Car News

I just came across a Portuguese/ Brazil dissertation on RPGs and their
use in education:

Vasques, Rafael Carneiro : As potencialidades do RPG
(Role Playing Game) na
educação escolar / Rafael Carneiro Vasques . 2008 .
https://www.academia.edu/6369978/As_potencialidades_do_RPG_Role_Playing_Game_na_Educacao_Escolar

It is a PDF of ca. 5 MB - if the download doesn't work for you, I can
attach it to an email. Below is a copy of the abstract.

Jonas

~~~~
ABSTRACT

This work seeks to present an analysis of role-playing games
(RPGs) from the
perspective of their richness as didactical-pedagogical
tools. As such, we endeavor
to investigate the ongoing research regarding these games,
as it is carried out in
Brazil, in order to achieve a better understanding of the
methodology that has been
applied to the study of this brand-new subject of science.
Since we notice a trend towards marginalization of
role-playing games – an
outlook that could curtail initiatives regarding the
application of RPGs to the teaching-
learning process – we consider it necessary to demystify
them; therefore, pieces of
news disclosed by the media, implying a connection between
RPGs, crime and
magic rituals, are analysed; materials issued by religious
institutions in which that
connection is punctuated are scrutinized as well. To grasp
this uneasy relationship
between role-playing games and religion, we refer to Max
Weber's concept of
disenchantment of the world , and by doing so we infer
the association of RPGs to
scientific thinking – an enlightening conclusion that has
enabled us to understand the
conflict between scientific and religious thinking.
Besides discussing these preliminary issues, we identify in
role-playing games
some features from Michael
Löwy and Robert Sayre's  Romantic Anti-Capitalism, a
perspective that allowed us to understand certain traits of
these games, traits that
enable an educative experience in contradiction with the
semi-formation offered by
Cultural Industry, by proposing an action grounded in the
partakers' Experience
( Erfahrung), instead of the typical commodities of the
Cultural Industry that are based
in the viewers' Lived Experience ( Erlebnis).
We also deal with one of the subject's particulars we
consider most significant:
that role-players might cast a non-deterministic look upon
the history, because the
tale presents itself open to transformation, and it is a
collective achievement that
denaturalizes the social sphere.
Finally, we advocate the possibility of imbuing role-players
with a specific
habitus , one that spurs them to actively acquire
reading practice and cultural capital.


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