tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/childrens-toys-23466/articlesChildren's toys – The Conversation2022-06-23T20:08:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1851392022-06-23T20:08:44Z2022-06-23T20:08:44ZRelax, it’s just a ringlight for kids. Toys like the ‘vlogger set’ prepare them for a digital world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470218/original/file-20220622-19-6v5xwr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=787%2C0%2C3249%2C2151&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent outrage surrounding a young children’s toy “vlogger” set echoes moral panics of the past, particularly when words such as children, play and digital come together. </p>
<p>Aldi recently released a new <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/aldi-targets-modern-kids-with-dj-vlogger-and-gamer-role-play-toys-223353703.html">range of wooden toys</a>, including the Vlogger set for children aged 3 and older. This set has sparked <a href="https://twitter.com/bhakthi/status/1534302252521115648">discussion on Twitter</a>, including criticism. </p>
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<p>As <a href="https://www.digitalchild.org.au/">researchers</a> who explore the ways young children are growing up in the digital age, we want to move this conversation past any initial shock. </p>
<p>Instead of feeding into any moral panic, we would suggest taking the time to consider what children can get out of playing with such toys. They might benefit from activities like practising the making of digital media and mimicking the real-world practices of the adults in their lives.</p>
<h2>Children live in a digital age</h2>
<p>Digital technology is increasingly part of children’s everyday lives. They are being introduced to media-making practices at younger ages than in the past. </p>
<p>Children don’t just watch their favourite content online. They produce their own media when they film what’s happening around them. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/online-and-out-there-how-children-view-privacy-differently-from-adults-38535">Online and out there: how children view privacy differently from adults</a>
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<p>Children also observe adults’ own media practices. <a href="https://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/research/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Creating-Our-Future-Results-of-the-National-Arts-Participation-Survey-PDF.pdf">Many Australians</a> create their own digital media content. </p>
<p>And most future <a href="https://www.fya.org.au/app/uploads/2021/09/new-work-order-2015.pdf">jobs are going to require digital skills</a>. </p>
<p>Not only is <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479846894/social-media-entertainment/">social media entertainment</a> a legitimate and growing industry, learning how to communicate through media-making practices is important for children now and to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220272.2014.966152">build upon in the future</a>. Young children might use filters on video calls with family but as they move through their tween and teen years they may have to make video presentations at school or choose to connect with friends through video-orientated platforms such as TikTok, SnapChat and Instagram. </p>
<p>Whether we like it or not, this is the reality for many young people. </p>
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<img alt="Young girl poses as her mother takes a video on her mobile phone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470216/original/file-20220622-7895-cf0hg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470216/original/file-20220622-7895-cf0hg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470216/original/file-20220622-7895-cf0hg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470216/original/file-20220622-7895-cf0hg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470216/original/file-20220622-7895-cf0hg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470216/original/file-20220622-7895-cf0hg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470216/original/file-20220622-7895-cf0hg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Children need to gain digital literacy early on in a world where digital media are pervasive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>People do have concerns about children online</h2>
<p>Of course, there is ongoing concern about children online. </p>
<p>Controversy about child influencers or “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/may/09/uk-must-protect-child-influencers-exploitation-social-media">kidfluencers</a>” continues to fuel debate about the presence and exploitation of children in online media entertainment. A notorious example was <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-exploiting-kids-for-cash-goes-wrong-on-youtube-the-lessons-of-daddyofive-76932">DaddyOFive</a>, where children’s reactions to “pranks” by their parents were shown on YouTube. Other examples include popular YouTube content of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-49975644">children unboxing toys</a> and the rise of “<a href="https://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1022">micro-microcelebrities</a>” – young celebrities who derive their exposure and fame through their parents’ sharing or “<a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2015/06/17/managing-your-childs-digital-footprint-and-or-parent-bloggers-ahead-of-brit-mums-on-the-20th-of-june/">sharenting</a>”, online. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-exploiting-kids-for-cash-goes-wrong-on-youtube-the-lessons-of-daddyofive-76932">When exploiting kids for cash goes wrong on YouTube: the lessons of DaddyOFive</a>
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<p>These examples understandably call for greater consideration of how children are represented online. It’s essential to critically examine <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/business/media/social-media-influencers-kids.html">exploitative commercialisation practices</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/posting-a-childs-life-for-the-world-to-see-is-a-privacy-issue-20887">champion children’s right to privacy</a>. At the same time, it’s important to remember that not all media produced by and for children are inherently bad or harmful. </p>
<p>Children are at some stage likely to produce media and <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-and-out-there-how-children-view-privacy-differently-from-adults-38535">share things online</a>. Organisations such as <a href="https://www.commonsense.org/">Common Sense</a> and Australia’s <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/kids">eSafety Commissioner</a> provide useful resources for families to help children navigate the production and consumption of online media in guided and considered ways. </p>
<p>Through this lens, toys like this Vlogger set could also be considered a resource for parents and educators to start conversations with young children about what it means to make content online. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/posting-a-childs-life-for-the-world-to-see-is-a-privacy-issue-20887">Posting a child's life for the world to see is a privacy issue</a>
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<h2>Children need to learn media literacy</h2>
<p>Wooden toy versions of digital devices, such as cameras, laptops, phones and tablets, are common.</p>
<p>We understand it can be unsettling to think about children playing with toys that reflect our own media practices. However, if we consider the shifting practices of media production and distribution, it is possible to understand that children can learn important ideas from these toys. They can begin to develop early understandings of <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-live-in-an-age-of-fake-news-but-australian-children-are-not-learning-enough-about-media-literacy-141371">media literacy</a> and <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjet.12791">how to use technology</a>.</p>
<p>Take the vlogger set, for example. In media production, lighting is an essential part of ensuring we can communicate our intended meaning to our audience. We can create mood, convey emotion and set audience expectations. Through exploring the ringlight feature of the vlogger toy children are learning how to apply <a href="https://medialiteracy.org.au/index.php/framework/">media languages</a>. </p>
<p>Through playful exploration and imagined production, children can start to think not only about what they share but how they share and who they share with. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-live-in-an-age-of-fake-news-but-australian-children-are-not-learning-enough-about-media-literacy-141371">We live in an age of 'fake news'. But Australian children are not learning enough about media literacy</a>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young boy playing with a stethoscope listens to teddy's chest" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470219/original/file-20220622-23-gmoi6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470219/original/file-20220622-23-gmoi6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470219/original/file-20220622-23-gmoi6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470219/original/file-20220622-23-gmoi6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470219/original/file-20220622-23-gmoi6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470219/original/file-20220622-23-gmoi6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470219/original/file-20220622-23-gmoi6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Children have long played with toy sets representing adult occupations. Now they’ve been updated to include the digital world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>Let the children play</h2>
<p>Children’s imaginative role-playing toys have many benefits. These include being able to act out real and imagined situations, <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-toys-really-be-educational-well-that-depends-on-the-parents-33672">especially when parents are involved with play</a>. There are countless versions of these toys, including chef sets, doctors kits, cleaning sets and tool belts. </p>
<p>While adults might buy these sets in the hope that their child will be inspired to start a career journey, we don’t expect every child who plays with a chef set to become a chef. We would hope one day they’ll learn to cook since that’s an important everyday life skill. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-toys-really-be-educational-well-that-depends-on-the-parents-33672">Can toys really be 'educational'? Well that depends on the parents</a>
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<p>The vlogger toy is no different. Some might argue it encourages children to be YouTube stars or influencers. And if some children want to be part of that profession (and it is a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-66038-7_8">legitimate profession for some</a>), then they can look back at the cute photos their parents took of them and maybe posted online, using the vlogger set, and remember where it all started.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185139/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Levido is affiliated with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aleesha Rodriguez is affiliated with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.</span></em></p>Some finds toys for toddlers based on digital devices a bit confronting. But really they’re just updated versions of traditional toys for make-believe play such as doctor and tradie tool sets.Amanda Levido, Research Fellow - Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Queensland University of TechnologyAleesha Rodriguez, Research Fellow at Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1259682019-12-04T11:33:12Z2019-12-04T11:33:12ZHow to find the most sustainable and long-lasting children’s toys<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304987/original/file-20191203-67034-yjggu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4636%2C3088&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/wjpGuGfxZhE">freestocks.org/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Think about the way plastic pollution has been reported in recent years and you’re probably picturing plastic packaging, films and microfibres. But Christmas brings a deluge of another relatively short-lived plastic product that has received a lot less attention – children’s toys. </p>
