For corporate America, children--and their parents' money--are
one of the most targeted groups in our consumer society. There are TV shows,
movies, video games, toys, books, and restaurants that are specifically directed
at children--all of which has produced a "kinderculture" run by marketing and
advertising executives. Through a series of entertaining and insightful essays,
Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood explores some of the
icons that shape the values and consciousness of children, from Beavis and
Butt-Head to Barney, from Disney movies to Nintendo.

Contributors drawn from the fields of education, sociology, and popular cul-
ture analyze the profound effects and the pervasive influence of these corporate
productions in a style parents, educators, and general readers will welcome. Ar-
guing that the experience of childhood has been, with or without our consent,
reshaped into something that is prefabricated, Shirley Steinberg and Joe Kinche-
loe bring home to readers the impact our "marketing blitz" culture has on our
children--and on our beliefs about childhood.

Shirley R. Steinberg teaches part-time at Adelphi University. She is an educa-
tional consultant and drama director. Her latest book is Ain't We Misbehavin'? A
Pedagogy of Misbehavior (in press), and she is the coauthor with Joe L. Kincheloe
of The Stigma of Genius: Einstein and Beyond Modern Education and Changing
Multiculturalism: New Times, New Curriculum. She is also coeditor (along with
Kincheloe and Aaron Gresson) of Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined. Steinberg
and Kincheloe coedit the journal Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Educa-
tion and several book series. Her current research involves issues of diversity,
popular culture, and curriculum.

Joe L Kincheloe teaches cultural studies and pedagogy at Penn State Univer-
sity. He is the author of numerous books, including Teachers as Researchers:
Qualitative Paths to Empowerment; Toil and Trouble: Good Work, Smart Workers,
and the Integration of Academic and Vocational Education; and (with Shirley Steinberg
) Thirteen Questions: Reframing Education's Conversation. Kincheloe
and Steinberg travel frequently presenting workshops and keynote addresses on
popular culture, critical pedagogy, and issues of race, class, and gender. Kinche-
loe and Steinberg are the parents of Ian and Christine, Meghann, Chaim, and
Bronwyn; they love '57 Chevys, screamin' guitars, and the Atlanta Braves.

-267-