Games people play

The question of structure and agency, or individuation and community, has been the central concern of classical and contemporary scholars of society alike. It is however, notoriously difficult to explain to students, and even more tricky to model in any meaningful way in the lecture situation. One of the most elaborate and powerful attempts at a theoretical synthesis of these forces is found in the work of Bourdieu. In this presentation we seek to link Bourdieu's theory on the limits of objectivism and subjectivism with contemporary approaches to learning. We argue that Bourdieu offers a neat rationale for the game technique we demonstrate in this presentation. Not only does our 'Bingo' game enable individual practices to be placed within a space of social structure, it also allows for critical reflection on the nature of social scientific practice.

The strategy requires students to call up personal experiences and life choices in the process of "playing the game". It therefore fosters deep learning through relevancy to individual lives and the provision of an enjoyable learning environment. A collation of student responses is used to encourage reflexivity, both in regard to one's own cultural capital and also with respect to the research process. Accordingly, the 'game' lecture brings together relevant personal experience, theory and method as a coherent whole, generating a more meaningful and active engagement with the material. We discuss how the game is transferable to a variety of social science orientations and propose that it can be used with both small and very large classes.

The game strategy was evaluated in two ways. Firstly, a short questionnaire was used to elicit students' opinions about its relevance, usefulness and its quality as a teaching tool. Secondly, the students' performance on game related examination questions was compared with their performance on questions pertaining to traditional lecture based sections of the subject.