In a small room in Nijmegen, about fifteen people stand around a huge game board, three by three metres wide. They all work every day to reach the same goal: improving equal opportunities in education. Still, good cooperation remains difficult. Today, they want to change this. Not through spreadsheets or articles, but with an innovative board game. With this game, they take their first step towards working better together... Start!
"Unequal opportunities, that’s what we refer to as a wicked problem," explains educational anthropologist Floris Burgers. This issue involves multiple stakeholders, and to tackle it, schools, local governments, and parents need to collaborate more effectively.
That’s exactly the goal of the board game Burgers has developed. In partnership with colleagues from Radboud University and the University of Amsterdam, he created a serious policy game designed to help all’educational groups understand each other’s perspectives and engage in meaningful discussions in a playful manner.
Why a board game?
Burgers highlights that each group has a unique perspective on equal opportunities. For instance, a school leader focuses on policy, a teacher is concerned about workload, and a parent prioritises their child’s development. "These varied interests can complicate collaboration," Burgers points out. However, the game element allows participants to shed their usual roles for a moment. In this context, their real interests take a back seat, enabling them to freely exchange ideas. But how exactly does this work within the game?
The city as a game board
This game is specifically designed for local governments. Players navigate a detailed map of their own city that highlights schools, neighbourhoods, and the characteristics of residents. Additionally, there is a version set in a fictional municipality named "Kansrijk." "When you look at the board in front of you, the problems really start to become clear," explains Burgers. At the beginning of the game, players vote on the most pressing challenges, such as school segregation or neighbourhood poverty. They place flags on the areas where these issues arise and drop tokens into voting tubes. Next, players select interventions that align with their roles and the challenges they are tackling. They also predict the choices the other groups will make. Players who guess correctly earn points, and the game encourages them to step into someone else’s shoes and see things from another perspective.
"We are all working on this together"
During a game session, Burgers observes players engaging in lively discussions, hesitating, and openly asking one another for their perspectives on possible solutions. This sparks brief, unexpected conversations that are rare in typical meetings. For instance, a school leader might express a desire to implement broad bridge classes, while a teacher immediately considers the impact on their workload. Burgers also notes that players are often caught off guard by their peers’ actions. They learn, at times, that they aren’t alone in their efforts to find solutions. One primary school teacher, feeling frustrated by their limited resources, once thought, "We’re just a small school; what can we really change?" However, during the game, he discovered that a nearby secondary school was also focused on promoting equal opportunities. "Experiences like that really reinforce the sense that we’re truly in this together," Burgers remarks.
Can every municipality become ’Kansrijk’
Currently, Burgers and his team are collaborating with the national partnership for Equal Opportunities and Citizenship Education (SKB) to enable numerous municipalities to utilise the game. "I hope this game serves as a foundation for a new approach to collaboration, one that ultimately enhances children’s prospects," Burgers states. The game illustrates that achieving equal opportunities doesn’t hinge on grand initiatives, but rather on the understanding that these challenges can’t be tackled alone.