On the Road to Cultural Bias: A Critique of The Oregon Trail

Article for Educators in PDF. By Bill Bigelow. 13 pages.
Critque of the popular Oregon Trail computer game.

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The Oregon Trail is now an I-Phone App.

Because interactive computer games like The Oregon Trail are encyclopedic in the amount of information they offer, and because they allow students a seemingly endless number of choices, they may appear educationally progressive.

But like the walls of a maze, the choices built into interactive computer games also channel participants in very definite directions. They are programmed by people — people with particular cultural biases — and children who play the computer games encounter the biases of the programmers (Bowers, 1988). Just as we would not invite a stranger into our classrooms and then leave the room, teachers need to become aware of the political perspectives of computer simulations, and need to equip our students to “read” them critically.

Published by Rethinking Schools.

Keywords: Warren Buckleitner, Susan Schilling, George Lucas, students, plains, Oregon Territory, interactive computer simulation, class, gender, race, women, men, Lillian Sclissel, Catherine Haun, Independence Day, Enoch Conyers, African Americans, Missouri, slave state, Delaware, Mexican, Elizabeth McLagan, A Peculiar Paradise, Black, Rogue River Valley, Medford, Oregon Donation Land Act, Indian, Samuel Thurston, nations, emigrants, guidebook, pioneers, Lakota