Congratulations to dr. Birutė Vitytė after successfully defending her doctoral dissertation LIBERTÉ vs SECURITÉ and AUTOCRATIE: Grounded Theory on Stereotyping as a Challenge for the Digital Game-Based Learning of Visual Arts (Vytautas Magnus University, social sciences, educology, S 007, scientific supervisor – prof. dr. Ona Monkevičienė), and aquiring  a doctoral degree in Social sciences (Educology).

The dissertation is available at Vytautas Magnus, Klaipėda University, Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius University and the Lithuanian National Mažvydas Library.

The dissertation is available at: 11 Studentu St. , Academy, Kaunas district.

The brief annotation is presented below. 

The doctoral thesis “LIBERTÉ vs SECURITÉ and AUTOCRATIE: Grounded Theory on Stereotyping as a Challenge for the Digital Game-Based Learning of Visual Arts” analyses the digital game-based education of visual arts. The selected methodology of the Grounded Theory reveals the main concern of the digital game-based learning of visual arts as seen from the perspective of the study participants (gamers), i.e. the stereotyping of digital games that creates preconditions to force the gamers out of the education system. The thesis research identifies specific processes and behavioural strategies that the gamers use to resolve and manage this main concern. The emergent non-typical concepts of Liberté, Securité and Autocratie not only demonstrate different meanings and significance that the properties of digital games have for the players but also reveal the unique behaviour of the gamer subgroup as well as the meaning and consequences of their behaviour for the pursuit of a more positive interpretation of digital games as a phenomenon. Securité process reveals that the elimination of certain properties of digital games in an effort to make them safe and positive does not actually help to overcome stereotyping. Liberté processes, such as Self-Liberation, Empowerment, Positioning and Lobbying, act as mediators that help to resolve the stereotyping issue. Autocratie is the designation of the official education system based on Domination, Power Without Authority and Standardisation processes that reflects how the system rejects gamers and impedes the stereotyping resolution process. The theory also reveals how the artistic content of digital games plays a special role in the reinterpretation of the negatively-viewed properties of digital games to make them seem more positive.