Game instructors as cultural workers: Dialogic teaching and intercultural games higher education.

This article examines the potential of a dialogic teaching approach, grounded in Paulo Freire's critical pedagogies, to enhance game design education in an intercultural postgraduate classroom within UK higher education. Focusing on a "Digital Game Design" course taught between 2019 and 2022 to predominantly East Asian international students, the study highlights how game educators act as cultural workers by fostering critical game literacies—competences that integrate both technical skills and critical understanding of games as global, intercultural phenomena. Through reflective teaching practices and interviews with former students, the article illustrates how acknowledging diverse gaming backgrounds and employing strategies such as curated game playlists can challenge universalist assumptions, expand students' repertoires, and promote autonomy in engaging with games beyond vocational or narrowly technical models. The findings suggest that dialogic, critical pedagogies can bridge gaps between vocational and critical approaches in games education, although the study acknowledges limitations related to its specific context and sample size.