Sex and gender education board game for rural elementary students

I have been in hold a strong interest board game design since the summer of 2018, and that is why I was ecstatic when the Rural Women Development Foundation of Guangdong was also interested in the idea of developing a board game for rural elementary students to explore topics on sex and gender.

After field research in two villages, we made the strategic decision to focus on students from grade 1-3. And we also decided to use the International Guidelines on Sexuality Education developed by the UN as the framework for contents.

I been strongly advocating for game playing in education for many years. Game playing demands the type of focus and attention that a teaches can only hope from their students. Also, well designed games promote repeated play, which translate to repeated exposure for knowledge and skill practices. The challenge with designing games for learning, I personally believe, is not in the lack of potential educational content that games may contain, but in the lack of fun and "addictiveness" offered by most games built for entertainment.

 So to me, the most difficult creative question is, how to design a gaming experience that encourages spontaneous play as well as effective learning on the topics of sex and gender?

Although board games are not as popular in China as they are say, in North America, people here still engage in various forms of game playing (or as game designers call “formal systems of play”). During field research , I paid special attention to how children and adults engage in game playing in the villages, and I noticed an underlying gambling element in the most popular games.

Although gambling is not to be promoted, but I did find the risk taking and competitive elements in gambling games effective in promoting sustained engagement in group play. And this ultimately inspired me to develop a game system where two groups of students battle by placing "bets" on what they feel is the correct answer choice to questions revolving sex and gender. Each round, the team whose players place the wrong bets (picks the wrong answer choices) loose their chips to the opposing team, and the game ends when one team looses all its chips.

Where as in actual gambling, winning a bet is based on chance, in this educational game, winning each “bet” is based on understanding of topics related to sex and gender. Also, by allowing each player to make individual betting decision but win by counting cumulative winnings of a team, students can correctly or falsely influence one another during the “betting” step, and this creates a gaming dynamic that promotes both independent thinking and peer learning.

Based on these basic rules, I also tweaked the details to reflect the real world context in which the game would be played. The game, in theory, does not limit the number of players, and allows both teams to add new players after the game has begun to account for a large group environment.

 For the questions and answers delivered by the game, we decided to be as progressive as possible given the cultural sensitivity around these topics. Besides questions regarding personal health and protection commonly included in sex-ed, we have also included a significant proportion of questions regarding gender equality and identify. For example, one question discusses whether boys can wear dresses (they can, if they want to).

After two rounds of testing with students, one for the content of the questions and answers, and one for rules for playing, we finalized our game with visual design.

The board game is currently in production and will be disseminated to rural children via the Rural Women Development Foundation of Guangdong network of rural women leaders. Moreover, the deck of 147 question and answer cards can be expanded and at any later time when resources allow.