Fighting Oppression Online: Digital Role-Playing Games as Means for Critical Dialogue

Jonathan Mendels
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel
mendelsj@post.bgu.ac.il

Key Words: Digital role-playing games; Dialogue; Critical Pedagogy; Teacher education; Marginalized
communities; Theatre of the Oppressed.

Abstract: This study incorporates Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of
the Oppressed” theories to create an innovative digital role-playing game with Arab-Israeli teachers, who are
members of a marginalized minority in Israel and suffer from discrimination and limitations on their freedom
of speech in class. The study was conducted using a game platform originally designed by ‘To-Be-Education’
for the role-playing of sensitive issues in class. As part of the two stage process, the teachers learned about
digital games, game-based learning and how to implement games in their classroom; they raised oppressive
events they experienced, conducted a blended critical process regarding the possible reasons for these
events and adapted them into digital role-playing game scenarios on the “To-Be” platform. They then re-
enacted these situations using Boal’s “forum theatre” method on the digital stage, conducted a critical
dialogue regarding the power relations behind the evets and debated possible alternative outcomes. The
scenarios the teachers wrote depicted their personal and professional lives. Through the games they created
they were able to discuss the bigger problems their society deals with, such as poverty, unemployment,
violence in the streets and in their classroom and political silencing. The use of the platform, along with the
unique characteristics of digital games (such as fantasy, anonymity and personalized avatars) allowed the
teachers to discuss these issues with greater freedom of speech and provided them with fresh means of
dialogue. After the study concluded, many of the teachers reported they felt empowered by the use of the
game platform, that they felt they could express themselves with less restrictions online and that the games
offered them an arena in which they could simulate different approaches and behaviours without real-life
consequences. In this respect, the use of the digital game platform lifted some of the barriers placed on
these teacher’s freedom of speech.
Introduction: This paper wishes to demonstrate how a digital role-playing game (DRPG) platform is adapted to
act as an arena for critical dialogue and reflection with Arab-Israeli teachers, who are members of a
marginalized community in Israel. These teachers often find it hard and illegitimate to express views either in
the classroom or outside it that diverge from what they perceive as the mainstream Israeli narrative. The study
shows how playing a DRPG while implementing the principles of critical education and drama helped the
teachers lift some of the barriers placed on their freedom of speech and allowed them to critically discuss the
reality they live and work in.
The theoretical background is based on Paulo Freire’s, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) which
serves as the theoretical driver to acquire informed action to bring about change, and Augusto Boal’s theatre
of the oppressed (TO) (1979) which provides the tool for implementing such change. The study was conducted
with two groups of Arab-Israeli teachers, who wrote and played DRPGs based on oppressive events they
experienced and conducted a critical process regarding the social, political and educational aspects of these
events, using the digital game.
The game platform: The study was conducted using an open game platform developed by “To-Be-Education,“
originally designed for schools, which utilizes role-play to encourage dialogue in the classroom. The platform
offers a synchronic web-based role-playing game that can be played on almost any information and
communication technology (ICT). It offers a multimodal representation feedback mechanism (Yan and Geivid
2013), adaptive pedagogical mechanisms and a learning management system (LMS). The teacher acts as game
master (GM) and can follow each student during the game and address each group at any given moment. At
the end of each playing session the teacher receives a thorough report, which includes student names and
timestamps and can serve for assessment of the students' progress and for future class debates.
The platform has two interfaces: the student interface limits them to participate in a specific game
scenario, while the teacher interface allows the teacher to design the scene and, after the game starts, to
facilitate the discussions held in each group. As the game platform was designed for schoolteachers, who are
not game designers, it directs the teacher in the process of writing the game scenarios, offering leading
questions and instructions for each of its parts.
At the basis of each game lies a dilemma, serving as the basis for the design of the different
characters. As the game take place in groups of five (Figure 1), the teacher is directed to write four or five
different roles, each with a distinctive agenda regarding the dilemma discussed. Each character is assigned
with an avatar and provided with several resources.

Figure 1: Avatars and resources used in the game

The final stage of design consists of writing directing orders (Figure 2) to the players, who see these
orders during the game and are expected to change their behavior accordingly.

