Education, Popular Literature and Future Citizenship in Argentina’s Billiken Children’s Magazine (1919-1944)

This article places the study of Argentina’s Billiken magazine, the world’s longest-running children’s weekly, at the intersection between Popular Culture Studies and Childhood Studies to uncover how historical understandings of Argentine popular culture are challenged and transformed when the popular culture in question is made for children. Billiken is identified with the promotion of Argentine culture and history yet excludes the ultimate expression of Argentine national identity, the gaucho, from its popular literary content in favour of characters taken from, or inspired by, European children’s literature. This editorial decision is determined by Billiken’s construction of the child reader in terms of his or her future potential. Billiken’s self-imposed educational remit extends to the magazine’s popular cultural content which it employs as a way of socialising the child reader and forming notions of taste. The editorial construction of children as future citizens is used here as the lens through which to view the different and, at times, contradictory, ideological, pedagogical and commercial agendas found within this product of children’s popular culture.