<p>Children’s toys form a large and growing global market worth <a href="https://www.toyassociation.org/ta/research/data/global/toys/research-and-data/data/global-sales-data.aspx?hkey=64bda73b-80ee-4f26-bd61-1aca29ff2abf">USD$90.4 billion in 2018</a>. Unlike low weight packaging and film, toys often contain far larger quantities of high-quality virgin plastic material – and they usually last a lot longer than their owner’s interest, such is the rapid pace of child development. </p>
<p>We wanted to find out which toys are best for the planet, to help parents make a sustainable choice of gifts for their children at Christmas. Our research considered a wide range of children’s toys and compared high-value branded toys with those that were cheaper and unbranded.</p>
<p>By studying the life cycles of a range of children’s toys, we were able to determine their environmental impact and calculate how much energy goes into making and using each toy throughout its lifespan. We calculated the energy used to extract and process the raw materials, ship the product, deliver any power requirements such as batteries as well as energy that is lost, used or recovered through recycling or disposing of the toy at the end of its life.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304990/original/file-20191203-66994-r7xgig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304990/original/file-20191203-66994-r7xgig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304990/original/file-20191203-66994-r7xgig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304990/original/file-20191203-66994-r7xgig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304990/original/file-20191203-66994-r7xgig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304990/original/file-20191203-66994-r7xgig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304990/original/file-20191203-66994-r7xgig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Some toys are bought, discarded and dumped in landfill within just a year or two.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/soledade-april-1-2019-approximate-image-1356785255?src=fda13fed-ee4a-4e61-a9b4-4b29f2325cdb-1-14">Felipequeiroz/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>We found that toys that are kept longer, resold or donated secondhand, have a lower yearly environmental impact overall, as this is likely to negate the manufacture and purchase of new toys. Toys that maintained their interest and relevance to children over time, had multiple uses or could added to as part of a collection had the greatest potential for longer lifespans.</p>
<p>We also considered the secondhand prices of toys online and asked the opinions of secondhand retailers such as charity shops and parents and childcare workers. As you might expect, the secondhand value of a toy is greater for those that are initially more expensive. Higher-value branded products were more likely to be resold whereas cheaper alternatives were more likely to be sent to landfill or donated rather than sold.</p>
<p>So which toys were the most and least sustainable?</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304994/original/file-20191203-66998-dpavyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304994/original/file-20191203-66998-dpavyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304994/original/file-20191203-66998-dpavyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304994/original/file-20191203-66998-dpavyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304994/original/file-20191203-66998-dpavyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304994/original/file-20191203-66998-dpavyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304994/original/file-20191203-66998-dpavyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">More expensive toys tend to hold their resale value, and are more likely to find second owners.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-hand-holding-donation-box-clothes-1248084661?src=d8ca5711-0666-4041-b1ac-facc2bd0c39a-1-41">Veja/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Secondhand toy story</h2>
<p>Construction toys such as Lego and Meccano scored well because they can be used for longer and are suitable for children over a wider age range. These collections can be added to and customised, ensuring that they remain challenging and enjoyable as the child grows. Such toys have maintained their popularity over generations and so retain a good residual secondhand value and are more likely to be resold.</p>
<p>The least sustainable toys were typically those that contained electronics. These toys require larger amounts of energy during manufacture, and the electronics hamper their capacity to be recycled. Electronic toys also rely on batteries and tend to only be relevant to younger children, giving them a short lifespan. They are often relatively cheap when new, limiting their value in secondhand sales. Some electronic soft toys are particularly hard to clean, meaning that they are often discarded rather than donated.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304995/original/file-20191203-66982-1802178.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304995/original/file-20191203-66982-1802178.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304995/original/file-20191203-66982-1802178.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304995/original/file-20191203-66982-1802178.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304995/original/file-20191203-66982-1802178.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304995/original/file-20191203-66982-1802178.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304995/original/file-20191203-66982-1802178.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Plastic isn’t all bad – construction toys in particular have a low environmental impact and a long shelf life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/Z9AU36chmQI">Kelly Sikkema/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>For early development playthings, the parents and carers we interviewed strongly preferred wooden toys. Secondhand retailers said that wooden toys such as stacking rings and blocks retain relatively high secondhand values, and can have second – or even third – lives. But plastic toys shouldn’t necessarily be demonised – especially products like Lego. Good quality plastic toys are typically highly durable and are easily cleaned before resale.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dreaming-of-a-green-christmas-here-are-five-ways-to-make-it-more-sustainable-108768">Dreaming of a green Christmas? Here are five ways to make it more sustainable</a>
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<p>Top tips for toy purchases this Christmas:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Buy secondhand wherever possible.</p></li>
<li><p>Consider signing up to a local toy library if there’s one in your area. For a small fee per toy or a subscription you can borrow toys as you would a book in a normal library.</p></li>
<li><p>Avoid electronic toys, especially for lower age groups where a child’s capabilities and interests change rapidly. </p></li>
<li><p>Consider how long the toy may be relevant to your child.</p></li>
<li><p>If buying short-lived toys such as art and craft-based toys, try to ensure that the materials are biodegradable or reusable.</p></li>
</ol><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was undertaken with financial support from the EPSRC-funded Centre for Industrial Energy, Materials and Products. </span></em></p>The most thoughtful gifts can also be the most sustainable, and last long after Christmas has ended.Matthew Watkins, Senior Lecturer in Product Design, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1215642019-08-09T02:09:39Z2019-08-09T02:09:39ZOoshies – a cautionary toy story about cashing in on childhood innocence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287253/original/file-20190808-144847-1ac2u5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Woolworths' Ooshies promotion includes 24 different toys based on characters from the Disney film The Lion King.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ooshies, the plastic collectible toys Australian supermarket chain Woolworths is using to lure shoppers to its aisles, aren’t just a bit of fun.</p>
<p>They’ve been connected to a <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/woolworths-lion-king-ooshies-staff-sell-collectables-on-the-side/news-story/83e0b9f9f86982e3045ba13a192e5030">black market among Woolworths staff</a>, frenzied online trading replete with <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/woolies-ooshies-brisbane-mother-gets-death-threats-over-collectables/news-story/1183b44a71cf835e618227d628d1728b">death threats</a>, chaotic crowds and <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/woolworths-ooshies-parents-slammed-swap-day-behaviour-052347420.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKqspIIc3Q-G4yBZqDWT9tqnB8MbAzS9rwU6jj7OKs0ji7UsDYubvN_CimXdmIgxfgnxUhHIHJsIQdae2oHimNzuvG_ZGYWgNBF8YknBHDU47RxY2w8ZOa_4tHB5oqWvMGMNVIWYmU6EjuATpeEqWJcZLDf0o3YucId_easaHCXJ">feral behaviour</a> at supermarket swap days, and a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/aug/02/why-did-two-farmers-destroy-a-rare-ooshie-live-on-the-today-show">shocking decapitation</a> live on breakfast television.</p>
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<p>The plastic figures, based on characters in Disney’s new movie The Lion King, are aimed for kids but are really intended to sway the shopping habits of parents (you get one for every $30 you spend). They have inspired some very bad adult behaviour – with the worst behaviour arguably that of Woolworths itself. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-sarabis-pride-mufasa-just-lives-there-a-biologist-on-the-lion-king-120660">It's Sarabi's pride, Mufasa just lives there: a biologist on The Lion King</a>
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</p>
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<p>The Woolworths Group proclaims “<a href="https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us/our-approach/how-we-do-business/">family-friendly values</a>”. Just last month it announced it would get <a href="https://theconversation.com/getting-out-of-liquor-and-pokies-will-cost-woolworths-but-deliver-lasting-benefits-119817">out of liquor and pokies</a>. Yet it has targeted children with a manipulative promotion that relies, among other things, on the same psychological triggers that can promote gambling addiction in adults.</p>
<h2>Why we collect</h2>
<p>Collectible promotions are tried and true. We seem to be hard-wired to collect things. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287265/original/file-20190808-144892-15qi4qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287265/original/file-20190808-144892-15qi4qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287265/original/file-20190808-144892-15qi4qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287265/original/file-20190808-144892-15qi4qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287265/original/file-20190808-144892-15qi4qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287265/original/file-20190808-144892-15qi4qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287265/original/file-20190808-144892-15qi4qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287265/original/file-20190808-144892-15qi4qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some of the seal-impressions from the Ur excavation site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.etana.org/sites/default/files/coretexts/20144.pdf">Ur Excavations Vol III</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the earliest evidence of this human impulse is a large collection of seal-impressions in clay. Made with flat stamps or cylinder seals, they were found during the excavation of the Ziggarut of Ur, in modern-day Iraq, and date from <a href="https://search.proquest.com/openview/db49ec3dac9c7716c4ec77a3347239e8/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1819046">5th or 4th century BCE</a>.</p>
<p>An estimated <a href="https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2013/SAN105/um/Susan_Pearce_Interpreting_Objects_and_Collection.pdf">30% of the population</a> collect something, according to noted consumer behaviour expert Russell Belk. Among children, collecting is even more common. In one study, University of Nebraska researchers <a href="http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/7928/volumes/v23/NA-23">Menzel Baker and James Gentry</a> interviewed 79 primary-school students and found 72 (more than 90%) had some kind of collection.</p>
