The project Bridge is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Servicio Espanol para la Internacionalizacion de la Educacion (SEPIE). Neither the European Union nor the National Agency SEPIE can be held responsible for them. -- Number: 2025-1-ES01-KA220-HED-000359236 --
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BRIDGE Main Challenge: A.5. Discrimination, racism and sociocultural polarisation, including hate speech
Online hate speech and stereotypes have become ubiquitous in digital spaces, above all in gaming communities where young people aged 11–19 spend much of their leisure time. Hate shapes how adolescents see the 'other' and how they handle conflict with peers. In Germany, the normalisation of polarising discourse and the fragmented federal education system make consistent anti-hate education difficult to deliver.
Play Your Role uses video games as tools for media literacy and civic engagement. After researching hate in gaming communities, seven partners from six countries created a toolkit of 15 educational pathways, an urban games manual and four serious games developed at European hackathons. All materials are open educational resources that teachers and youth workers can adapt freely for their own classrooms and youth groups.
Play Your Role (2019–2022) was a European project funded under the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme, with JFF (Institut für Medienpädagogik) as German partner. It used gamification and video games to counter online hate among young people aged 11–19. Four phases structured it: research on hate in gaming communities, creation of educational pathways, hackathons producing short serious games, and dissemination through an online platform and urban games. Teachers and youth workers can use the resulting open resource set in six languages.
Online hate has become a normal part of young people's digital lives, especially in gaming communities. The project's own research with 195 Italian pupils and a Lithuanian focus group of 44 young people documented how common hateful comments are. Such hate builds on structural inequalities linked to migrant background, socioeconomic status and gender, and it shapes how adolescents perceive the 'other'.
Adolescents aged 11–19 form their attitudes to difference and conflict partly in digital spaces. If hate speech goes unchallenged there, symbolic stigmatisation and polarisation become habits. Educators need tools that connect with youth culture and that young people accept as credible.
The practice responds directly to Challenge A5 (discrimination, racism and sociocultural polarisation, including hate speech). It exposes the mechanisms of polarising discourse, works inside the digital environment that amplifies hate, and encourages young people to create counter-narratives of tolerance and respect.
A participatory action-research design linked four phases. Surveys and focus groups diagnosed hate in gaming communities. Teams from six countries then wrote 15 educational pathways for workshops. European hackathons brought game designers and educators together to build short serious games. Finally, urban games, seminars, conferences and an online platform disseminated and piloted the tools with more than 400 participants.
Play Your Role Toolkit: 15 Educational Pathways
Educational resource
The toolkit collects 15 educational pathways developed by teams from France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal for workshops with young people aged 11–19. Each pathway uses existing video games or games created by the project to encourage reflection on online hate, stereotypes and the culture of online discussion. The pathways are built on game-based learning and guided reflection on young people's own media practices, and they explicitly address xenophobic and racist hate. The toolkit was published in November 2020 as an Open Educational Resource in six languages under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, so teachers and youth workers can adapt and translate the workshops for their own contexts. Educators are invited to send comments and adaptations to the project's institutional email address.
Teaching staff, Students, Professionals
Four Serious Games from the Hackathons
Interactive game
Four short serious games were created at European hackathons in which game designers and educators worked together. In Divide et Impera the player takes the role of a political leader who uses divisive discourse on religion, sexuality and migration to fracture a community, revealing how manipulation works on social media; the game was selected for the 9th WordPlay Festival in 2021. YouTuber Simulator asks players to balance channel growth with comment moderation and their own mental health. Social Threads simulates online interactions in which constructive responses to harassment protect the player's 'mental stamina'. In deplatforming the player leads an activist group trying to stop hate campaigns across digital platforms. The games run on Android, iOS and in web browsers; several offer multilingual support.
Teaching staff, Students, General Public
Hackathon Games Booklet
Teaching guide
The booklet (September 2021) accompanies the four serious games and provides the pedagogical framework for using them in formal education. It contains four evaluated teaching proposals for secondary schools, youth centres and associations, with activities designed to explain mechanisms of manipulation and social polarisation and to promote creative counter-narratives and the values of tolerance. The proposals show how to integrate the project's games (Divide et Impera, YouTuber Simulator, Social Threads, deplatforming) into a workshop, so teachers who have not yet used games as learning tools have a ready structure to start from. The booklet has been translated into all project languages and can be combined with the toolkit pathways or used on its own.
Teaching staff, Professionals
Urban Games Manual
Manual
The manual (September 2021) systematises the experience of four urban games held in Italy, Germany, Lithuania and Poland with more than 400 young people, teachers and educators. Urban games are activities in which participants move through real public space and encounter situations of discrimination and hate that they must recognise and respond to. The manual explains the educational rationale, offers two versions with different levels of interaction with the urban environment to suit different settings, and analyses participants' responses to discrimination as observed during the pilots. It is intended for teachers and youth workers in school and out-of-school settings who want to take the discussion of online hate into a physical, cooperative format.
Teaching staff, Students, Professionals
Invasion of the Cybertrolls: Role-Playing Game
Interactive game
Invasion of the Cybertrolls is a digital pen-and-paper role-playing game in which a group of players cooperates to defeat 'trolls' with words. The game trains argumentation skills and a constructive discussion culture. Players must find strategies for responding to hateful messages without escalating the conflict. All materials needed to run a workshop independently are provided, including instructions, guides, character sheets and objective circles. The original game was created by OKF DE under a CC BY 4.0 licence; the translation produced by JFF for Play Your Role is also licensed CC BY 4.0. It suits classrooms and youth groups in school and out-of-school settings.
Teaching staff, Students
Research Reports on Hate Speech in Video Games
Digital publication
The research strand of Play Your Role documents the diagnosis on which the educational resources rest. The Survey Analysis on Hate Speech Online (May 2020) presents the results of surveys of students aged 11–20 in Portugal, Italy and Lithuania, including 195 pupils from nine Italian classes, on their perceptions of hate in video games. A focus group with 44 young people aged 12–19 in Šiauliai, Lithuania, complemented the survey. The report 'Hate speech in video games and online gaming communities: State of the art' (January 2021) analyses current trends in hate speech among young gamers and is summarised in infographics for dissemination. Together these publications give teachers and researchers an evidence base for discussing the prevalence and normalisation of online hate with students.
Teaching staff, Researchers, Policy Makers