Figure 2: Character design menu

 The stage on which the game is played resembles a sophisticated chat room (Figure 3) with added

Figure 3: The dialogue in the game

gamification elements (such as badges, applause, and “likes”). It is a form of a “multiuser virtual environment”
(MUVE) that offers players a synchronized virtual stage on which they can enact situations that raise moral and
social conflicts in a manner that makes the sensitive dialogue “easier to digest” (Orvis and Lassiter 2005).
Several aspects of DRPGs affect learning in the game: the dialogue in the game allows the students to
develop their debate skills (Frazer et al. 2013), with the need to explain their point of view and back their
answers with sources; Playing different characters, with characteristics often unknown to the students prior to
the game, introduces students to a variety of views and agendas, and allows them to view the events in the
game through the eyes of the other people.
Theoretical background: The basic notion behind role-playing is that looking through the eyes of another may
provide different perspectives of reality. The term itself has two meanings: Most commonly, it refers to a game
in which the players assume the roles of fictional characters to complete a quest “with some degree of
freedom in an imaginary environment” (Lortz 1979, p. 36). It also refers to a technique used in various fields,
such as theatre, psychology or business training. In these instances, the assumption of the identity of another
person “has a corrective influence on various beliefs and attitudes which underlie chronic difficulties in human
relations” (Janis and King, 1954, p. 211).
The use of role play as a method for promoting change has been chosen for this study as role-play is
regarded as “an established technique for engaging individuals in a problem space through a series of
structured tasks, which immerse the participants in some of the challenges of the real-world environment”
(Gardner and Horan, 2011). Some of the main ideas behind role-playing games include dialogue and
collaboration (Childress and Braswell, 2006).
Klimmt (2009) defines digital games, and specifically serious games, as media products that include an
interactive experience, offer multimodal representation, present a narrative, whether fixed or changing, and
allow social play. He later adds that such games “might motivate players to elaborate on the content of social
change” (Gabriel 2016 P. 195).
Thus, for one, the use of digital tools helps the players to distance themselves from reality, as the
players are often anonymous, play alone and do not see the other players' faces (Berge and Collins, 1995).
Although anonymity online can have both a positive and negative effect on one’s freedom of speech
(Christopherson 2007), with regards to an oppressed minority, which often finds it hard to express its opinions,
it might offer a relief from the ties of oppression and enable dialogue that would otherwise be avoided. This,
along with the use of personalized avatars (Whitlock 2005), assists in lifting some of the barriers of speech.
When adding to the mix other elements of the game, such as the “magic circle” (Salen and Zimmerman, 2004)
and fantasy, the players find it easier to “blend in” with the character and allow the creation of imaginative
scenarios and characters that help in shaping the task at hand and the goal of the game (Allison et al., 2006).
Furthermore, “[t]he evolution of the digital game has been to move towards replacing the limited
nature of physical play with abundance” (Groner, 2015). That is, the nature of any game is to differ from
reality, and the technological affordances allow those so far deprived a voice in society to more readily express
themselves online.
As stated before, this study utilizes the theories of two critical writers. Paulo Freire’s “pedagogy of the
oppressed” (1970) discusses dialogue-based pedagogy: the need to break the dichotomy between the teacher
and the students which enforces the teachers’ authority over the students, a divide which Freire perceived as
oppressive, and conduct a liberating, problem posing dialogue in class, that discusses real-life and relevant
issues that emerge from the lives of the students. Through this process the weak(est) members of society can
transform their lives and empower themselves.
Freire claimed that through dialogic, decolonizing pedagogy (Tejeda and Espinoza, 2003) the process
of praxis and Conscientization can occur: developing a critical awareness of one’s social reality through
reflection and empowering individuals to transform society (Liu, 2012). This will lead to the understanding of
one’s place in society and to the transformation from a controlled object to a socially aware subject. The
teacher’s role is to be the facilitator of the dialogue. The development of a critical consciousness is highly
important when dealing with marginalized communities, that are often lacking the ability to change their lives
with the tools provided to them by the system.
Dramatist Augusto Boal adapted some of Freire’s ideas to theatre. The main principle remained the
same: conducting a process that aims to provoke dialogue that will allow the oppressed to reach
Conscientization, and through these new perspectives, the ability to resist his oppressor and change his
social\political\economic situation. Boal’s (1979) “theatre of the oppressed” (TO) is a political-social agenda