<p>Across generations, items commonly collected include rocks, shells, eggs, stamps, coins, sports cards and figurines. </p>
<p>Collecting is connected to children’s <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1741-5446.2008.00281.x?casa_token=oyNasXwT4NYAAAAA:J74UBefd8nNhETmrMgom5BT6UxR1c94UqdJUJcD5bLIRzH8Zw0-tCpGdlAoFcxRy7qizlL4Zp9Bf1q6dIQ">natural curiosity</a>. It’s a process of making sense of things through gathering and categorising. This can be seen in the enjoyment children get from counting and subdividing their collections into categories. Young children typically care more about the <a href="http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/7928/volumes/v23/NA-23">quantity of their collection </a> than aesthetic considerations. </p>
<p>As they get older, more <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7ztnvg">subjective values</a> develop. Quantity becomes less important. This is what ultimately distinguishes the psychological motivation to collect from the compulsion to <a href="https://nationalpsychologist.com/2007/01/the-psychology-of-collecting">hoard</a>, in which one is incapable of making an emotional distinction between what is valuable and what is junk.</p>
<h2>Commercialising collecting</h2>
<p>So tending to a collection can be both enjoyable and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/imagine/201107/collecting-connection-between-playing-and-learning">educational</a>. Coins or stamps, for example, can spark an interest in geography, history and other cultures. </p>
<p>But there are aspects that also make the urge to collect exploitable by marketers.</p>
<p>One is the way things form part of what psychologists call the “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X15003000">extended self</a>”. As Russell Belk explained in his 1988 paper on <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2489522?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Possessions and the Extended Self</a>: “We cannot hope to understand consumer behaviour without first gaining some understanding of the meanings that consumers attach to possessions. A key to understanding what possessions mean is recognising that, knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, we regard our possessions as parts of ourselves.”</p>
<p>The extended self’s manifestation in possessions is particularly striking in young children, who take great comfort from favourite dolls, bears and the like.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-and-how-retailers-turn-everyday-items-into-must-have-collectables-101672">Why and how retailers turn everyday items into 'must-have' collectables</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Gambling for kids</h2>
<p>Another unpalatable aspect that businesses exploit in marketing to children is the “thrill of the hunt” through the use of so-called “blind bags”. </p>
<p>An astounding range of toys are based on the child not knowing what they are going to get until they open it. </p>
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<p>This practice makes use of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3845016/">intermittent reinforcement</a>. When the outcome is uncertain, the process is much more exciting and a desired result much more pleasurable. It’s the same neurological mechanism that makes <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2017-10-14/gambling-addiction-the-zone-where-winning-is-a-distraction/9044598">gambling so addictive</a>.</p>
<p>Blind bags are highly conducive to marketers pushing sales through the <a href="https://www.explorepsychology.com/scarcity-principle/">scarcity principle</a>, which makes some toys “more valuable”. In the case of the Ooshies, there are 24 different toys produced in different quantities. Some are very rare – there are just 100 “furry Simbas”, for example. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287252/original/file-20190808-144855-gkjzmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287252/original/file-20190808-144855-gkjzmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287252/original/file-20190808-144855-gkjzmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287252/original/file-20190808-144855-gkjzmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287252/original/file-20190808-144855-gkjzmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287252/original/file-20190808-144855-gkjzmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287252/original/file-20190808-144855-gkjzmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287252/original/file-20190808-144855-gkjzmr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The furry Simba.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/discover/the-lion-king">Woolworths</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This can inspire strong <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/ritual-and-the-brain/201804/the-science-fomo-and-what-we-re-really-missing-out">fears of missing out</a> in child peer groups, putting pressure on parents to secure missing toys.</p>
<h2>Shameless targeting</h2>
<p>Finally, younger children are innocent to the cynical ways of the world. They do not necessarily understand the <a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/140/Supplement_2/S152">persuasive intent</a> of such sales promotions. Children, even adolescents, don’t necessarily have the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233894671_Who's_messing_with_my_mind_The_implications_of_dual-process_models_for_the_ethics_of_advertising_to_children">cognitive skills</a> to recognise the manipulative aspects. They are the soft target. As one mother of three <a href="https://www.kidspot.com.au/lifestyle/fitness-and-wellbeing/me-time/i-created-my-very-own-super-rare-ooshie-because-im-sick-of-the-bullsht/news-story/6fd2b1b50f075f31c99421e69bce9bbd">has put it</a>: “Like most, I hate the fact they’re exploiting our children, but at the end of the day my kids love The Lion King…”</p>
<p>For these reasons we believe the ethics of specifically targeting children with a collectibles promotional campaign are questionable – and the Ooshies promotion is unashamedly directed at children. </p>
<p>If Woolworths wants to celebrate family-friendly values, this is not the way to go about it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121564/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ethics of specifically targeting children with a collectibles promotional campaign are questionable.Louise Grimmer, Associate Head Research Performance and Senior Lecturer in Retail Marketing, University of TasmaniaMartin Grimmer, Associate Provost and Professor of Marketing, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1130692019-03-08T12:51:31Z2019-03-08T12:51:31ZBarbie at 60: instrument of female oppression or positive influence?<p>Barbie Millicent Roberts, from Wisconsin US, is celebrating her 60th birthday. She is a toy. A doll. Yet she has grown into a phenomenon. An iconic figure, recognised by millions of children and adults worldwide, she has remained a popular choice for more than six decades – a somewhat unprecedented feat for a doll in the toy industry. </p>
<p>She is also, arguably, the original “influencer” of young girls, pushing an image and lifestyle that can shape what they aspire to be like. So, at 60, how is the iconic Barbie stepping up to support her fellow women and girls?</p>
<p>When Barbie was born many toys for young girls were of the baby doll variety; encouraging nurturing and motherhood and perpetuating the idea that a girl’s future role would be one of homemaker and mother. Thus Barbie was born out of a desire to give girls something more. Barbie was a fashion model with her own career. The idea that girls could play with her and imagine their future selves, whatever that may be, was central to the Barbie brand. </p>
<p>However, the “something more” that was given fell short of empowering girls, by today’s standards. And Barbie has been described as “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/316618/summary">an agent of female oppression</a>”. The focus on play that imagined being grown up, with perfect hair, a perfect body, a plethora of outfits, a sexualised physique, and a perfect first love (in the equally perfect Ken) has been criticised over the years for perpetuating a different kind of ideal – one centred around body image, with dangerous consequences for girls’ <a href="http://www.indianjpsychiatry.org/temp/IndianJPsychiatry617131-1945409_052414.pdf">mental and physical health</a>.</p>
<h2>Body image</h2>
<p>Toys have a significant influence on the development of children, far beyond innocent play. Through play, children mimic social norms and subtle messages regarding gender roles, and stereotypes can be transmitted by seemingly ubiquitous toys. Early studies in the 1930s by <a href="https://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/05/13/doll.study.1947.pdf">Kenneth and Mamie Clark</a> showed how young black girls would more often choose to play with a white doll rather than a black doll, as the white doll was considered more beautiful – a reflection of internalised feelings as a result of racism. </p>
<p>The same supposition – that girls playing with Barbie may internalise the unrealistic body that she innocently promotes – has been the subject of <a href="https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1740144516302078?token=207580327B8ED44F256EA8E2E76306B4E2E50944AD93C1A20C78AE9A2F5F613332BD3FE379674BDA3FDB2BC2CBB8E99C">research</a> and what is clear is that parents are often unaware of the potential effects on body image when approving toys for their children.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262513/original/file-20190306-100784-b89u22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262513/original/file-20190306-100784-b89u22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262513/original/file-20190306-100784-b89u22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262513/original/file-20190306-100784-b89u22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262513/original/file-20190306-100784-b89u22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262513/original/file-20190306-100784-b89u22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262513/original/file-20190306-100784-b89u22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Pilot Barbie with her sidekick, Ken the steward.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mattel</span></span>
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<p>A group of <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3501/68604b4c736270d639586686ad96476420a2.pdf">UK researchers in 2006</a> found that young girls aged between five-and-a-half and seven-and-a-half years old who were exposed to a story book with Barbie doll images had greater body dissatisfaction and lower body esteem at the end of the study compared to young girls who were shown the same story with an Emme doll (a fashion doll with a more average body shape) or a story with no images. </p>
<p>More worrying, there were no differences between groups of girls aged five-and-a half and eight-and-a-half years of age, with all girls showing heightened body dissatisfaction. <a href="https://cfe.keltyeatingdisorders.ca/sites/default/files/resource/1-s2.0-S1740144516300730-main.pdf">Another study</a> ten years later found that exposure to Barbie dolls led to a higher thin-ideal internalisation, supporting <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11199-010-9871-6.pdf">findings</a> that girls exposed to thin dolls eat less in subsequent tests. </p>
<p>Exposure to unhealthy, unrealistic and unattainable body images is associated with eating disorder risk. Indeed, the <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7c39/6559a6cdddbb3abd9af6bcc5658072735b9c.pdf?_ga=2.99429854.1740220081.1551892772-843619427.1551892772">increasing prevalence of eating disorder</a> symptoms in non-Western cultures has been linked to exposure to Western ideals of beauty. Barbie’s original proportions gave her a body mass index (BMI) so low that she would be unlikely to menstruate and the probability of this body shape is <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/45701038/bf0154430020160517-9183-1196nwa.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1551896461&Signature=8GoMm9aAvCJLv2NtfNe82by0frw%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DKen_and_Barbie_at_life_size.pdf">less than one in 100,000 women</a>.</p>
