A Utopian agenda in child–computer interaction

While participatory techniques and practices have become commonplace in parts of the Child–Computer Interaction (CCI) related literature we believe that the tradition of Participatory Design has more to offer CCI. In particular, the Scandinavian Cooperative Design tradition, manifested through the Utopia project, provides a valuable resource for setting an agenda for CCI research that explicitly addresses ideals and values in research and practice. Based on a revisit of the Utopia project we position the ideals of democracy, skilfulness, and emancipation as the core ideals of a Utopian agenda and discuss how these resonate with issues and challenges in CCI research. Moreover, we propose that a Utopian agenda entails an explicit alignment between these ideals, a participatory epistemology, and methodology in terms of tools and techniques in CCI practice.