ABSTRACT
It is commonly understood that books on culture address themselves to areas of our lives where we have a limited understanding, where there are gaps and silences. This book, on the other hand, attempts to involve itself collaboratively and passionately in ongoing talk. It has grown out of many discussions, arguments and conversations, in classrooms and staffrooms, round coffee trollies, breakfast and dinner tables, photocopiers and bars. It hopes to contribute to and further that vital talk, to explore some of the current concerns about children and their exposure to today's flood tide of popular culture: videos, toys and comics, advertisements, computer games and magazines. It is not a book of answers, or even clearly defined questions, rather one which, we hope, is rich with further discursive points and possibilities. It attempts to make a sensitive contribution to the arguments about the stereotypes of gender and race to which children are exposed. It addresses itself to the web of concerns which include anxieties about the threatened nature of childhood itself and the role that media stories, particularly videos, play in our culture. It concerns itself, too, with the various ways in which literacy practices, literature in school and the demands of the National Curriculum affect the work of teachers.
