IMAGINING ROMANCE - YOUNG PEOPLES CULTURAL MODELS OF ROMANCE AND LOVE

This article examines the underlying cognitive structures, specificall y visual and event schemata, and the meanings associated with these st ructures that form children's cultural models, or what they think of a s typical and ideal in romance. The study shows that long before it tr anslates into actual behavior, children's romantic imagination is shap ed by the content and forms that romance assumes in the postmodern nex us of media and the market. Through 183 interviews with children ages 8 to 17, we explore how children's imagined vision of romance moves fr om one molded by the media, associating romance with luxury and leisur e consumption to one characterized by a tension between what media hav e promised them and their growning understanding of the complexities o f love.