Young children as critical consumers.

Arthur, Leonie

Why focus on critical literacy with young children?

Culture, knowledge and what it means to be literate are constantly shifting in response to social, economic and political changes. Knowledge is no longer viewed as a fixed body of `truth' but as something that is socially constructed in ways that serve particular interests (James et al. 1998, Dahlberg et al. 1999). Processes such as problem solving, reflexivity, critical thinking and creativity are viewed as more valuable than a fixed body of knowledge.

Rather than a `universal' set of skills, literacy in the twenty-first century is multidimensional. Most children in highly literate societies experience multiple literacies in their homes and communities as they engage in everyday life. Countries such as Australia are increasingly multicultural and multilingual, with a diversity of texts, interaction styles and values. Literacy is used for many different purposes in a range of socio-cultural contexts and the meanings of words, texts and images cannot be separated from the social and cultural practices in which they are situated. Contemporary views of literacy draw on socio-cultural and critical perspectives to view literacy as social practice while foregrounding issues of power (Luke 1993, Comber 1994, Lankshear 1997).

Contemporary views of literacy learning draw on emergent literacy, social interactionist and socio-cultural theories as well as critical literacy (Jones-Diaz et al. 2001). The work of Vygotsky (1978) highlights the role of socio-cultural contexts and social interactions in children's learning. Children learn literacy as they take part in everyday social practices and economic transactions--such as commuting, playing sport, attending religious services, viewing and critiquing television programs, paying bills and shopping--that are significant within their families and communities. Literacy is embedded within these diverse contexts, meaning that children are regularly exposed to and engage with print, images, symbols and signs in their environments. Children develop expertise with the literacy practices that are relevant to their social and cultural contexts. Family members and peers also interact with children to scaffold their understandings of literacy concepts and processes that are relevant to each situation. When children initiate literacy play or practice they draw on these familiar contexts and interactions to explore, consolidated and extend their understandings.

In industrialised societies social practices and economic transactions often incorporate technology, meaning that texts are increasingly digital, multimodal, intertextual and interactive (Buckingham 2000, Cairney 2000, Healy 2000). Contemporary texts are also often related to popular culture (Dyson 1993, 1998, Steinberg & Kincheloe 1997, Misson 1998a). Children's literacy experiences, therefore, often involve electronic, digital and popular texts, and children follow multiple pathways to literacy. These pathways may include experiences with technology such as viewing videos and reading video cases; playing computer games; watching television, reading the television guide and operating the remote control; as well as searching for information and shopping on the Internet. As Giroux (1997, p. 65) argues, `teaching and learning the culture of the book is no longer the staple of what it means to be literate'.

Yet despite social changes and the diversity of home and community literacy practices schools have remained much the same--with a continuing focus on print-based texts in English and teaching methods that ignore children's diverse experiences. Texts that are digital and multimodal, related to popular culture, in languages other than English or connected to everyday functional literacy are rarely included in educational settings (Breen et al. 1994, Hilton 1996a, Sanger 1997, Makin et al. 1999). Surveys of reading materials in classrooms and libraries in Australia and the United States highlight the wide disparity between the types of texts children engage with in their leisure time and those available at school (Misson 1998b, Worthy et al. 1999). For example, while sixth-grade students in the United States prefer to read `scary books', popular magazines, comics and cartoons, all except scary books were not available in school libraries and classrooms (Worthy et al. 1999). In a large research study Breen et al. (1994) found similar literary texts and teaching strategies in classrooms around Australia, regardless of children's home and community experiences.

A number of research studies in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia (see for example Heath 1983, Tizard & Hughes 1984, Williams 1995) have found that while children have diverse experiences and participate in a range of textual practices at home and in their communities, schools valorise mainstream experiences and literacy practices. This advantages children from families where the home practices match those of the school and makes it difficult for children from diverse backgrounds to `take up' the literacies of school (Hill et al. 1998, Gee 2000). Consequently, many children from minority backgrounds, such as children who are Indigenous, bilingual or from working class backgrounds, underachieve in the area of literacy (Luke 1993, Hill et al. 1998). As Lankshear (1997, p. 2) has argued `we continue to find familiar patterns of social advantage and disadvantage ... and familiar patterns of scholastic achievement and underachievement being reproduced along lines of race-ethnicity, social class, gender, and language background'.

