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ERIC Number: EJ930177
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011-Jun
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1468-7984
EISSN: N/A
"From Bricks to Clicks": Hybrid Commercial Spaces in the Landscape of Early Literacy and Learning
Nixon, Helen
Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, v11 n2 p114-140 Jun 2011
In their quest for resources to support children's early literacy learning and development, parents encounter and traverse different spaces in which discourses and artifacts are produced and circulated. This paper uses conceptual tools from the field of geosemiotics to examine some commercial spaces designed for parents and children that foreground preschool learning and development. Drawing on data generated in a wider study, I discuss some of the ways in which the material and virtual commercial spaces of a transnational shopping mall company and an educational toy company operate as sites of encounter between discourses and artifacts about children's early learning and parents of preschoolers. I consider how companies connect with and "situate" people as parents and customers, and then offer pathways designed for parents to follow as they attempt to meet their very young children's learning and development needs. I argue that these pathways are both material and ideological, and that they are increasingly tending to lead parents to the online commercial spaces of the World Wide Web. I show how companies are using the online environment and hybrid offline and online spaces and flows to reinforce an image of themselves as authoritative brokers of childhood resources for parents, which is highly valuable in a policy climate that foregrounds lifelong learning and school readiness. (Contains 2 notes and 5 figures.)
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
Education Level: Elementary Education; Preschool Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia; United States
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A