Exploring the Concept of Fairness in Everyday, Imaginary and Robot Scenarios: A Cross-Cultural Study With Children in Japan and Uganda

This paper describes a cross-cultural pilot study on children’s perceptions of fairness in robot-related scenarios with children in Japan (N = 20) and Uganda (N = 24). We used storytelling to facilitate children’s narratives on fairness and to identify areas of alignment and disconnect. Initial results indicate that while both groups referred to similar aspects of fairness, namely psychological, physical and systemic, children in Tokyo focused more on psychological and mental aspects while children in Uganda emphasised on physical and material aspects. Both groups increased their emphasis on mental aspects in robot-related scenarios. All children expressed their interest to further explore fairness and unfairness as experienced by children with different cultural backgrounds and the need for inter-group contact. The results of this study will contribute to the first phase of a study with robots and children in relation to child’s fundamental rights and to the dialogue about the requirements for fairness in robot development by highlighting the importance of considering children’s perspectives especially those of typically under-represented cultural groups.