Short Abstract:

This panel will explore the emerging educational provocations of virtual reality/augmented reality platforms in the wider context of the metaverse. The panel will consider how anthropological theory can help to better understand the educational prospects of this new frontier for human interaction.

Long Abstract:

This panel will explore the emerging educational provocations of virtual reality/augmented reality platforms in the wider context of the metaverse. The panel will consider how anthropological theory can help to better understand the educational prospects of this new frontier for human interaction. Drawing on examples of ethnographic research in metaverse spaces, panel members will consider how education happens in the metaverse, and what is the political economy of metaversal landscapes where big tech interests rest in tension with grassroots and community-initiated world-building. The panel will also explore the implications of AI for education in augmented reality contexts, before offering a critical discussion of how traditional models of schooling may be radically unsettled as virtual and augmented realities become a normal part of everyday life for young people. Panelists will be encouraged to draw on the long history of anthropological research into education and its institutional manifestations in order to consider how educational interactions, of whatever kind, may grow and take shape in the metaverse. A byproduct of this discussion will be a consideration of the methodological implications of doing research in virtual and augmented reality contexts.