What do you think?
This Little Kiddy Went to Market: The Corporate Capture of Childhood: The Corporate Capture of Childhood
This book investigates the way that corporations are strategically shaping children to be under-aged hyperconsumers 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.
Beder investigates the corporate relations and ideals that infiltrate every aspect of our lives. 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, Beder explains how businesses are taking control of more and more aspects of schooling, not only for profit but to erode state schooling and promote business values. Similarly, she 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.
Beder investigates the corporate relations and ideals that infiltrate every aspect of our lives. 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, Beder explains how businesses are taking control of more and more aspects of schooling, not only for profit but to erode state schooling and promote business values. Similarly, she shows how 'difficult' children are taught from an early age that pharmaceuticals can be used to discipline them or to make them 'happy'.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
About the author
Sharon Beder
20 books8 followersSharon Beder is an honorary professor in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong.
Sharon's research has focussed on how power relationships are maintained and challenged, particularly by corporations and professions. She is interested in environmental politics; the rhetoric of sustainable development; the philosophies behind environmental economics; and trends in environmentalism and corporate activism/public relations. Most recently she has broadened her research interests to critique various manifestations of neoliberalism including privatisation and deregulation, market solutions to social problems and the business takeover of school education.
She has written 10 books, around 150 articles, book chapters and conference papers, as well as designing teaching resources and educational websites.
Sharon's research has focussed on how power relationships are maintained and challenged, particularly by corporations and professions. She is interested in environmental politics; the rhetoric of sustainable development; the philosophies behind environmental economics; and trends in environmentalism and corporate activism/public relations. Most recently she has broadened her research interests to critique various manifestations of neoliberalism including privatisation and deregulation, market solutions to social problems and the business takeover of school education.
She has written 10 books, around 150 articles, book chapters and conference papers, as well as designing teaching resources and educational websites.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 21, 2014
Books about school marketing tend to have really good titles. There’s this one, obviously enough, which I really like, and the wonderful Consuming Children, which sounds like the modern title to a fairy tale. But the fairy tale ends pretty quickly after you start reading these books – these are actually horror stories.
There are statistics right at the start of this book that really ought to make us want to DO something. You know, like the fact that suicide is the third highest cause of death for kids between 10 and 24 in the US and that 17% of kids between grades 9 and 12 had seriously considered taking their own lives. (page 3)
This book can be more or less summed up by this paragraph at the end of the conclusion:
“The consequence of this corporate capture of childhood is not only being felt by children, who are becoming more materialistic, overweight, stressed, depressed and self-destructive. Advertising and marketing aim to make these future citizens dissatisfied with what they have and want to consume more. Yet the health of the planet requires us to consume less. What is more, by undermining the critical-thinking faculties of future generations corporations are depriving them of the ability to solve pressing social and environmental problems; problems such as global warming, species extinction and water shortages, which are in many ways caused or exacerbated by those very corporations that are attempting to breed subservient employees and dumbed-down citizens.” Page 223
Between the statistics at the start and the conclusion the author has documented horror story after horror story of what is being done to our children in the name of corporate greed. From Channel One – a commercial television station that provides schools with ‘free’ equipment as long as the schools provide their students as docile watchers of their commercials that appear to have (in fact, do have) the endorsement of the school and teachers. From moves to use testing to enforce a curriculum that teaches to the test, rather than encourages critical thinking. From corporations that provide free ‘teaching materials’ that tell half-truths about fast food, polluting industries and radical free market economics. From the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation bankrolling the destruction of the American public education system. From psychiatry’s drug pushing ‘cures’ for childhood – no, that sentence is right – what is being cured is normal childhood behaviours – the second last chapter here really ought to be made compulsory reading. It is a clear, simply written, disturbing and essential introduction to a great evil that we are allowing to be done to our children.
This book doesn’t just focus on the US – it focuses on all of the English speaking world as it seems to be the English speaking world that appears most hell bent on finding better ways to display our utter subservience to the market and neoliberal policies. This book will make you angry, it will make you feel disgusted, it will make you question what can be done so that we can reclaim our rights as citizens and protect our children from manipulation and control by those who seek to exploit them. As such, it is required reading.
There are statistics right at the start of this book that really ought to make us want to DO something. You know, like the fact that suicide is the third highest cause of death for kids between 10 and 24 in the US and that 17% of kids between grades 9 and 12 had seriously considered taking their own lives. (page 3)
This book can be more or less summed up by this paragraph at the end of the conclusion:
“The consequence of this corporate capture of childhood is not only being felt by children, who are becoming more materialistic, overweight, stressed, depressed and self-destructive. Advertising and marketing aim to make these future citizens dissatisfied with what they have and want to consume more. Yet the health of the planet requires us to consume less. What is more, by undermining the critical-thinking faculties of future generations corporations are depriving them of the ability to solve pressing social and environmental problems; problems such as global warming, species extinction and water shortages, which are in many ways caused or exacerbated by those very corporations that are attempting to breed subservient employees and dumbed-down citizens.” Page 223
Between the statistics at the start and the conclusion the author has documented horror story after horror story of what is being done to our children in the name of corporate greed. From Channel One – a commercial television station that provides schools with ‘free’ equipment as long as the schools provide their students as docile watchers of their commercials that appear to have (in fact, do have) the endorsement of the school and teachers. From moves to use testing to enforce a curriculum that teaches to the test, rather than encourages critical thinking. From corporations that provide free ‘teaching materials’ that tell half-truths about fast food, polluting industries and radical free market economics. From the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation bankrolling the destruction of the American public education system. From psychiatry’s drug pushing ‘cures’ for childhood – no, that sentence is right – what is being cured is normal childhood behaviours – the second last chapter here really ought to be made compulsory reading. It is a clear, simply written, disturbing and essential introduction to a great evil that we are allowing to be done to our children.
This book doesn’t just focus on the US – it focuses on all of the English speaking world as it seems to be the English speaking world that appears most hell bent on finding better ways to display our utter subservience to the market and neoliberal policies. This book will make you angry, it will make you feel disgusted, it will make you question what can be done so that we can reclaim our rights as citizens and protect our children from manipulation and control by those who seek to exploit them. As such, it is required reading.
February 26, 2015
Beyond informative. Tons of appalling statistics about the effects that targeted marketing has had on today's children and teenagers, and how consumerism and profit-driven, business-minded school administrations have completely sabotaged the importance of a real childhood and an enriching education.
The book itself was too dry for my tastes, and I ended up bouncing around, reading sections that jumped out at me the most. Nevertheless, the book addresses a very pressing issue that calls for immediate change and remediation.
The book itself was too dry for my tastes, and I ended up bouncing around, reading sections that jumped out at me the most. Nevertheless, the book addresses a very pressing issue that calls for immediate change and remediation.
November 22, 2014
And people wonder why we are in the position we are in now... Obesity, mental disorders, suicides, global warming, consumerism, lack of critical thinking abilities ... the list goes on. After reading this book I feel as though I can confidently say that marketing that targets children and our current education system are to blame.
Schools should not be privatised. Children should not be targeted by marketing.
Schools should not be privatised. Children should not be targeted by marketing.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews