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Navigating Life As An Avatar: The Shifting Identities-In-Practice Of A Girl Player In A Tween Virtual World, Deborah A. Fields, Yasmin B. Kafai

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

In this chapter we study how one girl learned to participate in what was for her a new setting of play – a virtual world called Whyville.net with an emphasis on science education, populated by over a million young people ages eight to sixteen. Girls in particular have become prominent players in virtual worlds, a trend counter to many early observations that documented the absence of girls and women in gaming and technology at large (e.g., Cassell & Jenkins, 1998). The study of virtual worlds as play spaces then allows us to continue a conversation about gender and gaming to …