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8. Playful Higher Education futures: Hopeful and utopian thinking in pedagogy

  • Kim Holflod (author)
Chapter of: Stories of Hope: Reimagining Education(pp. 95–106)

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Metadata
Title8. Playful Higher Education futures
SubtitleHopeful and utopian thinking in pedagogy
ContributorKim Holflod (author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0462.08
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0462/chapters/10.11647/obp.0462.08
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightKim Holflod;
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2025-07-02
Long abstractThis chapter explores the concept of playful Higher Education as a space infused with hopeful and utopian voices that resist prevailing trends of efficiency, performativity, and individualisation. Through a thematic analysis of playful voices, it envisions alternative futures for Higher Education that prioritise communality and relationality. Drawing on insights from a three-year, design-based research project involving playful learning experiments and interventions in interprofessional contexts, the chapter highlights how playful education can act as an imaginative utopia, promoting a hopeful pedagogy. Ultimately, it argues that embracing playfulness in Higher Education is both a hopeful and utopian endeavour, offering a meaningful path toward transforming and improving the educational system.
Page rangepp. 95–106
Print length12 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Kim Holflod

(author)

Kim Holflod, PhD, is an educational design researcher focusing on playful, experimental, and relational methodologies and pedagogies in teaching, learning and educational development, speculative design and futures in Higher Education, and participation, relationality, and collaborative practices across disciplines, professions, and sectors. He holds a PhD in Higher Education playful learning, an MA in Danish Studies, and a professional Master’s in ICT and Learning. He is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Danish School for Education, Aarhus University, and an Associate Professor at University College Copenhagen, Denmark. He is currently part of the EU Horizon research and innovation action project EPIC-WE (“Empowered Participation through Ideating Cultural Worlds and Environments: Youth Imagining, Creating and Exchanging Cultural Values and Heritage through Game-Making”) and the research and development project Playful Learning Praxis Research across the Danish University Colleges.

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