1. Selling learning: towards a political economy of edutainment media.
- Author
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Buckingham, David and Scanlon, Margaret
- Subjects
- *
MASS media , *EDUCATIONAL programs , *HOME & school , *PARENTS' & teachers' associations , *TUTORS & tutoring , *PARENT-child relationships , *DATA transmission systems - Abstract
This article discusses about the political economy of edutainment media. Commercial companies have not been slow to grasp the new opportunities that have arisen here. Parents are being placed under increasing pressure to `invest' in their children's education by providing additional resources at home. Private home tutoring is now becoming available for children at an ever-younger age; and there has been a marked increase in the commercial provision of supplementary classes, not just in `extras' such as the arts but also in `basics' such as maths and literacy. This is a largely unregulated market: there is no system of inspection, and no requirement that providers should be qualified. On one level, commercial involvement! in out-of-school learning is nothing new: there is a long history of parents providing educational resources at home. As scholar Carmen Luke, and others have pointed out, the modem invention of childhood was accompanied by a whole range of pedagogic initiatives aimed at parents and children, including primers, advice manuals and instructional books and playthings.
- Published
- 2005
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