This Little Kiddy Went to Market
The Corporate Capture of Childhood
This book investigates the way that corporations are strategically shaping children to be hyper-consumers as well as the submissive employees and uncritical citizens of the future.
Sharon Beder shows how marketers and advertisers are targeting ever younger children in a relentless campaign, transforming children's play into a commercial opportunity and taking advantage of childish anxieties.
She presents an alarming picture of how a child's social development - through education, health care and nutrition - has become an ordered conveyor belt of consumerist conditioning. Focusing on education in particular, she also shows how 'difficult' children are taught from an early age that pharmaceuticals can be used to discipline them or to make them 'happy'.
Sharon Beder shows how marketers and advertisers are targeting ever younger children in a relentless campaign, transforming children's play into a commercial opportunity and taking advantage of childish anxieties.
She presents an alarming picture of how a child's social development - through education, health care and nutrition - has become an ordered conveyor belt of consumerist conditioning. Focusing on education in particular, she also shows how 'difficult' children are taught from an early age that pharmaceuticals can be used to discipline them or to make them 'happy'.
Sharon Beder is a visiting professor in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication at the University of Wollongong. She is considered a leading authority on corporate and environmental issues. She is the author of several books, including Free Market Missionaries (Earthscan, 2012), Power Play (DIANE, 2009) and This Little Kiddy Went to Market (Pluto, 2009).
Dr Wendy Varney is an honorary fellow at the University of New South Wales. She is the author of This Little Kiddy Went to Market (Pluto, 2009).
Dr Richard Gosden is a full time writer and researcher based in Australia. He is the author of This Little Kiddy Went to Market (Pluto, 2009).
'Beder's analysis is comprehensive, steely and clinical' - Harold Pinter
'Outstanding ... This is such an important book that I would put it on every school curriculum' - John Pilger
'A chilling assessment of modern commercial culture and how it distorts childhood, corrupts civic institutions, and endangers the planet' - Alex Molnar is Professor of Education Policy and Director of the Commercialism in Education Research Unit at Arizona State University. He is the author of Giving Kids the Business and School Commercialism: From Democratic Ideal To Market Commodity
Introduction
1. Turning Children into Consumers
2. Turning Play into Business
3. Branding Childish Identities
4. Teaching Consumer Values
5. Turning Schools into Businesses
6. Making Schools Accountable
7. Business Campaigns
8. Made to Order
9. Dumbing Down Future Citizens
10. Teaching Corporate Values
11. Privatising Schools
12. Turning Schools into Markets
13. Privatisation Proponents
14. Controlling Wayward Children
Conclusion
Notes
1. Turning Children into Consumers
2. Turning Play into Business
3. Branding Childish Identities
4. Teaching Consumer Values
5. Turning Schools into Businesses
6. Making Schools Accountable
7. Business Campaigns
8. Made to Order
9. Dumbing Down Future Citizens
10. Teaching Corporate Values
11. Privatising Schools
12. Turning Schools into Markets
13. Privatisation Proponents
14. Controlling Wayward Children
Conclusion
Notes
Published by Pluto Press in May 2009
Paperback ISBN: 9780745329154
eBook ISBN: 9781783715473
eBook ISBN: 9781783715473
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