The present ITSE journal special issue on ”Learning About Social Interaction through Gaming” is the result of an invitation to the attendees of a one-day workshop on ”Social Learning Through Gaming” co-organized by the guest editors and held at the Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) conference on April 26, 2004 in Vienna, Austria. CHI is one of the premiere conferences on human-computer interaction. CHI 2004 attracted hundreds of delegates from all over the world. The CHI workshop program results from a competitive selection process. The Social Learning through Gaming workshop was filled to capacity and attended by approximately 25 participants from Europe and North America who submitted position papers that were refereed and selected for participation based on the relevancy and innovativeness of the research. The participants came together to share research on play, learning, games, interactive technologies, and what playing and designing games can teach us about social behaviors. The present special issue focuses on learning about social aspects through gaming: learning to socialize through games and learning games through social behavior.