Gender and cultural differences (if any!): South African school children and computer games

Abstract

When studying computer games several factors come into play. The issue of gender inequality has been a topic of many research projects in the past. The issue of culture is still in its infancy. Previous research regarding game-playing and gender issues seem to indicate that boys play more computer games than girls, that boys prefer more violent, action-oriented games in comparison to girls and that girls would prefer to play games with a feminine appeal. Intuitively it can be assumed that different cultures play different existing games at different frequencies. In this study grade ten school children (ages sixteen to seventeen) from one city in South Africa were questioned in order to establish if the same results hold true. The results indicate that there are no major differences in game playing between genders and cultures for this group. The conclusion is reached that especially with regard to gender the situation changed quite a bit over the past few years in comparison to research results found in the literature. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.