<h2>Changing shape</h2>
<p>With growing awareness of body image disturbances and cultural pressures on young girls, many parents have begun to look for more empowering toys for their daughters. Barbie’s manufacturer, Mattel, has been listening, possibly prompted by falling sales, and in 2016 a <a href="https://barbie.mattel.com/en-us/about/fashionistas.html">new range of Barbies</a> was launched that celebrated different body shapes, sizes, hair types and skin tones. </p>
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<p>These have not been without criticism; the naming of the dolls based on their significant body part (curvy, tall, petite) is questionable and again draws attention to the body, while <a href="https://theses.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/123456789/4706/Driessen%2c_R_1.pdf?sequence=1">“curvy” Barbie</a>, with her wider hips and larger thighs, remains very thin. Despite this, these additions are a welcome step in the right direction in allowing girls to play with Barbie dolls that provide more diversity. </p>
<h2>More than a body</h2>
<p>If Barbie was about empowering girls to be anything that they want to be, then the Barbie brand has tried to move with the times by providing powerful role playing tools for girls. No longer is Barbie portrayed in roles such as the air hostess – or, when promoted to pilot, still dressed in a feminine and pink version of the uniform. Modern pilot Barbie is more appropriately dressed, with a male air steward as a sidekick. </p>
<p>Such changes can have a remarkable impact on how young girls imagine their <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1476718X07076681">career possibilities</a>, potential futures, and the roles that they are expected to take. Mattel’s move to honour 20 women role models including Japanese Haitian tennis player Naomi Osaka – currently the world number one – with her own doll is a positive step in bringing empowering role models into the consciousness of young girls.</p>
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<p>Children who are less stereotyped in their gender and play are less likely to be stereotyped in their <a href="https://search.proquest.com/docview/213279779/fulltextPDF/17539B84D0C940C7PQ/1?accountid=12152">occupations</a> and are <a href="https://search.proquest.com/docview/209909796/fulltextPDF/98E06A0E04AD423DPQ/1?accountid=12152">more creative</a>. But of course, society needs to mirror this. In the week when <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/shortcuts/2019/mar/05/virgin-atlantic-all-companies-must-ditch-makeup-rules-for-women">Virgin Atlantic</a> abolished the requirement to wear make up for female cabin crew, the arduous journey away from constraining female body and beauty ideals could slowly be taking off. But in a culture where <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08952841.2018.1449586?needAccess=true">female ageing</a> is now an aesthetic pressure felt by many, perhaps Mattel will show us diversity in age and womanhood? Happy 60th birthday to the still 20-year-old looking Barbie.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gemma Witcomb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For six decades, young girls have played with Barbie dolls. But she’s changed a bit recently.Gemma Witcomb, Lecturer in Psychology, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1000092018-07-18T19:29:45Z2018-07-18T19:29:45ZNo presents, please: how gift cards initiate children into the world of ‘credit’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227922/original/file-20180717-44085-vlm63e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most Australian children have such a glut of toys that parents are opting to give them gift cards so they can choose for themselves.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/garfoiLnBCc">rawpixel/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Western children have more toys, games and possessions than ever before. And Australia has one of the highest rates of <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/750787/global-toy-market-average-spend/">average spending per child on toys</a>. Faced with a glut of children’s toys at home, more and more parents are presenting <a href="https://www.moneysmart.gov.au/managing-your-money/banking/different-ways-to-pay/gift-cards">gift cards</a> in lieu of presents.</p>
<p>Gift cards neatly bridge the risk between giving a tangible present, which might be returned or exchanged, and giving cash, which some cultures consider impersonal.</p>
<p>Children, and often very young children, are themselves asking for gift cards so they can choose their own presents. However, children process information very differently from adults. As a result, giving gift cards to children has implications for how they make consumer-related decisions and how they spend the “credit” a gift card provides.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-should-we-tell-our-children-about-money-39686">What should we tell our children about money?</a>
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<h2>How do young children decide on a purchase?</h2>
<p>Children have a limited ability to process certain types of information. They tend to pay more attention to visual and auditory stimuli rather than textual information. At a very basic level, children are <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/mar.4220110307">more easily influenced by colour and movement</a>.</p>
<p>In terms of the developmental stages identified by Jean Piaget, children do not reach “<a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/formal-operational-stage-of-cognitive-development-2795459">formal operations</a>” until around 11 or 12 years of age. Only then do they develop more abstract thinking and the ability to apply logic to all types of problems, including those inherent in purchase decisions and financial transactions. It is generally accepted that children are not “consumer literate” until they reach this stage of development. </p>
<p>There is evidence that children, particularly those under the age of seven, have a limited ability to detect the advertising content in a message. Indeed, they may <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/140/Supplement_2/S152">regard an advertisement as just another type of program</a>. They see advertisements as a type of information service to help people know what to buy and where to buy it. </p>
<p>It’s important to note that many children may <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0093650213479129">not be able to understand the persuasive intent of advertising</a>. To add to the problem, animated and other characters in children’s movies are increasingly merchandised as toys. An array of products, including foods and confectionery, is also being “placed” in movie content. </p>
<p>Depending on their age, children might not be able to discern the selling strategies being used here, nor appreciate that such content is not passive. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/children-are-far-from-protected-from-junk-food-ads-especially-on-social-media-92382">Children are far from protected from junk food ads – especially on social media</a>
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<h2>Gift cards represent ‘credit’</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227929/original/file-20180717-44103-ev6ue1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227929/original/file-20180717-44103-ev6ue1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227929/original/file-20180717-44103-ev6ue1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227929/original/file-20180717-44103-ev6ue1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227929/original/file-20180717-44103-ev6ue1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227929/original/file-20180717-44103-ev6ue1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227929/original/file-20180717-44103-ev6ue1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227929/original/file-20180717-44103-ev6ue1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A child who receives a gift card must effectively manage the credit amount on that card.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-beautiful-girl-holding-blank-credit-131862209?src=sML-g2zrbwaWVAXeUIxWtg-1-81">paffy/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>There are hundreds of different types of gift cards for use in retail stores or online. Popular gift cards for children can be exchanged for music and online games. </p>
<p>Australians spend around <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/money/saving/australians-waste-70m-a-year-on-unused-gift-cards-20170729-gxl9hi.html">A$2.5 billion a year on gift cards</a>. A gift card comes with responsibility for managing the “credit” that it bestows, and for children this is an important consideration. However, almost one-third of consumers (including children) who are gifted a card never actually exchange it for goods or services.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gift-cards-often-end-up-in-the-bin-but-extending-their-life-might-not-help-85592">Gift cards often end up in the bin, but extending their life might not help</a>
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<p>Young children also face the dilemma of overspending or underspending when they redeem the card. Overspending happens when the child selects a product that exceeds the value of the gift card and has to negotiate with their parents or carer to make up the difference, or decide on a different purchase. Conversely, they might select an item that costs less than the amount of the card, and not understand terms and conditions such as non-transference of value or non-cash redemption. </p>
<p>These scenarios can be problematic for adults, let alone children. Research shows that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00913367.1987.10673059">“disclaimers” are not well understood by children</a>. This has implications for how effectively children can manage the notion of “credit”.</p>
<p>Another consideration is the <a href="https://argosforbusiness.co.uk/blog/the-rise-of-digital-gift-cards/">rise in digital gift cards and e-vouchers</a>. Although many young children are digitally literate, the digital format may present additional challenges for young consumers. </p>
<p>Because digital cards are sent electronically to the recipient, or in the case of a young child to their parents, in this situation children do not receive any sort of tangible gift. What impact does this have on nurturing gratitude and appreciation in young children?</p>
<h2>Dear Santa</h2>
<p><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01650250143000481">Researchers in the UK</a> looked at the content of children’s letters to Santa and found a link between the amount and type of advertising they were exposed to, as well as their age. Children exposed to more advertising were more likely to include requests for branded items than children who watched less advertising. </p>
<p>Will we see more letters to Santa asking for gift cards? Probably. These cards continue to grow in popularity as gifts for young people, particularly at Christmas.</p>
<p>An Australian Youth Forum survey found some younger Australians are <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/publication/gift-cards-in-the-australian-market-report-2/gift-cards-in-the-australian-market-report/part-ii-the-australian-gift-card-market/">using gift cards in lieu of credit cards</a>. The <a href="https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/more-parents-giving-kids-credit-cards.php">number of children given access to their parents’ credit cards</a> is also growing. Children as young as eight and nine are being authorised to use credit cards. These young consumers might often not know the difference between a credit card and gift card.</p>
