for about 6 years. My book Sold Separately:Children and Parents
in Consumer Culture discusses advertising, Saturday morning cartoons
and toy marketing to young children. I've been influenced by
Pierre Bourdieu, Valerie Walkerdine, Hodge & Tripp, Carolyn
Steedman, and Daniel Miller. My new research involves depth
interviews with preschool teachers and day care givers about
media use in the classroom and beliefs about media effects;
as well as an ethnographic study of a visiting artist project
where teachers worked with young children in the design of a
"prosocial" superhero. This latter project was a fascinating
failure and I am looking at the complex negotiations of gender,
class, and ethnic identity (the preschool was an international one)
as well as the tensions popular media create for teachers committed
to a child centered pedagogy and covert forms of regulation and
discipline.