that sees theatre as a means for resisting oppression (Auslander 1992). This method aims at promoting and
motivating social and political change and supports the presentation of difficult and personal stories as a way
of therapy on stage. In Boal’s (2013) eyes, theatre is emphasized not as a spectacle but rather as a language
accessible to all. Boal believed theatre can change people and help them observe their reality by “perceiving
what it is, discovering what it is not and imagining what it could become” (p. 13). In that way theatre, can be a
prominent tool for awareness and critical thinking.
Forum theatre, one of Boal’s main methods and the one used in this study, is a form of rehearsal
theater. A basic Forum theatre scenario is composed out of several short scenes, offered by the actors and
based on oppressive experiences they themselves experienced. The “spect-actors,” the word Boal coined for
spectators taking part in the play, are presented with an oppressive event on stage and is invited by the
director – the joker - to change the course of the play and offers solutions, followed by a critical dialogue that
reflects the manifestation of a larger social difficulty.
Research group – Arab-Israeli teachers: Israeli society is tense and highly diversified (Smooha, 1993). One of
the prominent tensions is between the majority group of Jewish-Israelis (75% of the population) and the
minority group of Arab-Israelis (20/7%). This “cleavage,” presents among conflicting notions, a basic
disagreement on the nature of the Jewish people and whether they consist of a nation or of a religious group.
Israeli Jews predominantly prescribe themselves as “Zionist,” thus adhering to the belief that Jews are a
nation, which entitles them to self-determination in the form of an independent state.
Arab-Israelis often identify themselves as part of the larger Arab majority living in the Middle East,
which often defines itself as culturally and politically conflicted with Israel. It often opposes the Zionist
agenda’s most basic tenets. As a result, they are often regarded by the political right in Israel as collaborating
with the Palestinians, with whom Israel is in an ongoing conflict and as a “fifth column” that is not loyal to the
state and seeks its destruction as a Jewish state (Yashar, 2014). One of the results of these differences is a
systematic discrimination of the Arab minority, who enjoy lower levels of state services than their Jewish
counterparts and are on average less affluent (Ganim, 2001).
This paper focuses on Arab teachers and the unique circumstances they face for several reasons: In
their role as educators, teachers confront ethical and social issues daily; and their position provides them with
a significant educational role in the lives of their students (Clark, 2004). In addition, according to Freire and
Shor (1987), teachers play an important role both in sustaining oppression and in resisting it, as they are the
ones responsible for the transfer of knowledge in society, and the agents of the same mechanism that
enforces indoctrination. On the other hand, teachers operate as agents of change, once they realize their role
in the process of oppression, and understand the oppression inflicted upon them as well.
The Arab school system is segregated, and while the classes are conducted in Arabic, the state
dictated curriculum promotes the Israeli mainstream Zionist agenda, often putting the teachers in conflict with
their own beliefs and opinions. Arab teachers are placed in a unique situation: the state controls the Arab
educational system and bars any attempt to teach the Arab-Palestinian narrative, in an attempt to eliminate it
from the mainstream Israeli discourse. The Arab teachers work for the establishment and are therefore
subjected to an ongoing silencing, which sets the limits of discourse in class, compelling them to avoid or limit
the discussion of sensitive social issues in class and, at times, forces them to teach material that conflicts with
their personal beliefs and narrative. As a result, they are denied their voice, and act unwillingly, as the means
through which the state indoctrinates its Arab students (Abu Asbah 2007). The result is a clear distinction
between issues deemed legitimate to be discussed in schools and these that are deemed unacceptable.
Teachers that wish to address political or social issues must choose their words carefully or risk harsh
consequences.
Method: The study consisted of yearlong blended process (Thorne 2003) with two groups of Arab-Israeli
teachers. The data was collected from the classroom session, the DRPGs wrote and played and from semi-
conducted interviews that followed the process.
The theoretical model (Mendels and Schejter, 2019) demonstrates a process during which the
teachers participate in a digital forum theatre, one of the main methods of TO, on the “To-Be” platform. The
model does not attempt to create theatre in the orthodox manner on a digital stage, but rather to create a
new mechanism that takes some principles from critical pedagogy and TO into the digital world. It is an
attempt to create a new form of role-playing game - one that is built on real life stories and offers fresh means
of dialogue and expression for those who play it. Thus, utilizing one of the basic elements of Freire and Boal’s
critical process, empowering the weakest members of society. As the game platform was not designed for TO