<p>Children do not have the cognitive skills to evaluate the marketing messages for toys and other products with the same scepticism as adults. Nor do they have the maturity to make many of the decisions required for spending the “credit” from gift cards. This makes them a particularly vulnerable group.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-happens-when-companies-remove-expiry-dates-on-gift-cards-93369">What happens when companies remove expiry dates on gift cards?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many children receive gift cards or even ask for them so they can choose their own presents. But are youngsters ready to handle the wiles of advertisers and the complexities of ‘credit’ on a card?Louise Grimmer, Lecturer in Marketing, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of TasmaniaMartin Grimmer, Professor of Marketing, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/871712017-12-04T03:11:22Z2017-12-04T03:11:22ZBlocks are still the best present you can buy children for Christmas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194258/original/file-20171113-31820-1p4b9o0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christmas lists usually suggest the latest and greatest technology, but blocks are still the best toy you can buy your child.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With Christmas looming, many people will be considering what present to buy for their children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren and friends. Soon, if not already, we will be reading lists of the top trending presents for 2017. These lists will no doubt include, and may even be totally dominated by, all the latest gadgets and devices. </p>
<p>The purpose of these lists is to attempt to persuade parents of young children if they want to give their child the best start in life, and all the advantages for doing well later at school, they need to purchase the latest technology. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/digital-play-is-here-to-stay-but-dont-let-go-of-real-lego-yet-28489">'Digital play' is here to stay ... but don't let go of real Lego yet</a>
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<p>Missing from these Christmas lists, but what should actually be at the very top in terms of learning, are blocks. Blocks have been part of children’s play for a long time. But there’s still no other toy that compares in promoting all areas of children’s development. Any early childhood teacher can easily identify all the areas block play develops including fine motor, social, language and cognitive skills. </p>
<h2>Blocks develop spatial reasoning skills</h2>
<p>As children experiment by stacking, balancing, or building with blocks, they need to share, respect other children’s constructions, ask for desired blocks and describe what they are creating. Perhaps more importantly, children develop problem solving skills, creativity and imagination in creating their masterpieces. Finally, let’s not forget persistence where children try again and again to build the tallest tower or most elaborate castle. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194256/original/file-20171113-31813-7xc721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194256/original/file-20171113-31813-7xc721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194256/original/file-20171113-31813-7xc721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194256/original/file-20171113-31813-7xc721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194256/original/file-20171113-31813-7xc721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194256/original/file-20171113-31813-7xc721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194256/original/file-20171113-31813-7xc721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Kids learn to play and work together when using blocks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Less well known is that blocks also foster <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/40660012/Finding_the_missing_piece_Blocks_puzzles20151205-17386-1455jlo.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1510129409&Signature=laEOWNybWWXVe3fZ2P4wXFpB52M%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DFinding_the_missing_piece_Blocks_puzzles.pdf">spatial reasoning</a>. Spatial reasoning is the ability to mentally manipulate objects or to think in a way that relates to space and the position, area, and size of things within it. We use spatial reasoning skills in everyday life when we read maps, pack the car for holidays, assemble flat pack furniture or cut cake into equal slices. </p>
<p>Spatial reasoning skills are linked to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3962809/">mathematics skills</a>. Children who have good spatial skills tend to have better maths skills. Many people are unaware of the research, but early mathematics skills are a <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-16709-012">better predictor of later school success</a> than either early reading or social-emotional skills. Block play helps children understand many mathematical concepts in number, measurement and geometry. During block play children count, measure, estimate, pattern, transform, and learn about symmetry. </p>
<p>Perhaps most surprising to readers will be the <a href="https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2009-wai.pdf">research</a> that shows spatial reasoning skills are the best predictor of whether children will end up in a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related career. Spatial skills are especially important in STEM related jobs where people are required, for example, to create or read X-ray and ultrasound imaging, engineering and architectural designs, or cross sections of heating and plumbing systems.</p>
<h2>Blocks also help develop spatial language</h2>
<p>Block play also fosters spatial language. When children play with blocks they hear and produce more words related to spatial reasoning including things such as beneath, above, next to, behind, and so on.</p>
<p>One <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d3a4/06dfe4c0f7264ee22331500dedb4b89eb305.pdf">study</a> showed block play elicited more spatial language than any other type of play. The other types of play included playing with puppets, playing house, shops, school, zoos, chefs and throwing a ball.</p>
<p>Other <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3372906/">research</a> that looked at spatial language showed the more spatial words children heard, the more spatial words they produced and the better they performed on spatial tasks. In this study, researchers looked at language relating to the spatial features and properties of objects such as the dimensions of objects (such as how big small, wide, tall), the forms of shapes (for example rectangle, circle, square) and other spatial properties (like bent, pointy, curved). </p>
<h2>Different blocks for different ages and stages</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194255/original/file-20171113-31792-ewtq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194255/original/file-20171113-31792-ewtq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194255/original/file-20171113-31792-ewtq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194255/original/file-20171113-31792-ewtq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194255/original/file-20171113-31792-ewtq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194255/original/file-20171113-31792-ewtq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194255/original/file-20171113-31792-ewtq23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The best way to get your kids playing with blocks is to play along with them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>There are a wide variety of choices for blocks for children including <a href="https://www.megabloks.com/en-au/">MegaBloks</a> for really young children, <a href="https://shop.lego.com/en-AU/DUPLO-ByTheme">Duplo</a>, wooden blocks or waffle blocks for preschoolers, and <a href="http://www.ecobricks.org/">Eco bricks</a> and Lego for older children. </p>
<p>These age guidelines are suggestions only. My ten and fourteen year old daughters will still play with the wooden blocks. Much of the reason blocks are such enduring toys is due to the fact they’re “loose parts”. That is, they can be moved, arranged, combined, taken apart, and put together in any number of ways. <a href="http://www.froebelgifts.com/method.htm">Frobel</a>, the father of kindergarten, created ten gifts for children of which six were blocks.</p>
<p>The best way to engage children in block play is to play alongside them and show your interest and enthusiasm in block building. My friend has a ritual of playing half an hour every afternoon with Duplo with her three young boys aged five, three and one. She says it’s her favourite time of day. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-toys-really-be-educational-well-that-depends-on-the-parents-33672">Can toys really be 'educational'? Well that depends on the parents</a>
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<p>So, when those lists appear in your inbox or on social media, just remember the best toy of all is likely to be missing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Blocks probably won’t top Christmas wish lists, but they have many benefits including developing fine motor skills, social, cognitive and language skills, and spatial reasoning and language.Kym Simoncini, Assistant Professor in Early Childhood and Primary Education, University of CanberraKevin Larkin, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/771402017-05-11T01:04:24Z2017-05-11T01:04:24ZWhat’s behind the fidget spinner fad?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168648/original/file-20170509-11026-3f92z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A flick, a spin and a...fad?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/darkdwarf/34275444372/in/photolist-UdNBts-TkYaKS-T3ec6f-UhhWFR-S6triW-UqtWU6-TpuRia-T8QitW-T3ebtJ-SUb81W-TJFgVj-UAkti4-Un1USo-T5YPLk-T4Pxyp-UhhWHz-U7v8mu-TTPQyA-UrJMwH-SKaWwy-TUDzs8-UeHsvG-U7VJE3-TXbJxY-U7atiQ-UntCLV-UhhWRv-dMfA8u-UeL4Wb-UqtDxs-U1grvW-T4Euwj-TYAVgU-UcZRsJ-UuMvTD-T2VHGo-Uq4TLW-Rpua9L-RRzosM-SECHqh-Ukfj48-TE7JZ4-Uq4U75-T5aKjq-UjzbJF-TLcgZS-U19FsW-Txe6J1-UkZ5gJ-Tdi3bx">Dark Dwarf/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When I asked a colleague if he knew about fidget spinners, he responded: “I’d never heard of them until last week, when my daughter told me she had to have one.” </p>
<p>Many parents must be having that conversation with their elementary school-age kids; as of this writing, fidget spinners held the top 16 spots in Amazon’s rankings of the most popular toys, and 43 of the top 50. Add <a href="https://www.thefidgetcube.co">fidget cubes</a> (a spinner cousin), and fidget toys hold 49 of the top 50 rankings. </p>
<p>Fidget spinners, it seems, have become this year’s leading toy fad. I’m a sociologist <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520246263">who has studied fads</a>, and the rapid popularity, media attention and concerns over a new toy craze are a familiar story. As for adults’ confusion about the purpose of the fidget spinner – for many kids, that’s probably part of its appeal.</p>
<p>Don’t know what a fidget spinner is? Not to worry – most people who aren’t in touch with school-age children don’t have a clue. (When I asked a class of 30 college students, only two knew what they were.) </p>
<p>A fidget spinner has two or three paddle-shaped blades attached to a central core. Squeeze the core, give the blades a flick and they spin. That’s it. With a price between US$3 and $4 and available in all sorts of color schemes, many children can carry around a pocketful.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Some tricks of the trade.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fidget spinners have attracted all sorts of commentary. Some schools <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fidget-spinner-craze-is-sweeping-the-u-s-but-some-schools-say-theyre-discractions/">have banned them as a distraction</a>, and there are worries that they may disrupt students’ learning. Others argue that fidget spinners <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/family/fidget-spinners-how-the-latest-toy-craze-also-benefits-children-with-special-needs">can calm special needs students</a>. But most <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/04/27/the-hottest-new-toy-fad-is-a-spinning-piece-of-plastic/">simply categorize them as a craze or fad</a> – the most recent in a long line of toys that children have swarmed to.</p>
