Between fictions and fantasies: learning love (and gender) through cultural consumption in adolescence

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the construction of the love imaginary and the characteristics of its learning process in the adolescence, keeping gender in mind. This researcher work is based on an ethnography done with teenagers ranging between twelve and fourteen years old from Bilbao. During the field work, participant observations, interviews and discussion groups have been carried out in three high-schools. It can confirm the influence of the cultural industries is more than significant, as a result of the silence of schools in the sentimental education. The cultural consumption changes according to gender, since these productions guide and encourage a differentiated consumption in girls or boys. As a result, the girls are more exposed to the messages of this feeling, due to the fact that love is a key element to classify them like “products for girls”. Likewise, it is necessary to emphasize the important role of their fantasies which are sometimes fed off the cultural fictions.