Free dolls were given to 700 UK schools as part of Mattel’s “Barbie School of Friendship” programme, which the company says was based on neuroscience research, but critics are worried about overt marketing. Hristio Boytchev reports The toy company Mattel has been criticised for “stealth marketing” after giving away free Barbie and Ken dolls to schools as part of a programme to teach empathy to children. Mattel’s “Barbie School of Friendship” programme, in which free dolls were given to children to carry out role play exercises, has been rolled out to 700 schools across the UK, “with the potential to reach 150 000+ pupils,” said the company. Mattel said research it had sponsored showed that playing with dolls offered “major benefits” for child development, including nurturing social skills such as empathy. But experts have criticised the programme, questioning the potential negative effects of Barbie dolls in terms of gender stereotyping and the use of research to justify the programme,