<p>The hula hoop is probably the most famous. Over the course of a few months in 1958, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Fads-Richard-Johnson/dp/0688049036/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494381982&sr=8-1&keywords=richard+a.+Johnson+american+fads">an estimated 25 million were sold</a> – enough so that every child in America between the ages of five and 11 could have owned one. Soon, however, most hula hoops stopped spinning and began collecting dust. Similar toys fads include troll dolls, super balls, Rubik’s cubes, Beanie Babies and jelly bracelets.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to predict which toys will become the focus of faddish enthusiasm. It helps if the price tag falls within a child’s budget, if it’s small enough to be brought to school and if it appeals to both boys and girls. But these aren’t hard and fast rules. Cabbage Patch Kids ($25 – equivalent to about $60 today) hit it big in 1983 when frustrated, holiday present-buying adults competed for the limited supply of dolls in stores. (They were eventually <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Fads-Richard-Johnson/dp/0688049036/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494381982&sr=8-1&keywords=richard+a.+Johnson+american+fads">issued</a> “adoption certificates” that could be exchanged for the dolls when production runs caught up with demand.)</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168634/original/file-20170509-11008-1aejh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168634/original/file-20170509-11008-1aejh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168634/original/file-20170509-11008-1aejh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168634/original/file-20170509-11008-1aejh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168634/original/file-20170509-11008-1aejh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168634/original/file-20170509-11008-1aejh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168634/original/file-20170509-11008-1aejh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A happy customer displays his newly purchased Cabbage Patch Kid doll in 1983 as he leaves a South Bellingham, Massachusetts storefront crowded with people hoping to make a similar purchase.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Massachus-/fdb4dff8c2574669b269667a65881713/1/0">ASSOCIATED PRESS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Adults are often ambivalent about children’s fads. Some get caught up in the enthusiasm, like those who invested in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Great-Beanie-Baby-Bubble-Delusion/dp/1591846021/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494382160">the Beanie Baby bubble</a>, convinced that the toys could only grow more valuable with each passing year. (They didn’t.) </p>
<p>Others try to read meanings into toy fads. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/si.1998.21.2.197">Progressives might worry</a> that children are being exploited, separated from their allowance money by “Big Toy” marketers. (“Wouldn’t it be better if children played with wooden blocks, instead of commercialized plastic?”)</p>
<p>And conservatives might fear that toys will corrupt children’s values. During the jelly bracelet craze, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=y7jtAwAAQBAJ&dq=Kids+Gone+Wild:++From+Rainbow+Parties+to+Sexting,+Understanding+the+Hype+Over+Teen+Sex&source=gbs_navlinks_s">some claimed</a> that those thin rings of plastic gel were actually dangerous sex bracelets, with each color referring to a particular sexual act (and having one’s bracelet broken required the wearer to perform that act). Of course, critics of all stripes can suspect that the toys distract kids from their responsibilities to focus on their studies.</p>
<p>All of this exaggerates the significance of toy fads. <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/119/1/182">Play is undeniably important to childhood development</a>, but particular toys rarely have dramatic effects. Most parents have probably given a small child a nicely wrapped present, only to have the child ignore the gift in favor of playing with the ribbon. Adults imagine that war toys or sexist toys or racist toys or meat toys (which trouble vegetarians) or occult toys (which concern evangelicals) will produce adults with bad values, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/si.1998.21.2.197">but it’s hard to find much evidence to support those claims</a>. No doubt some women who are feminists owned a Barbie as a kid.</p>
<p>Toy fads are important because they represent something novel, different. An important part of childhood is gradually separating yourself from your family and becoming your own person. We can see this when middle-school children announce a taste for music that diverges from what their parents enjoy; it’s a way of declaring, “I’m my own person.” </p>
<p>We can imagine slightly younger kids comparing fidget spinners – yours is an interesting color or really sparkles when it spins, while mine spins for a really long time. Fidget spinners are all the more fun to the degree they’re subterranean, with most adults clueless. </p>
<p>They’re getting a lot of attention today, but like all fads their novelty will inevitably fade: They’ll soon be stuffed in the corners of dresser drawers, waiting to provide little jolts of nostalgia when they’re rediscovered a few years down the road.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Best does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Adults are dumbfounded – and according to an expert on fads, that’s probably the point.Joel Best, Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of DelawareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/682612016-12-19T08:16:42Z2016-12-19T08:16:42ZIs Santa sexist if he gives your daughter a doll for Christmas?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150121/original/image-20161214-5930-1xd56a9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">All dolled up.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pexels</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the run-up to Christmas, many of us, whether we are parents or not, will want to buy a toy as a present for a little boy or girl. While older children are all too ready to say what they want, choosing for very young children can be tricky – should you stick with the traditional choices: a truck for a boy and a doll for a girl – or should you challenge the stereotypes?</p>
<p>Although toy manufacturers and advertisers tend to promote “gender-specific” toys, questioning whether boys and girls really are attracted to different kinds of objects is important in furthering our understanding of <a href="http://mountappsych.pbworks.com/f/martin_ruble_szkrybalo.pdf">how gender norms develop</a>. For example, do sex differences in toy preferences appear as soon as infants can demonstrate them? Or do they develop with the acquisition of knowledge about their own sex and what adults and other children expect from boys and girls? </p>
<p>There is clear evidence that children over the age of two years typically prefer <a href="http://www.pitt.edu/%7Ebertsch/Todd_et_al-2016-Infant_and_Child_Development.pdf">toys stereotyped to their own sex</a>, but studies involving young babies have to rely on interpretation of their visual behaviour as they are shown toys, or pictures of toys, in a laboratory setting.</p>
<p>So in <a href="http://www.pitt.edu/%7Ebertsch/Todd_et_al-2016-Infant_and_Child_Development.pdf">our research</a>, conducted in collaboration with the University College London, we aimed to discover which “gender-typed” toys very young girls and boys actually want to play with. </p>
<p>We studied infants and children aged between nine months and 32 months. We chose this range because from this age, children can move independently to demonstrate their interests and are going through <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2713061/">developmental stages</a> where they learn about what it means to be either a boy or a girl. And with their parent’s permission, we decided to study children in multicultural London nurseries rather than in their homes or our laboratory, where the presence of their parents might influence their behaviour. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150123/original/image-20161214-5911-lopjmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150123/original/image-20161214-5911-lopjmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150123/original/image-20161214-5911-lopjmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150123/original/image-20161214-5911-lopjmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150123/original/image-20161214-5911-lopjmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150123/original/image-20161214-5911-lopjmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150123/original/image-20161214-5911-lopjmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Think pink?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pexels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before choosing toys for our research, we carried out a survey among local adults, asking them “which toy comes to mind when you are thinking of a young boy or a young girl?” Our final line-up included a digger, car and ball with the boys in mind, and a doll, cooking pot and pink teddy as the “girl” toys. And as <a href="http://sites.oxy.edu/clint/physio/article/SexDifferencesinInfantsVisualInterestinToys.pdf">previous research </a>has shown that <a href="http://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/208330/1/Content.pdf?accept=1">colour can also guide toy preferences</a>, we added a blue teddy into the mix to see whether that would appeal more to the boys.</p>
<p>The toys were arranged in a semi-circle, one metre away from the child, so that they needed to move independently to make their selections. We then recorded the times each child played with each toy.</p>
<h2>B for ball</h2>
<p>Results from the 47 girls and 54 boys who took part in our study showed an overwhelming and highly significant preference for toys typed to the child’s gender. When we broke down the results into narrower age groups, chosen to reflect their stage of gender knowledge development, we found the same results.</p>
<p>Among the very youngest infants – aged nine to 12 months – we found that all of the boys spent some time playing with the ball. And that playing with the ball accounted for half of the total time boys played with the toys.</p>
<p>In contrast, the youngest girls played with the cooking pot for a similar proportion of the time. There was little interest in the teddies from either boys or girls.</p>
<h2>Let toys be toys</h2>
<p>Finding sex difference in the toy preferences of boys and girls aged less than 18 months old, suggests these differences and preferences are there before extensive socialisation. But such predispositions may be modified as children are able to label themselves as <a href="http://mountappsych.pbworks.com/f/martin_ruble_szkrybalo.pdf">boys or girls and learn more about social norms</a>. </p>
<p>Our research also found that while boys’ preferences for male-typed toys increased across our chosen age groups, the pattern for girls was rather different. Although girls of all ages preferred “female-typed” toys, the youngest group showed the strongest preference. And both boys and girls increasing preferred “boy” toys as they approached their third birthday. Which raises questions about gender assumptions of what a “boy” toy or “girl” toy actually is.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150124/original/image-20161214-5930-juaj7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150124/original/image-20161214-5930-juaj7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150124/original/image-20161214-5930-juaj7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150124/original/image-20161214-5930-juaj7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150124/original/image-20161214-5930-juaj7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150124/original/image-20161214-5930-juaj7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150124/original/image-20161214-5930-juaj7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Because cars aren’t just for boys.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pexels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So as well as finding sex differences in toy preferences, we also found sex differences in the developmental pathways of boys and girls. We can only speculate that, at least in the location of our study, stereotypes for boys are more rigid than those for girls. As in modern society, girls’ play with “male-typed” toys is often encouraged more than boys’ play with toys related to a care-giving role. </p>
