Analyze the School Commercialism by Molnar - Book Report/Review Example

The importance and benefits of education are uncountable, as it has touched the lives of all people living in the world in one way or another. The benefit of education has elevated it to the status of education to where it is considered as the most important processes of human life and the society in general. Therefore, most people have realized that education can be a goldmine upon which they can enrich themselves quickly and in the long- run. This scenario has captured the attention of some scholars, educationists and other concerned individuals who argue that it leads to defeating the main goal of education.

Alex Molnar is one of the people concerned with ‘school commercialization’. He writes “The effect of converting public schools into an arm of consumer culture necessarily undermines their essential civic function to promote the general welfare and strengthen civil society by educating children to meaningfully participate in the political, economic, and cultural life of their communities” (Molnar 9). This discussion will explain how and why this is so according to Molnar. Molnar notes with concern that businesses are making inroads in schools at worrying rate, especially in the underfunded schools.

He observes that businesses are providing teaching materials, sports equipment, money, and technology resources in exchange of marketing research and advertising space in these schools. He is more concerned with the rapid increase of this trend in America. He says that a child growing up in America is more often than not exposed to commercial culture. This is because marketing is around the child so often (Molnar 1). What concerns him further is that an aspect that should be devoid of marketing or commercialization is now awash with it; a scenario, which according to him is not desirable.

He is perturbed by the fact that books that children use in school is covered with papers that have some sort of marketing on it. The foodstuffs a child consumes in school such as soda and pizza carry with them some marketing aspects (Molnar 2). He uses the Oxford English Dictionary to define commercialism as the practice and principles of commerce that is concerned more with financial return as a way of measuring worth. He goes further to acknowledge that commercialism has become so dominant in the modern economy; it is a force that shapes our spending patterns, work lives, and nearly all other arenas of human existence (Molnar 4).

Being a global trend, he fears that the inroad it is making in schools is not good and there is need to curb that. He argues that marketers are targeting the schools and children for the following major reason; children make up a highly- segmented market because they possess distinctive characteristics depending on geography, gender, and age. Most schools organize children based on their age and are thereby largely identifiable and their demands can easily be identified hence providing marketers with every reason to familiarize with this group of ‘consumers’ (6).

In addition, the fact that previous studies have suggested that children usually have great influence on their parent spending has made the desire for school commercialization