Critical literacy theorists argue that the interests of the dominant culture are `constituted, legitimated and perpetuated' (Lankshear 1997, p. 44) by school literacy discourses. Critical literacy challenges inequalities by identifying ways that texts reproduce disadvantage and marginalise minority groups. The focus is on making explicit the ways that texts are constructed for ideological purposes. This involves `"analysing representations to make apparent the hidden ideology of a text--to render explicit the belief systems inscribed in the text and so negate their power' (Christie & Misson 1998, p. 12).

Textual analysis, the inclusion of multiple literacies and multiple readings of texts are key features of critical literacy (Knobel & Healy 1998). Traditionally texts have been considered to have one meaning, and reading been considered to involve unlocking the `correct' meaning of texts (Johnson 1999). A critical perspective moves away from a passive interpretation of the author's intended meaning to a position where readers actively interrogate and challenge the ways that people are portrayed in texts, and the ways that texts position readers to `take up' particular meanings. Critical literacy encourages readers to contest and resist the `correct' reading constructed by texts and to go beneath the surface of texts to critique, subvert and deconstruct their taken-for-granted assumptions.

Literacy is much more than reading and writing--it also includes speaking, listening, viewing, drawing and critiquing (Jones Diaz et al. 2001). Critical literacy is an essential component of literacy that must be incorporated alongside speaking, listening, reading and writing in early childhood settings and the first years of school. Critical literacy may be perceived by some educators as `too hard' or as `developmentally inappropriate' for young children. Yet young children are very aware of issues of language and power, which is often evident as they play, talk about and dramatise their understandings of their social worlds, power relations and gender roles (Paley 1984, 1991, Dyson 1993, 1997).

The anti-bias approach and associated experiences (Derman Sparks 1989, Creaser & Dau 1996, Dau, 2001) has demonstrated that young children are able to engage in critical thinking around issues of race, gender and ability. MacNaughton and Williams (1998), for example, argue that young children are able to think and talk about the meanings of words--to deconstruct and reconstruct meanings of terms such as `beauty' and `race'. Interviews and focus group discussions with young children suggest that, rather than being media dupes, children think and talk about the media (Tobin 2000) and are often highly sophisticated analysts of media and toys (Buckingham 1993, Bromley 1996, Kavanagh 1997). In discussion of her work with 5-8 year olds O'Brien (1998, p. 24) states `I never assume that this sort of (critical) language work is too hard or that children won't enjoy it; it isn't and they do'.

Joe Tobin's (Tobin 2000) focus group discussions with 6-12-year-olds in Hawaii demonstrates the ways in which young children are able to not only think and talk about the media but to engage in resistant readings of racist, sexist and colonialist texts. He highlights the way that children's ability to resist the ideological message of a text is related to their participation in discourse communities where they hear resistant voices that challenge dominant ideologies. As children do not necessarily experience these resistant views in their homes and communities, it is the responsibility of educators to engage children in discourse that opens up possibilities of alternate views.

Children need encouragement and support to ask questions, to problematise texts and images, and to scrutinise the texts that they encounter. Sanger (1997) stresses the importance of adult mediation in assisting children to develop critical awareness, to explore quality issues and to understand the commercial nature of popular media culture. Educator modelling and scaffolding of critical literacy practices can encourage children to play with, critique and reconstruct texts.

When educators and children jointly analyse spoken, print, digital and iconographic texts children increase their understandings of the ways in which texts are constructed. Critical literacy can also encourage children to consider multiple perspectives, to empathise with others and to challenge dominant discourses. However, as MacNaughton and Williams (1998) point out this takes time--time for children to think about and express their ideas as well as time for children to consider alternative perspectives presented by peers and educators.

A number of educators have engaged young children successfully in critical discourse about texts (see for example Comber 1994, Brown 1997, O'Brien & Comber 2000, Buckingham 2000). Young children have demonstrated that with adult mediation they are able to critique the ways that texts and images are constructed for ideological purposes as well as the ways in which products are marketed to appeal to children. The work of O'Brien and Comber (2000), for example, illustrates the ways that 5-8 year olds are able to critically analyse print advertisements (in this case Mothers' Day `junk mail' catalogues). The children were able to deconstruct these texts in order to explore ways that they construct desires and limits and were also able to reconstruct alternative texts that were more inclusive of the diverse desires of women and mothers.