<p>But of course, some of the boys and girls in our study didn’t stick to typical “boy” “girl” preferences at all, so it’s probably best to keep the individual child in mind when choosing that present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68261/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brenda Todd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Welcome to no-gender December, where parents (and Santa) are being encouraged to give children gender-neutral Christmas presents.Brenda Todd, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/538772016-02-07T19:07:15Z2016-02-07T19:07:15ZDrastic plastic: a look at Barbie’s new bodies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110403/original/image-20160205-11975-1frc768.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Barbies now come in all shapes, sizes and colours – but the history of the doll shows it's business as usual for Mattel.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mattel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Featured in a clear cut silhouette of her new plumper body option on the cover of Time Magazine on January 28, Barbie was declared to be the “<a href="http://time.com/barbie-new-body-cover-story/">American Beauty</a>”, heralding an in-depth series of features on Mattel’s new design campaign of multiple Barbie body profiles and skin tones. </p>
<p>Time’s intense analysis is the latest chapter in three decades of Barbie’s popular and creative media crossovers into a knowing, adult culture, rather than the playground. </p>
<h2>The dominant doll</h2>
<p>In 1997 Lisa Jervis described Barbie in <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1997/12/barbies-new-bod-bfd">Mother Jones</a> magazine as “one of the most popular women in America”. Barbie has been a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/business/media/barbies-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-issue-causes-a-stir-online.html">high-profile cover girl</a> before, for example on the iconic annual Swimsuit Issue of Sports Illustrated in 2014 (combining two perennial North American flashpoints of criticism around the objectification of women in contemporary public life). </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110398/original/image-20160205-11940-1ukgr79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110398/original/image-20160205-11940-1ukgr79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110398/original/image-20160205-11940-1ukgr79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110398/original/image-20160205-11940-1ukgr79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110398/original/image-20160205-11940-1ukgr79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110398/original/image-20160205-11940-1ukgr79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110398/original/image-20160205-11940-1ukgr79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110398/original/image-20160205-11940-1ukgr79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barbie appeared on one version of the 2014 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, in an updated version of her first swimsuit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mattel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Barbie has featured frequently in intense debates around female body image and the inappropriate <a href="http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/banning-barbie/?_r=0#">sexualisation</a> of <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/01/barbies_gone_wild.html">young girls</a>, the doll has also documented and symbolised aspects of the female experience, changing <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/655531.Barbie_Millicent_Roberts">fashions</a>, changing <a href="http://time.com/3977192/barbie-careers/">career</a> and educational expectations, a wide range of popular cultural and everyday aspects of <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Fashion_Doll.html?id=K_0bYICEKJQC&redir_esc=y">female lives</a>. </p>
<p>Barbie is a highly ubiquitous symbol of female identity, who has generated a uniquely live energy by mere longevity and tenacious presence within the public eye, and acquired an <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=qsPuBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181&dq=iconic+designs+barbie&source=bl&ots=6oXd-FLy47&sig=iT2f28Eq">uncanny life beyond her plastic materialism</a> . </p>
<p>Time addressed Barbie as both <a href="http://time.com/4196229/barbies-new-body-watch-designers-explain-why-they-changed-her/">cultural phenomenon</a> and business <a href="http://time.com/4196179/barbies-new-body-meet-mattels-design-team/">case study</a>. Mattel’s global reach, cutting-edge marketing, early uptake of innovations in supply chain management and corporate dominance of toy-buying ensured it stayed in the public eye for half a century or more, buoyed up by the Barbie brand’s unparalleled <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Girl_Culture_An_Encyclopedia_2_Volumes.html?id=9PRoPX3DIwgC">dominance of the doll market</a>. </p>
<p>Mattel particularly pioneered advertising tie-ins and sponsorship of children’s television content in the 1950s, and launched Barbie is a series of dreamy, yet formalised, evocations of high fashion and <em>haute couture</em> in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8-avPUxyno">television advertisements</a> , proclaiming “Barbie you’re beautiful”. </p>
<h2>Frequently flexible</h2>
<p>Yet for a decade or more Mattel has become progressively <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-26/it-s-not-a-barbie-world-and-four-other-challenges-facing-mattel">less assured</a> in how the doll is developed and presented, finally instituting a two-year-long <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/business/barbie-now-in-more-shapes.html">review</a> of Barbie’s image and her relevance to changing parameters of contemporary girlhood and new modes of parenting. </p>
<p>Her January 2016 changes of image and body type immediately engaged journalists around the world: Barbie has always provided good copy.</p>
<p>In her 1995 monograph <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/barbies-queer-accessories">Barbie’s Queer Accessories</a> academic Erica Rand questioned whether this popularity was spontaneous, or due to Mattel’s assiduous and astute command of media practices. </p>
<p>The speedy uptake of the “new body” story reflected widespread excitement that Barbie was finally becoming part of the everyday world of imperfect women, who are not models or actresses and that now Barbie offered girls a realistic and recognisable image to identify with. </p>
<p>Yet for those who know Barbie’s half century and more of backstory, concerns about body type and ethnicity have impacted upon the doll for nearly two decades, overlooked in the general hype over the 2016 changes. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110399/original/image-20160205-11958-8icpwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110399/original/image-20160205-11958-8icpwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110399/original/image-20160205-11958-8icpwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110399/original/image-20160205-11958-8icpwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110399/original/image-20160205-11958-8icpwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110399/original/image-20160205-11958-8icpwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110399/original/image-20160205-11958-8icpwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110399/original/image-20160205-11958-8icpwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vintage 1950s Bild Lilli dolls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GeekChickLoLo, via Wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mattel responded to some consumer criticism and remodelled her body as early as <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1997/12/barbies-new-bod-bfd">1997</a> when Barbie’s breasts were reduced in size and her waist thickened. These changes had the effect of straightening her “drag queen” body, which was an inheritance from her German 1950s prototype Lilli: heavy shoulders, slim waist and hips, and those pneumatic, possibly artificial, breasts. </p>
<p>A flexible, slightly rubberised body with wire armature, used for DC comic heroine Barbies and cheerleaders around 2003, also featured broader female hips and smaller breasts, and presented a rather lithe, willowy profile. </p>
<p>A frequent alternative body used by Mattel from the late 1980s onwards for Barbie is a fully jointed, including ankles and wrists, “athletic” Barbie body that features flat feet not impractical heels.</p>
<p>Do the multiple new Barbie body types represent clever marketing rather than a move to a realistic image, given that clothes and shoes cannot be shared across differently sized dolls? Each doll must have her own set, in the manner that Lego designs packs of pieces that do not function outside the context story, or between other themes. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110400/original/image-20160205-11983-86qr1g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110400/original/image-20160205-11983-86qr1g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110400/original/image-20160205-11983-86qr1g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110400/original/image-20160205-11983-86qr1g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110400/original/image-20160205-11983-86qr1g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110400/original/image-20160205-11983-86qr1g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110400/original/image-20160205-11983-86qr1g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110400/original/image-20160205-11983-86qr1g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1977 Superstar Barbie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mattel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Previously, from 1959 to 1976, Mattel expected girls to have one or two dolls, but buy multiple outfits. Profit in the post-<a href="http://www.thebarbiecollection.com/gallery/superstar-barbie-doll-n4978">Superstar Barbie</a> era (1977 onwards) has already been driven by the proliferation of different body formats and functions. A thoughtful, inclusive turn as seen in the 2016 new Barbie releases is a variant of this foundational trend.</p>
<p>Simultaneous but varied product has always been an essential part of the Barbie experience. Since 1977, Mattel has designed many novelty Barbie bodies that have different functions and capabilities, some surreal and highly artificial, including flying dolls, dancing dolls, dolls with bodies that light up with LEDs, dolls with mermaid tails instead of legs and even for a short period in 2009 highly controversial <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/44990466">tattooed dolls</a>.</p>
<p>Many Barbies are issued within the same year, with different pricepoints and levels of finishing and presentation to appeal to various age groups from pre-school age children to adult collectors. The 2016 new bodies merely extend Barbie’s already split identity. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110401/original/image-20160205-11967-rml0yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110401/original/image-20160205-11967-rml0yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110401/original/image-20160205-11967-rml0yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110401/original/image-20160205-11967-rml0yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110401/original/image-20160205-11967-rml0yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110401/original/image-20160205-11967-rml0yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110401/original/image-20160205-11967-rml0yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110401/original/image-20160205-11967-rml0yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Florida Midge (circa 1998).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the mid-1960s Mattel always provided some options for alternative body and facial images to Barbie through her extended family and friends, who included Skipper and Francie, with different, less voluptuous, body types than Barbie. Midge, Barbie’s best friend, was originally a plain Madge Alsop character with freckles, as a handmaid to the diva’s greatness, but from about 1990 onwards she became an elegant, serene redhead.</p>
<p>While the 2016 line is praised for including multiracial options, there had been African American dolls in the Barbie family since Francie in 1966, followed by Barbie’s “friends” Christie, Brad and Cara in the 1960s and 1970s. </p>
