Commercial School-Business Relationships in New Zealand

Abstract

This article explores contemporary commercial school-business relationships in New Zealand schools, in a context of intensifying of child-business relationships, and in particular the blurring of once clear boundaries between children’s learning, their entertainment experiences, and the commercial efforts of corporate marketing and public relations. These child-business relationships in turn arise through contemporary consumer capitalism, and three problematic features of this economy are considered: inequality, commodification and globalisation. The last part of the article considers how schools are currently managing their commercial school-business relationships, with a particular emphasis on classroom teachers, and curriculum-related materials and programmes. It is suggested that schools are responding to children who are different because of their changing social status through consumption. However, in terms of school-business relationships, this response has yet to extend beyond using commercialised popular culture to motivate and engage, into a more critical examination of these relationships and of commercial culture generally.