CHILDHOOD AND PARENTING IN POPULAR-CULTURE

The texts, imagery and commodities of popular culture encode construct s of childhood and parenthood which act as powerful public pedagogies in the production of social identities of the 'child', 'family', 'gend er', and 'race'. This paper focuses on (i) the corporate construction of childhood in the toy and media industries and, (ii) the textual and market construction of childhood and parenthood in childcare and pare nting magazines. The analysis suggests that the social and consumer le ssons children learn early, through the world of media and toys, are m atched by similar visions of childhood in parenting magazines. It desc ribes the marketplace of childhood, and the contradictory cultural log ic of 'postfeminist' images of family, child, and parenting.