Conference Program

The need to develop personal finance literacy is an increasingly important issue worldwide, especially in the wake of the latest financial shocks and geopolitical crises. The large majority of households do not possess the basic knowledge of financial concepts necessary to effectively manage their personal finances and achieve a lifetime of financial well-being. Financial literacy thus represents an essential life skill being able to reduce inequalities and to improve social justice.

Despite the very large number of financial education initiatives promoted over the years both domestically and internationally, unfortunately recent evidence confirms the individuals' poor ability to manage their money, although some positive signs have emerged compared to the past. Considering the investments made to date and the attention given to the topic by governments and financial authorities worldwide, we would have expected a much greater growth in the households' skills.

The proposal aims to understand how to enhance the effectiveness of future financial education initiatives, which currently rely primarily on traditional learning methods, such as seminars. However, financial literacy is more than just understanding theoretical concepts and making practical decisions based on numbers and data. Personal finance, unlike other disciplines, requires not only technical knowledge, but also the ability to manage one's emotions, which often negatively impact on individuals' decision-making processes. In addition to that, in this domain it is unlikely that individuals have the chance to make the same decision several times; it is more common that a choice is made only once (or very few times) during the lifetime of the person, but that decision may produce its effects for one or two decades, or even more. A typical example is when an individual wants to buy a house and ask for a mortgage: signing a wrong contract lead that person to pay higher fees and interests over several years.

For all of the above reasons, the methodologies used so far to teach the basics of personal finance to the general public may not be the most appropriate. Game-based learning instead, and more precisely board game-based learning, might be an effective alternative approach leading to a stronger increase in financial literacy worldwide. It has been proved in literature that this form of experiential learning through games encourages critical thinking, calculated risk-taking, and the exploration of unusual alternatives by providing an interactive and low-stakes environment for active participation. Playing games also develops participants’ engagement, which is very useful to transfer knowledge, especially in domains that individuals perceive not to be very attractive and quite boring, like personal finance is thought to be.

If properly used, games could represent a valuable tool for transferring basic financial skills to individuals, and thus to enhance households’ financial literacy, not only in Italy, but also worldwide.

Young children’s access to play has decreased significantly due to mass adoption of scripted curricula, standardized testing, and a movement away from educational experiences centered on the development of the whole child (Miller & Almon, 2009). There is also an increased need to integrate computer science (CS) learning into preschool education, something that has been overlooked by most CS initiatives (Harper et al., 2024; Smith, 2016). This presentation will focus on how play experiences implemented through PlayBots provided opportunities for rural preschoolers in the Southeastern United States to develop a sense of belonging in computer science (CS) while building social-emotional skills. PlayBots is a series of play-based experiences co-developed with educators to foster computational thinking, social-emotional competencies, and a sense of belonging in CS among young children. PlayBots embeds foundational computational thinking concepts (Bers, 2021) within unplugged and low-tech multimodal experiences (e.g., individual and cooperative play, culminating activities, project work, small group instruction, read-alouds, and daily routines). PlayBots evolved from a larger preschool computational thinking program built within a research-practice partnership funded by the National Science Foundation: Computer Science for All Program (see crraft.org; Harper et al. 2023, 2024) and is available online open access for early childhood educators.

Over ten weeks, educators in six rural preschool classrooms spent time implementing and documenting PlayBots activities and experiences. In dramatic play, children acted like computer scientists as they developed play scenarios using real CS props to solve problems. Children chose different computer scientists identification badges of important STEM figures to wear as they engaged in work tasks. They used clipboards, paper, and writing tools to represent their ideas. In the block center, children played Let’s go Code!, using foam mats and large coding cards to build programs and move their bodies. They also explored the functions and capabilities of different robots (Bee-Bot, Robot Mouse, Code-a-Pillar, etc.), developed programs with coding cards, and constructed homes and mazes for robots with blocks and magnetic tiles. Throughout different spaces in the classrooms, children collaborated as they implemented the design process to build individual and shared robot prototypes from recyclables and loose parts (Nicholson, 1971, 1972). Children worked together to identify problems their robots could solve in the school or community.

This presentation will highlight vignettes created through educators’ documentation and video clips created through 360-degree camera recordings located in six preschool classrooms. These vignettes of children’s interactions and engagement with CS-focused play materials demonstrate how integrating more intentional play-based learning and making thoughtful environmental adaptations to classroom spaces enhanced social-emotional learning and a sense of belonging in CS. Providing more play-based CS activities in rural preschools allows for more democratic participation in CS and play among young children, particularly those with limited or no access to CS education (Childs et al., 2024; Harper et al., 2024).

In Italy, blood and plasma donation occurs exclusively on a voluntary and unpaid basis; however, the donor population is ageing and generational renewal remains insufficient (ISS - Centro Nazionale Sangue, 2023). New donors under 50 are less likely to continue donating in the months following their first donation (Bilancini et al., 2022), making early-stage awareness initiatives particularly valuable. Volunteering and donation represent concrete expressions of altruism and pro-social behaviour, dimensions that can be cultivated since childhood (House & Tomasello, 2018; House et al., 2020). Play has long been recognised as a means to foster empathy, cooperation, and sensitivity toward the common good (Orlick, 1983). Game-based pedagogical approaches have demonstrated effectiveness in promoting pro-social behaviour (Bilancini et al., 2023), engaging both young students and their families while remaining low-cost, scalable, and amenable to follow-up (Nesti, 2017; Plass & Homer, 2015; Dix, 2019).

The primary innovation of this research lies in assessing a game-based intervention in the context of pro-social behaviours related to blood and plasma donation. While prior work has examined such approaches in areas such as sustainable water use (Bilancini et al., 2021), no experimental study to date has focused on their impact on donation-related pro-social behaviours.

This paper presents a pilot randomised controlled study testing the effectiveness of the CapitanAVIS project, a ludic-educational intervention centred on a collaborative board game conveying key information about blood compatibility and the collective donation system, aimed at promoting donation culture and pro-social attitudes among primary school students in the Versilia area, province of Lucca, Italy. Two research questions guided the study: (1) what is the effect of a board game activity, compared to drawing-based activities, on children's knowledge of blood donation?; (2) what is the effect of the two conditions on pro-social attitudes in children aged 8–10?

Approximately 680 students from grades 3–5 across 22 classes were randomly assigned to a treatment group (T), engaging with the CapitanAVIS board game in school and family settings, or a control group (C), involved in drawing and narrative activities on the donation theme. Data were collected at three time points, W0 (March 2022), W1 (April 2022), and W2 (May–June 2022), assessing playful habits, pro-social attitudes, and blood donation knowledge.

Results indicate that knowledge of blood donation increased in both groups, with greater gains in the treatment group. Pro-social attitudes and allocation behaviour did not differ substantially between conditions, with no systematic behavioural change over time and considerable inter-individual variability. Exploratory analyses suggest a modest positive association between playful habits and pro-social attitudes. These findings provide preliminary evidence supporting game-based interventions for public health knowledge dissemination in school settings, and confirm the feasibility of the experimental design for future large-scale implementations.

The paper presents a theoretical framework and specific prompts useful for AI generation of game-based Learning Unit aimed at developing prosocial and recognition of the others skills. The framework is that of peace education, seen as a culture of relationships that is built through educational processes and social experiences in which individuals learn to confront the plurality of differences.

In this context, it is possible to leverage the potential of board games and video games, included within appropriately designed Learning Units as a whole, which include within themselves playful activities and activities around the game (Andreoletti & Tinterri, 2023). While board games constitute symbolic systems governed by explicit and shared norms within which participants act, make decisions, play roles, and engage with others, video games, while presenting risks in terms of aggression, can in some cases increase prosocial behavior and recognition of others (Katsarov et al., 2019, Lopez-Naranjo et al., 2025).

The contribution is based on a theoretical framework that contemplates three dimensions, directivity, sociality and projectivity (Ugolini & Morreale, 2023; forthcoming), linked respectively to the problem scenario, social scenario and identity scenario of Hanghoj (2013) and to the qualification function, socialization function and subjectification function of Education (Biesta, 2009). In this paper, we focus this framework on prosociality and on recognition of the other.

Through this framework, it is possible to train Generative AI (Ugolini et al., 2025), which, through appropriate prompts, is able to generate the project of a competence-oriented Learning Unit, in a secondary school context, based on a gaming experience and linked to curricular objectives, above all those defined for civic education.

The research proposes an analysis involving expert teachers and game designers, of the AI-generated Learning Unit projects in order to evaluate their feasibility in context, both from the point of view of design coherence and from the point of view of the validity of the theoretical reference model.

Play is not marginal activity but a central social practice for individual and collective formation; therefore it must be rethought with pedagogical, philosophical, and design perspectives that integrate school, community, and university. Pedagogically, play is an instrument of active learning that fosters cognitive, emotional, and relational competences when adults recognize it as an educational practice—facilitating, designing, or simply observing a heterogeneity of experiences (structured games, risky play, creative‑expressive workshops, shared reading, physical activities, etc.) calibrated to children’s needs, enjoyment, and resources.

Philosophically, play is a space of child agency and meaning‑making: valuing children as competent actors means promoting practices that allow negotiation, experimentation, and the rewriting of social norms, countering mere reproduction of inequality. This requires an ethics and foresight in design that consider equity, dignity, and participation, acknowledging limits imposed by economic, cultural, and social capital while seeking to expand them through inclusive practices.

From a design perspective, play spaces should be conceived as educational infrastructures integrated within territorial networks: open schools, car‑free streets, redesigned courtyards, equipped parks, libraries, and recreation centers functioning as ludic‑educational ecosystems where different ages meet in dedicated and intergenerational opportunities. Participatory design—engaging children, parents, teachers, and community—increases social cohesion and relational capital, allows calibration of material and symbolic resources, and promotes accessibility and safety.

Public policy and urban planning play a crucial role in redistributing opportunities: targeted investments reduce disparities between neighborhoods and foster habitus oriented to creativity, negotiation, and autonomy. In urban contexts with dense community networks (neighborhood associations, active parishes, accessible sports centers), children can benefit from a plurality of structured and supervised play opportunities with important health and developmental benefits. Conversely, excessive scheduling and reduced informal free‑play contexts can be significant barriers to creativity and nature contact.

In peripheral and marginalized contexts, weak community networks often translate into scarce play opportunities, frequently compensated by informal street play or solitary digital media use; rural settings with dispersed landscapes may channel children into solitary, nature‑based play. Play’s unpredictability and unfinished reinterpretation of actions generate a unique aesthetics of play and players, an estrangement that seduces by destabilizing.

This contribution integrates diverse research approaches (special pedagogy, physical education, sustainable and integrated design) across three geographically distant contexts—Molise (Italy), Río Cuarto (Córdoba, Argentina), and Pasadena (California, USA)—to argue that rights to play not only educate participants and spectators but also contribute to fairer, more peaceful, and resilient communities.