not ideal – I realized later that I should have included the practices questions in the first
survey. As it was, I ended up with a self-selected population on the second survey. It would be worth
figuring out whether the self-selected students on the second survey tended to be more avid gamers,
as that would indicate that the very low levels of participation in game-related literacies online which
I found were in fact still higher than one might expect. However, I have not yet been able to
complete this analysis.
[5] Again, all names are pseudonyms.
[6] I should note two things: first, casual/computer and fantasy/sports are the key dichotomies here, and
these are not mutually exclusive; some games were categorized both as computer and fantasy games.
However, students never sorted fantasy and sports games into the same pile, except when one highSES male classified games in the broadest possible demographic terms, sorting both genres into a pile
for ‘kids through adults’. Nor did they sort casual and computer games into the same pile. Second,
these are generally not the names students gave to these piles; each sorting team gave the piles
different names, but the groupings held across sorts. I am sticking to the industry names for these
genres here for the sake of clarity.
[7] Assuming a player base of 1.5 million in North America. Nick Yee’s research (Yee, 2005) suggests the
average age of WoW players is 28.3 years, with a standard deviation of 8.4; assuming a normal curve,
about 16% of these players, or 240,000, should be under 20. If all of those players were either in one
of Canada’s 3400 or the United States’ 15,472 high schools, which seems unlikely, there would be
about 16 players per high school.
References
Bickerton, S. (2003) Let the Games Begin: gaming technology and entertainment among college students.
Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project.
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/93/report_display.asp
Caillois, R. (2001) Man, Play, and Games. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Gee, J.P. (2003) What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Gee, J. (2004). Situated Language and Learning: a critique of traditional schooling. London: Routledge.
Hung, C.Y. (2007) Spatial and Meaning-Making Practices of English Language Learners Playing Video Games
in English. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association,
Chicago, 9-13 April.
Johnson, S. (2005) Everything Bad is Good for You. New York: Riverhead.
Kafai, Y. (1998) Video Game Designs by Girls and Boys: variability and consistency of gender differences, in
J. Cassell & H. Jenkins (Eds) From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: gender and computer games, 46-71. Boston, MA:
MIT Press.
Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2003). New Literacies: changing knowledge and classroom learning. London: Open
University Press.
Leander, K. & Lovvorn, J. (2006) Literacy Networks: following the circulation of texts and identities in the
schooling and online gaming of one youth, Cognition & Instruction, 24(3), 291-340.
Lenhart, A., Lee, Rainie & Lewis, Oliver (2001) Teenage Life Online: the rise of the instant-message
generation and the Internet’s impact on friendships and family relationships. Washington, DC: Pew
Internet and American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/report_display.asp?r=36
McNamee, A. (1998) Youth, Gender, and Video Games: power and control in the home, in T. Skelton &
G. Valentine (Eds) Cool Places: geographies of youth culture. New York: Routledge.
Michaels, J.-W. (1993) Patterns of Video Game Play in Parlors as a Function of Endogenous and Exogenous
Factors, Youth and Society, 25(2), 272-289.
212
Gameplay, Gender and Socioeconomic Status
Nielsen/NetRatings (2004) Three out of Four Americans Have Access to the Internet, According to
Nielsen/NetRatings (Press release). New York.
Prensky, M. (2002) What Kids Learn That’s POSITIVE from Playing Video Games.
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20%20What%20Kids%20Learn%20Thats%20POSITIVE%20From%20Playing%20Video%20Games.pdf
Robinson, J.P., DiMaggio, P. & Hargittai, E. (2003) New Social Survey Perspectives on the Digital Divide,
IT&Society, 1(5), 1-22.
Squire, K. (2004) Replaying History: learning world history through playing Civilization III. Unpublished
dissertation, Indiana University. http://website.education.wisc.edu/kdsquire/dissertation.html
Squire, K., Klopfer, E, Barab, S & Dede, C. (2004) Virtual and Augmented Reality Simulations in Education.
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April, San
Diego, CA.
Steinkuehler, C.A. (2004) Learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Paper presented at the
International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS), 22-26 June, Los Angeles CA.
Subrahmanyam, K. & Greenfield, P.M. (1998) Computer Games for Girls: what makes them play? In J. Callell
& H. Jenkins (Eds) From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: gender and computer games, 46-71. Boston, MA: MIT
Press.
Suess, D., Suoninen, A., Garitaonandia, C., Juaristi, P., Koikkalainen, R. & Oleaga, José A. (1998) Media Use
and the Relationships of Children and Teenagers with their Peer Groups: a study of Finnish, Spanish and
Swiss cases, European Journal of Communication, 13, 521-538.
Turkle, S. (1995) Life on the Screen. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Vygotsky, L. (1978) Mind in Society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Williamson, B. & Facer, K. (2004) More than ‘Just a Game’: the implication for schools of children’s
computer games communities, Education, Communication & Information, 4(2/3), 255-270.
Yee, N. (2005) A Model of Player Motivations. http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001298.php
GILLIAN ‘GUS’ ANDREWS is a doctoral student in Communications and Education at Teachers
College, Columbia University. In addition to doing research in academia and industry, she has also
been engaged in game design and video production, most recently for AfterEd.tv. She has also
worked as a user researcher at Linden Lab (Second Life) and McGraw Hill. Her dissertation
research is on failures to read on the Internet, a project which she is documenting at
www.gumbaby.com. Correspondence: Gillian ‘Gus’ Andrews, Teachers College, Columbia
University, 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA ([email protected]).
213