Exchange Value as Pedagogy in Children's Leisure: Moral Panics in Children's Culture at Century's End

Abstract

This article examines the relatively recent emergence of a new ethos of acquisition for acquisition's sake in the practices of collecting and trading cards and plush toys purportedly manufactured for children. I analyze public debates surrounding three fads in children's popular culture in the late 1990s: sports "chase" cards, Beanie Baby plush toys and Pokemon trading cards. These crazes take the form of moral panics whereby sacred values are said to be threatened by the trading of these goods because of what they teach. That is, "appropriate" play and use of these goods constitutes an exercise in particular modes of seeing and relating to and in the world.

Keywords:

• Children'S Consumer Culture Children'S Leisure Consumption