The Corporate Assault on Youth (Adolescent Cultures, School & Society) [Paperback]

Deron Boyles (Author, Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1433100843 | ISBN-13: 978-1433100840 | Publication Date: April 29, 2008

The Corporate Assault on Youth examines childhood as a social construction increasingly influenced by corporations and commercialism. Through case studies, critical analysis, and historical/philosophical research, the essays collected here expose the degree to which children are unwitting targets of marketing. With topics ranging from the presence of media branding in schools and school supplies to the subtler ways in which the public education system is influenced by corporate ideologies and purposes, this book draws much-needed attention to how educators, administrators, policymakers, parents, and children can become aware of, and counterbalance, the effects of the commercialism that is overwhelming students' understanding of the world and their place within it.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Deron Boyles is Professor of Philosophy of Education in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University. His research interests include school-corporate nexes, epistemology, pragmatism and the philosophy of John Dewey, and critical pedagogy. His work has been published in such journals as Philosophy of Education, Social Epistemology, Journal of Thought, Philosophical Studies in Education, Educational Foundations, History of Education Quarterly, Educational Studies, and Educational Theory. His first book, American Education and Corporations: The Free Market Goes to School won the Critics' Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association. Schools or Markets?: Commercialism, Privatization, and School-Business Partnerships, his second book, is an edited volume highlighting young scholars and their work on corporatism. He is also co-author, with Benjamin Baez, of The Politics of Inquiry: Education Research and the "Culture of Science." Boyles received his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and is a Fellow in the Philosophy of Education Society and the John Dewey Society.

Product Details

• Paperback: 246 pages
• Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1433100843
• ISBN-13: 978-1433100840
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #966,968 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mostly harmless, October 17, 2011

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Phaedrus - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Corporate Assault on Youth (Adolescent Cultures, School & Society) (Paperback)

This anthology is honest about what it's purpose is: it attempts to examine the presence of the corporation in education. It succeeds. The book offers a nice stimulus for conversations on topics that might go untouched and actions that might go undone in the course of a typical undergraduate teacher education program. The reader is left with a sense of disastrous crisis in the field and topics with which to begin conversations about it.

One-third of the book's content has been previously published in other periodicals. Two were published three years before the book, and one was published one year before the book. The introduction espouses that "these chapters represent many different viewpoints on the effects of neoliberalism on youth," and also states, "[t]hey each urge for a critical response to this development." The introduction closes with the claim that "powerful ideologues" seek to abolish "the democratic ethos the United States is purportedly based upon." The book is a masterfully diverse exploration within these contexts.