Abstract

COUTINHO, Karyne Dias. Education as a commodity: the public and private spheres in the case of shopping malls. Educ. Soc. [online]. 2003, vol.24, n.84, pp. 955-982. ISSN 0101-7330.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302003000300011.

This paper discusses the emergence and the role of educational places for children in shopping malls. It suggests that making education into a commodity is a form of hyperprivatization, free from state control and regulation. Analyzing the successive displacements of the concepts of public and private sphere, we show the current dissolution of this dichotomy, which ends up intensifying the privatization logics, so typical of our times.

Keywords : Education and consumption; Childhood education; Shopping malls; Public and private spheres.