Tag Archives: gender

The 2017 Interaction Design and Children (IDC) conference took place at Stanford University in California this past June. The conference brought together an amazing community of researchers, designers, educators, and industry specialists who are interested in designing (primarily technology and new media experiences) for and with children. Before the conference began, various groups of people put on one-day IDC workshops focusing on topics spanning from joint media engagement to making to co-design. My co-organizers Dr. Julie A. Kientz (University of Washington), Dr.…

Last week, Sandhya Nankani wrote about the White House Conference on gender and diversity in toys. Here she describes the toy industry’s efforts to break down existing stereotypes and create new narratives that empower girls.   The toy world is abuzz with the recent launch of the newest Barbie doll, modeled after Misty Copeland, the first black female principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater. The doll is a part of Barbie’s Sheroes collection, which celebrates female heroes who “like…

April was a busy month at the White House. In addition to the Early STEM Learning Symposium (which Elisabeth McLure reported on last week), the White House also played host to a day-long conference, “Helping Children Explore, Learn, and Dream Without Limits: Breaking Down Gender Stereotypes in Media and Toys.” Organized by the White House Council on Women and Girls, the US Department of Education, and the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California, the…

Guest post by Sara M. Grimes, PhD Years ago, when the idea of “games for learning” was still a relatively new concept, a small but important movement emerged around issues of gender in gaming. Led by scholars, designers and members of the game community, the primary objective was to address a gaming gender gap that had formed in the 80s and early 90s. Then as now, boys were generally gaming more (and more often) than girls, male characters appeared far…