In this article, we share key points from chapters of the book that address issues of educational in/equity in learning and teaching, with emphasis on how games as pedagogical tools can help promote more inclusive, equitable circumstances.
That inequities abound in contemporary higher education across intersecting axes of social experience is evident across chapters focused on First Nations experiences (Ford & Ticoalu 2025; Faulkner & Kutay 2025; Wyld 2025), disability (Cain 2025), social class (Rozitis 2025), and LGBTQIA+ experiences (Walker et al. 2025). Regarding First Nations experiences, Samantha Faulkner and Cat Kutay signal the ‘institutional racism’ via which ‘language, literature, and knowledge systems re-perpetuate violence and direct oppression’ (Faulkner & Cutay 2025, p. 120) and Frances Wyld recognises academia as an often ‘hostile environment’ for Indigenous students who face ‘an uncertain future’ with ‘no promise of happiness’ (Wyld 2025, pp. 134-135). On the topic of disability, Melissa Cain describes how students ‘routinely negotiate a range of physical barriers, barriers to curriculum access and participation, as well as attitudinal barriers’ (2025, p. 170). Where social class is concerned, many similar barriers are also signalled in Stef Rozitis’s autobiographical reflections on struggling to fit into academic culture as a working class student who some lecturers saw as ‘being “difficult on purpose”… they viewed my lack of understanding of some of the conventions as “not trying”’ (2025, p. 110).
For LGBTQIA+ rights in higher education, the ‘different-yet-intersecting experiences’ of eight co-authors reveal ‘how access to education has been compromised by cis- and/or heterosexist modes of inequality, often working in concert with inequalities of race, social class, disability, chronic illness, mental health, neurodiversity, and more’ (Walker et al. 2025, p. 96).
The chapters discussed so far all reflect contemporary education as a space rife with metaphorical power games of the kind Niki Harré (2018) would categorise as ‘finite games’: win/lose competitive struggles where players vie against each other to gain the upper hand. Yet the chapter authors – dedicated educators and change-makers – refuse discouragement or dismay. Instead, they foreground their ongoing work towards enhanced equity, often through creative uses of literal games in pedagogy. These pedagogical uses of games particularly involve games of the varieties Harré (2018) classes as ‘infinite games’, wherein collaboration and collective fun are ways everybody wins. Infinite games as pedagogy model an alternative way of thinking and interacting to the hegemonic games of dominant, dominating western cultures. First Nations cultures bear longstanding traditions of learning through games in such ways. For instance, in Rak Mak Mak Marranuggu culture, ‘to engage in games and play is a wholehearted endeavour’ via which ‘physical, emotional, and psychological’ skills and cultural knowledges are intergenerationally shared (Ford & Ticolau 2025, p. 24).
Reflecting infinite games’ benefits in contemporary education, Kutay relays how her cultural inheritance as a descendant of Aboriginal seafaring people informs her work teaching students to design computer games wherein people ‘win as a group’, particularly via narrative games where people co-create stories together (Faulkner & Kutay 2025, p. 123).
Drawing on her own Martu culture, Wyld foregrounds similar possibilities through games involving roleplay, storytelling, and ‘academic kinship’ (2025, p. 133). These themes of infinite games and collective fun are brought out in different yet articulable ways in chapters by non-Indigenous authors. As one example, Daniel Pitman and Stephen Whittington also champion roleplay when relaying how they drew inspiration from tabletop gaming to adapt their course in Sonic Arts and Practice (contemporary music and performance) during and after Covid-19 lockdowns. Pitman and Whittington explain how their ‘gamefied roleplay system’ enabled them to ‘offer experiences of a creative team in a concert production role’, thus overcoming barriers of lockdowns including remote learning in a discipline highly geared towards in-person encounters, alongside Covid’s economic and mental wellbeing impacts on students across diverse social groups (2025, p. 146).
