Breaking the Canvas: A Serious Game to challenge stereotypes in Visual Culture through Fine Arts

How are minorities portrayed in visual culture and art history? A large body of literature addresses this question (O’Kelly, 1983). However, relatively little attention has been paid to the potential use of this knowledge as an effective educational tool to raise awareness of social issues in educational contexts. The increasingly widespread digitization of education, the availability of online resources for exploring museum heritage, and circulation of structured and open data could represent an opportunity to experiment with innovative educational projects aimed at promoting themes such as inclusion, equity, and ethical use of new technologies. In this study, we move in this direction by proposing a digital tool to achieve these objectives. To do this, we refer to already established approaches for analysing gender stereotypes in art history and apply them to the educational framework known as a Serious Game. Our contribution is therefore twofold. First, we provide a theoretical and critical reflection on the state of the art of educational digital approaches to the study of artistic heritage from an inclusive perspective, considering the possibility of addressing a relatively young student target. Second, we provide a practical solution by proposing the architecture of an educational game designed for middle and high school students. The game will be introduced and tested in classes to support educational projects for inclusion through art history