This month the BBC’s children’s channel CBBC launches the 10-part series Pocket Money Pitch. This Dragons’ Den style show invites young entrepreneurs (aged between 8 and 14) to pitch their plan for the chance to win a year’s worth of ‘pocket money’ investment in their fledgling businesses. BBC business presenter Steph McGovern fronts the show dedicated to finding the ‘business brains of the future’. McGovern declared ‘Hopefully this will kick off the careers of our future business leaders, and we’ll find the next Richard Branson or Martha Lane Fox’. In each episode participants undertake set challenges including fighting a ‘head-to-head pitch battle’ to win a mentor to help them to the next stage. The show’s business ‘gurus’ include fashion designer Myleene Klass, Hussein Lalani (founder of 99p Stores), Rob Law who invented the Trunki suitcase, spicy sauce creator Levi Roots and Sarah Jane Thomson, founder of children’s national newspaper First News.

In this guest blog, Anita Biressi, Professor of Media and Society at the University of Roehampton, looks at what the show and the reading list of one of its mentors reveal about the complexities of growing up today.

On the 26th November we were lucky enough to join forces with In Defence of Youth Work for a workshop exploring young people, celebrity and entrepreneurialism.

“If you have an undying passion for something, why not make money from it?” that’s Liam’s opinion, a young entrepreneur working in the creative industries. But Liam’s passion is not only a personal asset, it’s a national asset. If young people are regarded as emblems of the future then it’s no surprise that their passion to make money is now considered to be nationally important. The current political message is ‘Let’s harness young people’s natural drive and ambition to help rescue the nation from economic distress – after all they are our greatest resource!’ In this guest post, Anita Biressi and Heather Nunn question the values driving the growing convergence between education, enterprise and popular culture.