Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood (2011) is a collection of essays by various authors, edited by Shirley R. Steinberg, which each address different aspects of the commercialisation and marketing of popular culture to children, as well as the changing notion of childhood. In the introduction to the book, Steinberg (2011) outlines the ideological views of the authors, and explains some of the underlying factors behind this trend. According to Steinberg (2011, p. 1), “Along with a sweeping tsunami of politics, religious influences, struggles, and advancing web 2.0 globalisation comes an incredible phenomenon, kinderculture: Children and youth have become infantalized by popular culture, schools and adults, and while being considered ‘too’ young for almost anything, at the same time, they are being marketed to as seasoned adults.”
Firstly, Steinberg (2011, p. 2-3) points out that the socially constructed notion of childhood has only existed for about 150 years, since children started moving from factories to schools, where they became somewhat sheltered from the dangers of the adult world. Steinberg (2011, p. 4-5) challenges the positivist perspective on childhood, which uses biology to justify assumptions that children should be subservient and dependent on adults due to their physical immaturity. The positivist approach led to a belief that children should only be exposed to developmentally appropriate adult knowledge (Steinberg, 2011, p. 6), an approach which can still be seen in the organisation of the school curriculum as a continuum of experience (Steinberg, 2011, p. 36). According to Steinberg (2011, p. 7-8), “This conception of the child as a passive receiver of adult input and socialization strategies has been replaced by a view of the child as an active agent capable of contributing to the construction of his or her own subjectivity.” Although Kinderculture (Steinberg, 2011) could be criticised for its structuralist approach which emphasises the commodification of cultural objects and the commercialisation of popular culture, this statement shows how it also highlights the agency of children.
The key theme of Kinderculture is that “traditional conceptions of childhood as a time of innocence and adult dependency have been undermined in part by children’s access to popular culture” (Steinberg, 2011, p. 34). The media and popular culture now play a much larger role in children’s lives, opening a door to the adult world and making it harder for adults to control children’s cultural experiences and shape their values and world views (Steinberg, 2011, p. 33). Corporations thus produce more of young people’s experiences, appealing to their desire for independence and entertainment, which naturally makes parents and teachers uneasy. According to Steinberg (2011, p. 13), “in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, corporate children’s culture has replaced schooling as the producer of the central curriculum of childhood.”
Why iPad (and Tablets in General) Will Succeed by Yan Chi Vinci Chow (Flickr image, CC BY-NC 2.0, retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/14282435@N00/5581238453/in/photolist-9vciKc-8unerx-dGhh3n-adf5Rs-b9wSNz-b9wxYn-b9wHfp-b9wapM-b9wosM-b9wn8i-b9wgzH-b9wTmg-b9wLiM-b9wpfH-b9wRmt-b9wTa4-b9we8T-b9wAEF-b9wX5k-b9wPu6-b9wcZz-b9ww1T-b9wwoM-b9w8wT-b9wPk2-b9wfxp-b9wxaT-b9wXWn-b9wdxD-b9whT4-b9wfhB-b9wpJ4-b9wDTX-b9wVT8-b9wrgr-b9wLvz-b9wG9T-b9wcMV-b9wN8k-b9wwHP-b9wmsT-b9wtkH-b9wv22-cNCt2f-9vciQ4-9vfjn3-9vfjpb-9vfjhG-cFoHN1-czxg1y-cFizYW)
The move away from traditional notions of childhood has implications for schools. “Many children in Western societies are no longer learning along a preplanned program of selected exposure to the adult world by adults. Instead, they are accessing previously considered ‘adult’ information via electronic media. As this takes place, such children are freed from particular parental norms and parental regulations common to bourgeois culture. A cultural aesthetic develops that eschews cultural products provided for the purposes of education and refinement. Kinderculture thus emerges and is produced around the new childhood desire for independence and resistance to things adult. Traditional forms of school learning become less and less important and less applicable to the needs of these children (Hengst, 2001). Thus, childhood is perceived in crisis because it resembles nothing most people have ever seen before.” (Steinberg, 2011, p. 16-17)
Finally, Steinberg (2011, p. 50) outlines implications for education, pointing out the importance of connecting schooling to informal, out-of-school learning. “Our pedagogy for the new childhood moves away from the unproblematized transmission of dominant cultural norms and knowledges toward the development of cognitive skills and abilities that empower students to
- teach themselves to become rigorous scholars
- make sense of the mass of information with which they are confronted in hyperreality
- understand regardless of their social location questions of power and justice
- gain social mobility from marginalized and disempowered locales
- become good citizens, agents of democracy in an antidemocratic era
- make sense of complex real-life situations from which advocates of childhood innocence might try to protect them
- communicate their insights as children unabashedly to a variety of audiences” (Steinberg, 2011, p.49-50)
Although some may argue that the introduction to Kinderculture (Steinberg, 2011) exaggerates and sensationalises the influence of popular culture and commercial interests on young people, I believe that Steinberg (2011) raises some valid points about the way childhood has changed, resulting in conflicting ideas and expectations for young people. Rather than burying our heads in the sand or trying to turn back time, we need to find a way to tap into the potential of popular culture if we want to be involved in “the central curriculum of childhood” (Steinberg, 2011, p. 13).
Reference
Steinberg, S.R. (2011). Kinderculture: Mediating, simulacralizing, and pathologizing the new childhood. In S.R. Steinberg (Ed.), Kinderculture: The corporate construction of childhood (3rd ed.) [EBL version] (pp. 1-53). Westview Press. Retrieved from http://www.qut.eblib.com.au.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=665864&echo=1&userid=QRgFcBiqbQsbF9HInMEOhg%3d%3d&tstamp=1379670525&id=F4EDC773F4E0FC3A8138C458B9B97613A9C0C7BB
Cover of Steinberg, S.R. (Ed.). (2011). Kinderculture: The corporate construction of childhood (3rd ed.). Westview Press. Retrieved from http://www.qut.eblib.com.au.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=665864&echo=1
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