It is important that critical literacy does not become didactic teaching. Sensitive educators work to `help children to raise their questions about the assumptions authors make about their ideological worlds' (Dyson 1998, p. 400) while at the same time challenging children to consider alternate voices and perspectives. For example, Dyson's work illustrates the way that young children often raise issues of fairness--such as girls' limited access to superhero roles, or the same child always taking on the powerful role. Children in O'Brien's classroom have raised issues such as the way that aunts are portrayed in children's literature. Bromley (1996) has pointed to the way that early schoolers are able to initiate their own discussion, analysis and critique of videos, including image, sound and synchronisation. Educators can encourage children to engage in this type of critique by modelling strategies of textual deconstruction and reconstruction themselves; by encouraging the comparison of taken-for-granted assumptions with the students' own experiences (for example comparing their own experience of step-mothers with the portrayal of step-mothers in texts); and by offering a range of texts for analysis, including multiple versions of the same text.

Why examine popular culture texts with young children?

Popular media and digital culture are part of the everyday lived experiences of adults and children (Jones Diaz et al. 2002). In the same way that adults connect to particular aspects of popular media and invest intense feelings in certain objects, children, too, find popular culture pleasurable and a means for participation and inclusion in social networks. As Dyson (1998) notes, popular media programs--for example Lion King and Toy Story--have become the folk tales of our times. Popular culture characters, narratives and dialogue, as well as songs and jingles from advertising texts, are often incorporated in and innovated on in children's conversations, play and writing (Seiter 1993, 1999, Dyson 1993, 1997, Marsh 1999, 2000) with or without educators' knowledge and approval.

Mass market products connected to licensed characters are woven into every aspect of children's lives. As well as television programs, movies, toys, books, magazines and advertisements, there are popular media characters on children's clothing, sleepwear, bedding, lunchboxes, backpacks, hats and shoes, providing children with a `lingua franca' (Seiter 1993) whether or not they are in possession of the products. Children's high level of engagement with popular culture means that they take notice of texts advertising popular culture programs and thematically related products.

Popular media culture and thematically related toys appeal to children of all backgrounds, and feature strongly in the `funds of knowledge' (Moll et al. 1992) that young children bring to educational settings. However, educators overwhelmingly reject this knowledge or `cultural capital' (Bourdieu 1997) in favour of `quality' children's literature and `educational' programs and toys. Children whose literacy experiences are predominantly related to popular culture are often assumed to come from literacy impoverished backgrounds which educators believe they need to remedy (Marsh 2000).

These deficit attitudes and practices advantage children from privileged backgrounds who have access to a range of `approved' toys and texts, while disadvantaging many working-class children for whom popular culture is not only what is preferred but often all that is available (Seiter 1993, Marsh 2000). When children hear `No Barbies at day care', `Digimon cards are banned', and so on--as is frequently heard in early childhood centres and schools around Australia--children learn not to talk to educators about their interests and ideas. For many children this means that literacy learning opportunities are lost. Rather than ignoring or banning popular culture, educators need to recognise it as a site of learning for children.

Children engage with the texts that are `hooked to' their experiences of everyday life (Orellana & Hernandez 1999), therefore educators need to consider how popular culture texts can `be incorporated into schools as a serious object of social knowledge and critical analysis' (Giroux 1997, p. 63). Texts such as popular children's videos; books, magazines, CD-ROMs and Internet sites linked to popular television programs and movies; magazines such as Disney Adventure; and promotional material such as Target and Lego catalogues can provide links to children's experiences and interests. The broadening of early literacy curriculums to include a range of texts makes visible and legitimises children's home and community experiences and opens up access to school literacies to more children. Popular culture texts can be used as a starting point and children's interests then extended to a broader breadth and depth of texts.

How can educators use popular culture texts to promote critical literacy?

The ways that popular culture texts are constructed for commercial and ideological purposes can be a focus of critical analysis with children in ways that valorise their cultural capital and extend their pleasure (Kavanagh 1997, Misson 1998b). Although they may be the starting point, critical literacy should not be confined to texts of popular culture. Concerns about gendered discourses, narrow worldviews and limited possibilities for identity formation are valid concerns in respect of `quality' children's literature as well as popular media texts. In addition, it is important not to destroy children's pleasure in popular culture in the process of critique. Popular culture texts, along with all texts, reflect the society from which they emanate.