but rather for a “conventional” role-playing game, the adaptation of TO methods to this system requires
reframing several of the game rules and rethinking some of Boal’s ideas.
Theatre is a physical art which utilizes the actor's’ whole body as a tool for expression. Boal (1979)
refers to embodiment as one of the key factors in theatre: “`Knowing the Body` [is] the first stage in his
process.” (Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort 2003, P. 339). DRPGs use an avatar, a projected image of the actor that
has limited abilities and offers the actor a mask or a digitized body with which he or she can express their ideas
and words (Williams et al. 2011). Therefore, the transformation to the digital stage results in different means
of expression.
In addition, dialogue on the “To-Be” stage is mostly textual. This forces the players to think about
what they write and therefore limits the message. This is different from the intuitive, often subconscious
means of expression that serve the physical actor. Nonetheless, the digitally controlled dialogue allows the
players to express themselves carefully and use certain digital examples and images to enhance their message.
The principles of forum theatre undergo necessary changes, as the composing of the play, the
preparation of the body and group, and the setting are different on a digital stage. On the other hand, the
basic notion of TO, which attempts to provide a voice for the oppressed, is boosted by the use of new media
and the safe environment for discussion allows the “volume” of their voice is enhanced. The result is not a
computer game par excellence, but rather a digital stage on which a “game for change” - with any scenario -
can take place. The games created do not have a fixed narrative, or one that changes per one player's’ actions,
but rather present an open story that all players can alter and twist. As most participants are not avid gamers,
the process was crafted from two main pillars. The first, is the acquisition of theoretical knowledge about the
world of digital games and DRPGs. The second is the critical process the players underwent (Caruso et al.
2016), which results in the designing of their game and in playing it, both as players and as spect-actors.
In the first level the players get to know the world of digital games and the advantages it offers
teachers and learning, discuss role-playing and experience playing an orthodox “To-Be” game. During the
game, they learn to put the characteristics of the platform to their benefit and understand the different forms
of role-play possible.
At the end of the game the players conduct an open reflective discussion in class, regarding the
possibilities and constraints they experienced during the game. This is done as a preparation to the second
part - co-creating the scenario based on real life stories. The unique features of the platform offer the players
tools to co-create it, and to re-enact stories and events from their own lives, taking advantage of the distance
provided by the digital stage. That is because role-playing “can be framed as a way of playing instead of as a
system, making it possible to role-play any game by layering additional meanings on top of the base game”
(Montola 2012, p. 119).
 The second stage aims to implement the basic principles of critical education and forum theatre. The
teachers work in groups and share personal oppressive stories. They pick one they wish to turn into a game
and conduct a codification process (Freire, 1970), during which they discuss the think about the scene and
attempt to dismantle it down to its basic ingredients. They attempt to identify themes, oppressions, and the
ways in which they have internalized this oppression. This discussion is maintained up to the point where they
can reflect critically upon the scene’s various aspects before adapting it into a “To-Be” scenario. This process is
generated also by the platform’s requirements, which directs them to inquire what were each character’s
motivation, agenda and goal, and offer suitable visual representations for each character and game.
As per the rules of forum theatre, the teachers develop the scene up to a point in which the main
problem reaches a crisis and needs a solution. The point of crisis is the point of oppression and the basis for
motivation towards action. As Boal (2002) describes it, “[t]he original play – the model – must present a
mistake, a failure, so that the spect-actors will be spurred into finding solutions and inventing new ways of
confronting oppression” (P. 242). They then play the game on the digital stage. The game platform allows the
attachment of a specific player to a specific role, so that every player will play his designated part in the game.
After completing the story, the teachers - turn spect-actors – take part in an online forum theatre and attempt
to offer various possibilities and actions that will alter the result of the scene, with the help of the joker. The
result of this dialogue is a new scene, developed from the basic story, that offers a new look on the situation
described to the group and manifests the oppressive power relations through dialogue, using the unique
characteristics of the game platform.
Findings: The goal of this study was to use DRPGs to conduct an open, critical dialogue regarding the reality in
