Broadening the Reach of International Simulations to Overcome Accessibility Barriers

Abstract

World politics simulations are gaining popularity and becoming mainstream. With advanced technological tools, experimental learning brings together students from afar increasing the multicultural nature of meetings and practical learning. Progress in running simulations and pedagogical goal fulfillment still require the removal of accessibility barriers, to make our educational environment more equal, universally across the globe. This study addresses four barrier types, describes improvement in the legal setting over the years and points to still unmet challenges preventing an equitable learning experience for all students regardless of background, race, religion, or ability. Components from the Universal Design for Learning (UDL)—Action and Expression, Engagement, and Representation—serve as pedagogical guidelines, applied in the Syrian Civil War Simulation (SCWS) to illustrate how gradually progressing role play can overcome some if not all barriers. Some barriers are technical-procedural, so addressing them necessitates awareness and application of easily available modifications. Others are deeply embedded, making their removal harder and more costly. In conclusion, the study highlights practical ways to overcome barriers, emphasizing the role of networking as a way to identify problems, learn about available solutions, share the costs of implementing changes, and make simulation projects attractive to all students.

Keywords:

• Simulations
• disabilities
• accessibility barriers
• networking
• innovative learning
• technology
• Syrian civil war

Notes

1 On the World Politics Simulations Project see https://sites.google.com/site/worldpoliticssimulations/and Ben-Yehuda (2021, 166–167). For a review of innovative learning see Hudson and Butler 2010. On designs for online courses see Parmentier (2013).

2 https://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/2016/Map/DESA-Enable_4496R6_May16.pdf

3 On core related issues see: Aron and Loprest (2012); Cogburn (2017); Goggin (2015); Kendall and Tarman (2016); Levinson (2019). International organizations also address disability concerns like Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2003); United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2015); and World Health Organization (2011).

4 For additional resources, see: http://www.cast.org/our-work/about-udl.html and Novak (2016).

5 http://www.cast.org/our-work/projects.html

6 The SCWS and other simulations in the World Politics Simulations Project build on case studies of international crises, though non-fiction narratives like J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings are also useful for role play and study of international relations, like Ruane and James (2012). For definitions and types of simulations see: Asal (2005); Gill (2015); Sauvé et al. (2007); and Shaw (2010). Following Ben-Yehuda, Levin-Banchik, and Naveh (2015, 3), “Simulation” and “Role Play” are used herein interchangeably, as terms in which human participants interact with one another, though some scholars, like Aldrich 2009, see them as separate genres.

7 See the “Hall of Fame” chapter, in Ben-Yehuda (2021, 19–31).

8 On less stressful conditions in the initial scenario, compared with crisis conditions in the opening scenario and their inputs for gradual learning see: Ben-Yehuda, Levin-Banchik, and Naveh (2015, 4, 69–73).

9 On practicing empathy in simulations, Ben-Yehuda and Zohar (2018), test the context of rogue actors and fanaticism, while Zappile, Beers, and Chad (2017), address the global context, testing an increase in political awareness and civic engagement.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hemda Ben-Yehuda

Hemda Ben-Yehuda is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, teaching international relations, terrorism, non-state actors in world politics and methodology. She has long been a research associate of the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) Project and published The Arab-Israel Conflict Transformed: Fifty Years of Interstate and Ethnic Crisis. On simulations she has initiated the World Politics Simulations Project, together with Luba Levin-Banchik and Chanan Naveh (https://www.facebook.com/WorldPoliticsSimulationsProject), Their innovative experiences from face-to-face simulations and ones on social networks have led to World Politics Simulations in a Global Information Age, a comprehensive handbook published in 2015 by the University of Michigan Press. Ben-Yehuda’s newest book is All the World’s a Stage: The Theater of Political Simulations, published in 2021 by Routledge.