As earlier noted, to have edited and thereby engaged closely with these chapters is an opportunity for which we feel deeply grateful. Our initial interest in ludic inquiry primarily regarded research applications – about which we remain passionate – but the pedagogical chapters push us to consider how we can bring ludic inquiry into our classes to promote equity and inclusion. Collaborative story-making and roleplay games represent key strategies we are exploring as we revise courses for 2025. We are excited to discover how it plays out.
References
Cain, M 2025, ‘Playing the game of education is playing the game of life for students with a disability’, in A Walker, H Grimmett & A Black (eds), Ludic Inquiries into Power and Pedagogy in Higher Education: How Games Play Us, Routledge, Oxon & New York, pp. 170-184.
Faulkner, S & Kutay, C 2025, ‘Games and invasion: Accounts of lived experience from First Nations writers, artists, and researchers’, in A Walker, H Grimmett & A Black (eds), Ludic Inquiries into Power and Pedagogy in Higher Education: How Games Play Us, Routledge, Oxon & New York, pp. 120-130.
Ford, L & Ticoalu, A 2025, ‘Diversity and cultural pedagogical games and play: through an Aboriginal lens’, in A Walker, H Grimmett & A Black (eds), Ludic Inquiries into Power and Pedagogy in Higher Education: How Games Play Us, Routledge, Oxon & New York, pp. 21-32.
Harré, N 2018, The Infinite Game: How to Live Well Together, Auckland University Press, Auckland.
Pitman, D & Whittington, S 2025, ‘As play becomes practice: Observations on robust gamified education elements in the new normal’, in A Walker, H Grimmett & A Black (eds), Ludic Inquiries into Power and Pedagogy in Higher Education: How Games Play Us, Routledge, Oxon & New York, pp. 143-155.
Rozitis, S 2025, ‘Here to kick neoliberalism in the balls: the bogan in the university’, in A Walker, H Grimmett & A Black (eds), Ludic Inquiries into Power and Pedagogy in Higher Education: How Games Play Us, Routledge, Oxon & New York, pp. 106-119.
Walker, A, Grimmett, H, & Black, A (eds) 2025 Ludic Inquiries into Power and Pedagogy in Higher Education: How Games Play Us, Routledge, Oxon & New York.
Walker, A, Rose, A, Brown, J, Henningham, M, Bruinstroop, J, Dau, D, Farquhar, M & Eades, Q 2025, ‘Queer(y)ing board games as public pedagogy: ‘playing out of bounds’ to activate LGBTQIA+ agency in academia and beyond’, in A Walker, H Grimmett & A Black (eds), Ludic Inquiries into Power and Pedagogy in Higher Education: How Games Play Us, Routledge, Oxon & New York, pp. 93-105.Wyld, F 2025, ‘Academic kinship: i once had a game, or should I say it once had me?’, in A Walker, H Grimmett & A Black (eds), Ludic Inquiries into Power and Pedagogy in Higher Education: How Games Play Us, Routledge, Oxon & New York, pp. 133-142.
Alison L. Black is an arts-based/narrative researcher in the School of Education and Tertiary Access, University of the Sunshine Coast. She uses feminist, creative, and contemplative research methodologies to understand lived lives, to engage in collaborative work, and to critique and resist the agendas of neoliberal institutions.
Helen Grimmett is a Lecturer in Primary and Early Childhood Teacher Education in the School of Curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive Education at Monash University. Her teaching is mostly in the Creative Arts and generalist primary curriculum and pedagogy areas. Her research interests include: initial teacher education, dialogic teaching, arts education, autoethnography and poetic inquiry. Helen is passionate about taking playful and creative approaches to both her teaching and research in order to disrupt expectations and challenge conventional understandings of teaching, learning and schooling.
Amelia Walker lives and writes on Kaurna Country, where she lectures in creative writing at the University of South Australia. She has published five collections of poetry, most recently Alogopoiesis (Gazebo Books 2023). She has also published educational resources for Macmillan’s All You Need to Teach series. Her new book on creative writing and social power, Reading and Writing for Change, is forthcoming with Bloomsbury Academic in 2025.
Main image: courtesy of the authors and Daniel Pitman