Einladung zur mündlichen Prüfung im Promotionsverfahren von Hoa Mai Trần

The SFB cordially invites you to the oral examination in the doctoral examination proceedings of Hoa Mai Trần. The dissertation defense will take place on Tuesday, 20 October 2026, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in room AR-E 4112 (OASE Learning Workshop) at Adolf-Reichwein-Str. 2, 57068 Siegen, Germany.

 

During the defense, Hoa Mai Trần will present and academically defend the findings of her dissertation before the examination committee. The title of her dissertation is: “The Virtual Self in the In-Between: An Ethnographic Study of Childhood and Children’s Modes of Existence in Digital Play.”

Where does “the child” begin in digital play, and where does it end? Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork with three families in Germany, Hoa Mai Trần examines children’s experiences while playing digital games. The educational science study explores how the boundaries between the “self” and the “not-self” shift during play. At its core is the research question: How is children’s hybrid being-in-the-world brought forth through digital play?

The central thesis of the dissertation is that children can be present and exist beyond the physical boundaries of their flesh-and-blood bodies. Between feeling, becoming, and dying, an in-between space unfolds within play, revealing children’s hybrid, living modes of existence. Children’s play becomes a meaningful, tangible, and dynamic (in-between) reality. The phenomena of boundary dissolution, mutually generated by the child and the game, enable temporary or reactivatable ways of unfolding the self and the world, depending on the particular play situation, and contribute to the emergence of the virtual self. The virtual self is not a digital representation of the child within the game, but rather the idea brought forth through play—one that can be digitally materialized and personalized to varying degrees, expressing the possibility of being or becoming something or someone. Digital games are inhabitable spaces of childhood that have individual, social, educational policy-related, and economic significance for children and society.

The dissertation project is part of Subproject B05: “(Early) Childhood and Smartphones.” The examination will be conducted in German and will be chaired by Prof. Dr. Jutta Wiesemann (first examiner), Prof. Dr. Jochen Lange (second examiner), and Prof. Dr. Chantal Munsch (member of the examination committee).