One issue that can be focused on with young children is the ways that texts reproduce dominant ideologies. An analysis of print and media texts advertising children's toys, for example, highlights the ways that gendered roles are reinforced. Commercials for boys' toys are based on the action film genre, for example car chases, with close-ups of toys in action as if they were real, while commercials for girls' toys are based on soaps and feature close-ups of people (Seiter 1993). In an examination of advertising flyers Hilton (1996b, p. 21) found that the `pink, plastic, soft, static, "caring" toys for girls are in sharp contrast to the vast range of aggressive, militarist, technical and moving toys for boys'. Texts such as Disney films are also constructed within narrowly defined roles that reproduce gender and race hierarchies and normative views of family. For example, the female characters in films such as The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast are subordinate to the male characters, while racist representations are prevalent in films such as Aladdin and Pocahontas (Giroux 1997).

Popular culture texts can also be used as the basis for an examination of the way that texts are constructed for commercial purposes. These texts can be explored in ways that build on children's pleasure in popular culture and develop critical literacy. Hilton (1996a, p. 12) argues that children have strong understandings of images, icons and `the ability to "read" the narratives of film and the iconography of comics, advertisement and cartoons'. This strength can be extended through the critical examination of texts with young children in ways that assist them to be discriminating and astute consumers.

Advertisements on television and computer screens as well as on billboards, in letterboxes, on the sides of buses and even in the sky, are a culturally significant, and often pleasurable, part of children's lives. Advertising texts appeal to children visually and aurally. They enjoy the fast-paced action of screen advertisements and the colourful images in print texts, as well as the tag lines, repetitive jingles, jokes and songs. Educators need to ask why texts such as advertisements are popular and interesting to children and how they inform their store of cultural knowledge (Luke 1997) and engage with children in critical analysis of the ways in which these texts work to create desires and sell products.

How can educators use advertising texts to promote critical literacy?

The examination of advertising texts with children is one way to assist in the development of critical literacy whilst tapping into children's interests. Advertising texts such as print and television advertisements, as well as food and toy packaging, are part of the everyday world of most children, are readily accessible and can be used effectively in critical literacy work with young children.

The first step in critical analysis of advertising texts in the early years of school is to find out what children are watching and reading at home and in their communities. Talking to children about their favourite films, food, `junk mail', toys, television programs and commercials provides a wealth of information. It is important that educators also watch children's television themselves, visit web sites aimed at children and read materials advertising children's toys and clothing. Visits to the children's section in video and chain stores as well as supermarket aisles aimed at children--such as snack foods and cereals--can also assist educators in learning more about children's worlds.

Orellana and Hernandez (1999) suggest that educators take children on a walk around the local environment and pay attention to the print that children (not adults) are interested in. This may be texts such as graffiti, scratchings in cement and video posters as Orellano and Hernandez found, or, as in my six-year-old's case, posters and displays of `collectables' such as Crazy Bones, Digimon cards and Mondos; food packaging and advertisements connected to popular culture characters; anything to do with a competition and the flags on the advertisements for international phone cards.

Children and educators can collect examples of advertising texts aimed at children for use in the classroom so that the texts connect to children's everyday literacy experiences. For example, children and parents or the educator can tape examples of television commercials shown in children's viewing time and collect food packaging, newspaper and magazine advertisements, `junk mail' and other environmental print. Photographs can also be taken by children or educators of environmental print whilst on local community walks.

Everyday texts can be examined critically with children and the `versions of reality portrayed' compared with the children's own lives (Brown 1997, p. 2). Contradictions between advertising texts and real life can be used to discuss stereotypes and their impact. In addition the ways that texts are used to promote commercial interests can be highlighted. In this way, children can develop understandings of how texts work with texts that they are familiar with and later extend this to other texts such as books and videos. Advertising texts can be used to explore a range of issues with children, including:

* the ways advertising texts tap into desires and pleasures, and how these differ from needs;

* the links between children's popular culture icons and `junk food';

* the ways texts are constructed for commercial purposes; and the limited representations of gender, family and ethnicity in advertising texts.