which Arab-Israeli teachers live and work in and to use the game platform to provide the teachers with fresh
means of expression regarding this reality. During the study the teachers learned about game-based learning
and how to implement games in their classroom; the ways physical and digital role-playing can be used to
create dialogue and how to harness technology for this purpose. The teachers raised and adapted personal
oppressive events into DRPG scenarios and played them as part of an ongoing critical dialogue process that
took place both in class and online. The games were followed by creating a digital “forum theatre” through
which we discussed alternatives and options to face the oppressive situations.
The scenarios they wrote were based on personal, day to day events the teachers chose to share.
These events depicted a broad spectrum of issues relevant to the lives of Arab-Israeli teachers: They dealt with
poverty and violence in the Arab society, encounters with aggressive parents, teacher unemployment and the
helplessness it creates, the place of the Hebrew language in Arab-Israeli schools and the pressure created by
the traditional Arab social structure in schools. Throughout the process, the teachers discussed the silencing
they experience when addressing sensitive social topics and the reasons for it, the power structure behind
each of the events depicted and how it echoes bigger social problems. When the process ended, many of the
teachers said they had a meaningful experience that was somewhat “eye-opening.” M, for example, said: “we
discussed things that can help me improve if I will face this problem again. Now I will know how to fix or to
serve it better than before.”
In addition, many of the teachers stated that the opportunity to discuss their own oppressive story
was a positive experience. A said she felt that the game she initiated offered her some sort of closure: “I hardly
talk about these things in my daily life, and [in the game] I felt I could talk.” Some of the teachers reported a
feeling of agency (Murray, 1997) and said the games offered them an arena in which they could simulate
different approaches and behaviors without real-life consequences. AM, one of the teachers, said: “I felt
comfortable, I really experienced it… I controlled it because I lived it. In the game, I could understand things
from the inside and outside.” Moreover, teachers who took part in the study reported a significant difference
in their ability to express themselves between the game and real life and most were very quick to realize that
the digital platform offers greater freedoms. Many described the distance created by anonymity, the role they
played and the fact that they were playing a game as the main enablers of speech.
Discussion: Members of marginalized communities face various difficulties that are unique to their place in
society and to the oppression they suffer. These instances may be the random rendezvous with police, a failed
attempt to tackle bureaucracy, or the simple understanding that reality as they want it to be does not
resemble the one outside their window. These understandings affect people both externally and internally.
They are reflected in the life created within the community and in the way members of these groups explain
reality to themselves and to their children. On top of it all, they affect their personal security and their hope
for a better future.
Arab-Israelis are no different. They are often discriminated against, suffer lack of funding for rights
assured to them by law, of find it legitimate to express their opinions in the general Israeli public. In many
ways, they are barred from the mainstream Israeli stage. Among this group, teachers suffer even greater
limitations, as they play a double role: on the one hand, they are representatives of the establishment - the
same one that oppresses them - and are expected to follow the rules set by the education ministry and its
narrative. On the other, they live in the same reality as the rest of their brethren, exposed to the discourse on
the street and to the national conflict. Therefore, these teachers restrict themselves in expressing views they
deem as “problematic” or sensitive and might hurt them.
The presented study attempted to harness DRPGs to offer a stage for dialogue about these situations.
The characteristics of digital games, especially fantasy and anonymity, helped distance the players from reality
and lift some of the barriers placed on their freedom of speech and the fact that the scenarios played were
based on real personal events, helped provide the players with a fertile base for critical discussion regarding
their life and social reality. Such dialogue can also provide motivation for change. Arab-Israeli teachers face
educational and social conflicts every day. Whether it is a dilemma that emerges from the material they teach,
working relations in school or from the students’ lives, they often find themselves asked to explain and
mediate a complex situation, to their students and themselves. The study discussed in this paper attempted to
provide them with a digital tool that may help clarify these dilemmas and conduct meaningful dialogue to
resolve them.

Acknowledgments: This research was supported by the I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting
Committee and The Israel Science Foundation (1716/12)

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