<p>In 1981 Barbie herself became available as an African American doll, styled for her launch on Diana Ross in a red lurex evening gown. </p>
<h2>The commodification of difference</h2>
<p>Erika Nicole Kendall, writing in The Guardian, suggested that the new lines are not about greater sensitivity to consumers criticism but signs of an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/28/barbies-new-body-types-a-ploy-to-save-the-brand-not-represent-its-customers">increasingly desperate development team</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Would Barbie be “diversifying” if it weren’t a last resort to save a dying brand?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Forbes magazine reported in 2014 that Elsa and Frozen toys <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/11/27/good-news-for-girls-disneys-frozen-ices-out-barbie-to-become-top-toy">outsold Barbie</a>. </p>
<p>Barbie had already slipped behind the Bratz dolls in the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3640958.stm">British</a> and Australian market by the early 2000s and in Australia Bratz dominated <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/04/1070351727172.html?from=storyrhs">within a year of being launched</a>. </p>
<p>Although faltering towards the end of the decade, not the least because of the weight of litigation with Mattel, Bratz showed up Barbie in the new millennium. Their mirroring of outrageous red carpet and rockstar fashion was both more faithful and convincing. The clothing featured better quality fabrics and more well made accessories than were sold with Barbie. </p>
<p>Overall, they captured the increasing importance of media celebrities in circulating and establishing styles, placing Barbie as a cautious follower rather than an innovator. </p>
<p>Most importantly Bratz were a non-hierarchical, multi-ethnic crew, who could not be defined by obvious visual stereotypes, due to their abstract, somewhat anime, styling, offering the dolls to multiple buyers and allowing for many different girls to identify with them.</p>
<p>Lisa Guerrero wrote in <a href="http://csc.sagepub.com/content/9/2/186.short">Can the Subaltern Shop? The Commodification of Difference in the Bratz</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They have presented a challenge to the Anglocentric version of womanhood found in the arena of toys that has been dominant since the 1959 introduction of Barbie. They have given face to difference and provided images through which young girls of colour might find themselves reflected.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bratz’s runaway success made Mattel consciously explore alternative styling and address a greater cultural diversity, providing some of the most experimental dolls within the Mattel brand. My Scene dolls’ anime and slightly Japanese styling picked up on the detailed quality of the Bratz clothes and their multiracial social relations. </p>
<p>The Flavas were another answer to Bratz, both exotic and working class, with hip hop styling, a large range of skin tones and some particularly tough male imagery. They were intensely disliked in the United States. </p>
<p>Conservatives and fundamentalists saw them as criminal and delinquent personae inappropriate for child play. African Americans felt the Flava dolls were stereotyping their fashion choices and also imposing an underclass identity on the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Girl_Culture_An_Encyclopedia_2_Volumes.html?id=9PRoPX3DIwgC">community</a>. </p>
<p>Overseas in Britain and Europe the Flavas were seen as fascinating ambassadors for American <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZW5siDENvc">cool</a>. </p>
<p>On the opposite end of the fashion industry scale, the Barbie Basics lines were issued in annual sets from 2010-2014 to be dressed by collectors and amateur designers of doll couture. </p>
<p>In 2010, they included, in the female dolls, at least 12 different complexions, hair styles and body poses, with multi-ethnic Kens as well, all presented with avant garde, <a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4130/5059874393_64748cb583_b.jpg">fashion forward personae</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the global vote of media confidence, this forgotten back story suggests that The Guardian’s reading of the situation as desperation not innovation may well be right. Do Barbie’s multiple bodies welcome a new era of ethical body inclusiveness or do they shift deckchairs on the Titanic?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53877/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Juliette Peers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Barbie has a forgotten history of changing in response to market pressures. Are her multiple new bodies ushering in an era of ethical body inclusiveness, or is Mattel just shifting deckchairs on the Titanic?Juliette Peers, Senior Lecturer School of Architecture and Design, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/516962015-12-21T10:13:56Z2015-12-21T10:13:56ZCuddly parasites: how teddy bears got their claws into children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106048/original/image-20151215-23205-lgrz4v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twin Design</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every year at around Christmas time, cuddly toys in toy shops throughout the land face one of the most critical tests in their life history – will they be chosen and find a home or, literally, be left on the shelf facing extinction? </p>
<p>Among this rich biodiversity of flock-coated wildlife, one species reigns supreme: the teddy bear. Teddy bears (Latin name <em><a href="http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/90/14/382">Brunus edwardsii</a></em>) are <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1035033022000133490#.Vm_26vqLTIU">particularly successful throughout the western world</a> as an essential companion for many a child. </p>
<p>They are a long-lived taxon and have seen many rival species disappear, such as <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/51030/billy-possum-president-tafts-answer-teddy-bear">Billy Possum</a>, reduced to eking out an existence in a fraction of their old home range. The affectionate relationship between teddies and humans shows no sign of waning after roughly 110 years of keeping each other company but, like any tight co-evolutionary relationship, teddy-human ecology reveals some startling biology.</p>
<p>The precise origin of the teddy bear is obscure, much like any novel taxon. Teddy bears existed as just one species in a cuddly toy fauna alongside elephants, camels and horses created by the <a href="https://www.steiffteddybears.co.uk/more-things-steiff/history-of-steiff-bears.php">toy company Stieff</a> around 1880. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106040/original/image-20151215-23176-13swdz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106040/original/image-20151215-23176-13swdz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106040/original/image-20151215-23176-13swdz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106040/original/image-20151215-23176-13swdz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106040/original/image-20151215-23176-13swdz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106040/original/image-20151215-23176-13swdz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106040/original/image-20151215-23176-13swdz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106040/original/image-20151215-23176-13swdz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clifford Berryman’s 1902 cartoon that lampooned Teddy Roosevelt’s bear hunt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">US National Park Service</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But it was the <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9067587/theodore-roosevelt-safari">hunting exploits of US president, Teddy Roosevelt,</a> in 1903 that created the perfect environment for the Age of the Teddy Bear. Publicity surrounding the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/thrb/learn/historyculture/storyofteddybear.htm">president’s supposed mercy towards a hunted bear cub</a> made cute teddies suddenly popular, although the familiar story is far from true; it was actually <a href="http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/%7Ecaforum/volume8/pdf/giftingthebear.pdf">an adult bear that was shot later in the day</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the toy teddy bear’s pre-adaptation was ideal for some political propagandising by Roosevelt – and teddies became firmly established. </p>
<h2>Bearing a resemblance</h2>
<p>Those early teddy bears are strikingly bear-like: long-snouted, gangly-limbed and often with humps, teeth and claws. There are not many ursine teeth and snarling maws to be seen among contemporary bears, though. They are altogether cuter, usually with button noses, big heads, and shorter limbs. And over the years teddy morphology has changed to mimic baby animals, especially human babies. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106051/original/image-20151215-23182-14yvxil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106051/original/image-20151215-23182-14yvxil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106051/original/image-20151215-23182-14yvxil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106051/original/image-20151215-23182-14yvxil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106051/original/image-20151215-23182-14yvxil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106051/original/image-20151215-23182-14yvxil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106051/original/image-20151215-23182-14yvxil.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Early teddy bear with snout.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">World Collectors Net</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Teddies are not the only toys to show evolutionary changes. <a href="http://faculty.uca.edu/benw/biol4415/papers/Mickey.pdf">Stephen Jay Gould famously described similar changes to Mickey Mouse</a> and his cartoon kin – while action figures have become <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10349585">increasingly muscular</a> to match male body stereotypes. The increasing infantilisation of teddy bear designs is striking and suggests some powerful natural selection at work. </p>
<p>You can still find bear-like teddies, mostly collectable copies of early bears aimed at an adult market, but for children the cute, cuddly and toothless variety dominate.</p>
<h2>Cuddles galore</h2>
<p>What is the relationship between teddies and people? My teddy and I have hosted teddy bears’ picnics at science festivals over recent years, asking audiences to characterise teddy-human ecology from among the classic ecological interactions; competition, predation, parasitism, mutualism and the less familiar such as commensalism – where one party receives benefits from another that is not negatively affected by it. </p>
<p>Without fail, the picnickers pick mutualism as a key component of the relationship, because both species benefit from the relationship. The teddy gets a home, we get the cuddles. </p>
<p>But the teddy is, in fact, an effective parasite. The teddies get the vital win because they need us to reproduce them using our resources, energy and time. In return, we get a warm, fuzzy feeling, maybe a bit like the worker ants who lap up the sweet secretions of the <a href="http://www.salford.ac.uk/news1/how-the-smell-of-an-ant-can-save-a-parasitic-butterfly">parasitic large blue butterfly</a> caterpillar as it eats their young. </p>
<p>This also explains the intense selection pressure for teddy bears to be cute. Adult humans are hopelessly vulnerable to cuteness. Young children do not buy their own teddies. Mums, dads, aunts, uncles and grandparents do. That is the tricky stage for any parasite, getting the vector you are using to transmit you to a new host. Hence all those teddies on the Christmas cuddly toy shelves radiating deadly cuteness to hapless adult humans. Pick me, pick me …</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Jeffries does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>These cute little critters have used natural selection to thrive in a global habitat.Mike Jeffries, Teaching Fellow, Ecology, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.