The experiences, interests and questions of my six-year-old-son and some of his classmates have been used to generate the following examples of critical literacy. This group of children is interested in competitions--on cereal packets, under soft drink lids, on television and online--as well as the `free' toys and trading cards that are offered in breakfast cereal and chip packets and the `show bags' that are for sale at the Easter Show. These interests could lead to an investigation of breakfast cereals and they ways that these are promoted, as well as the use of toys, collectors' cards and competitions to sell products.

Children, parents and educators could collect and bring in to the classroom a range of advertising texts associated with breakfast cereals, including television commercials, junk mail, cereal boxes and advertisements in children's magazines. Some questions that can be explored with children using these interests as a basis include the following (adapted from Brown 1997, Kavanagh 1997, C. Luke 1997, Hindmarsh et al. 1997, O'Brien & Comber 2000, Jones Diaz et al. 2001).

Cereal packets

A range of cereal packets can be used to explore the use of text and images, manufacturers' claims for products, desires/needs and nutrition. Questions may include:

* Which is your favourite cereal? Why?

* What sorts of print and images are used on cereal packets? Why?

* Which cereals do you think the manufacturers want children to eat?

* How do you know?

* What does it say about the cereal on the packet? Why?

* How can we find out what ingredients are in the cereal?

* Is the cereal as good as the manufacturers say?

Television advertisements for breakfast cereals

Taped advertisements for breakfast cereals aimed at children can be used to discuss the ways that texts are constructed to sell products. After viewing advertisements, the following questions can be used to elicit critical discussion.

* Have you seen this ad before?

* Where have you seen it?

* When do you see these ads?

* Why do you think they are on then?

* How many ads for food are on during the cartoons?

* What sort of food do they advertise?

* What else is advertised during children's programs?

* What characters, jingles, songs, slogans are used in the ads? Why?

* Do you know any of these jingles and songs?

* Can you make up jingles and songs for foods that we should eat all of the time?

Toys and collector's cards

Promotional toys and collector's cards can be used to discuss links between popular culture characters and `junk' food. The toys found in breakfast cereals, as well as in chip packets and linked to fast-food outlets such as McDonalds can be used to promote discussion. Questions may include:

* Why do manufacturers put toys and cards in breakfast cereal?

* Where else can you find these sorts of things? Why?

* Why do the things to be collected keep changing?

* Are the toys or cards as big or as exciting as they look on the packet or in the ads? Why?

* Would you buy the cereal just to get the toy? Why/Why not?

* What would you tell your friends about these toys?

* Would you tell them to buy this cereal?

Competitions

A number of breakfast cereals, as well as television programs, magazines and web sites have competitions with prizes that appeal to children. Issues to do be discussed could include:

* How does this competition work?

* Who wins?

* Does everyone win?

* Why do products have competitions?

Advertising flyers

Flyers advertising food, as well as children's clothing and toys, appear in children's letterboxes on a regular basis. These texts can be included in the classroom and critically examined with questions such as the following.

* Why are advertising flyers put in our letterboxes?

* What types of food are included in these flyers?

* What do `on special' and `reduced' mean?

* Are these foods really bargains?

* Do the people in these flyers look like us?

* Are they doing the sorts of things that we do?

An examination of supermarket advertising flyers can extend to other forms of junk mail. Children can then be encouraged to consider the ways that texts are constructed for commercial purposes and the ways that celebrations such as Easter, Mothers' Day and Halloween are used to sell products. Issues of stereotyping, marginalisation, exclusion, trivialising and romanticism (Luke 1997) can be discussed with children and alternative texts produced (see O'Brien & Comber 2000 for a discussion of the ways that the cultural and commercial aspects of Mothers' Day can be challenged with children).

Conclusion

Critics of children's popular culture argue that children need protection from the limited role models and commercial nature of popular media culture. However, it is not possible, or necessarily desirable, to shield children from popular culture. We need to face up to the cultural significance of popular culture in children's lives and assist children to question and challenge a range of texts and the society that creates them.

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Leonie Arthur is currently studying for an EdD in the area of early literacy. She has been a teacher educator in the Early Childhood program at the University of Western Sydney for the last 12 years. Prior to this she worked for 10 years in long day care, preschool and the early years of school. Her research and teaching area is early literacy. Research and publications focus on play and literacy, the role of popular culture in literacy learning and critical literacy and young children.

Address: School of Education and Early Childhood Studies, Bankstown
Campus, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South
DC NSW 1797
Email: 1.arthur@uws.edu.au