Distinguished international scholars from a wide range of disciplines explore consumption and its relation to learning, identity development, and education. This volume is unique within the literature of education in its examination of educational sites – both formal and informal – where learners and teachers are resisting consumerism and enacting a critical pedagogy of consumption.
For nearly 200 years the organisational form of the school has changed little. Bureaucracy has been its enduring form. The school has prepared the worker for the factory of mass production. It has created the 'mass consumer' to be content with accepting what is on offer, not what is wanted. However, a ‘revised’ educational code appears to be emerging. This code centres upon the concept of ‘personalisation’, which operates at two levels: first, as a new mode of public service delivery; and second, as a new ‘grammar’ for the school, with new flexibilities of structure and pedagogical process. Personalisation has its intellectual roots in marketing theory, not in educational theory and is the facilitator of 'education for consumption'. It allows for the 'market' to suffuse even more the fabric of education, albeit under the democratic-sounding call of freedom of choice. Education and the Culture of Consumption raises many questions about personalisation which policy-makers seem prone to avoid: Why, now, are we concerned about personalisation? What are its theoretical foundations? What are its pedagogical, curricular and organisational consequences? What are the consequences for social justification of personalisation? Does personalisation diminish the socialising function of the school, or does it simply mean that the only thing we share is that we have the right to personalised service? All this leads the author to consider an important question for education: does personalisation mark a new regulatory code for education, one which corresponds with both the new work-order of production and with the makeover-prone tendencies of consumers? The book will be of great interest to postgraduate students and academics studying in the fields of education policy and the social foundations of education, and will also be relevant to students studying public policy, especially health care and social care, and public management.
This book is a comprehensive guide on how to teach sustainable consumption in higher education. Teaching and Learning Sustainable Consumption: A Guidebook systematizes the themes, objectives, and theories that characterize sustainable consumption as an educational field. The first part of the book discusses approaches to teaching and learning sustainable consumption in higher education, including reflections on how learning occurs, to more practical considerations like how to set objectives or assess learning outcomes. The second part of the book is a dive into inspiring examples of what this looks like in a range of contexts and towards different aims – involving 57 diverse contributions by teachers and practitioners. Building on the momentum of a steady increase in courses addressing sustainable consumption over the past decade, this guidebook supports innovative approaches to teaching and learning, while also bringing to the fore conceptual debates around higher education and sustainability. Overall, this book will be a seminal resource for educators teaching about sustainability and consumption. It will help them to navigate the specifics of sustainable consumption as a field of scholarship, and design their teaching approaches in a more informed, competent, and creative way.
The Oxford Handbook of Consumption consolidates the most innovative recent work conducted by social scientists in the field of consumption studies and identifies some of the most fruitful lines of inquiry for future research. It begins by embedding marketing in its global history, enmeshed in various political, economic, and social sites. From this embedded perspective, the book branches out to examine the rise of consumer culture theory among consumer researchers and parallel innovative developments in sociology and anthropology, with scholarship analyzing the roles that identity, social networks, organizational dynamics, institutions, market devices, materiality, and cultural meanings play across a wide variety of applications, including, but not limited to, brands and branding, the sharing economy, tastes and preferences, credit and credit scoring, consumer surveillance, race and ethnicity, status, family life, well-being, environmental sustainability, social movements, and social inequality. The volume is unique in the attention it gives to consumer research on inequality and the focus it has on consumer credit scores and consumer behaviors that shape life chances. The volume includes essays by many of the key researchers in the field, some of whom have only recently, if at all, crossed the disciplinary lines that this volume has enabled. The contributors have tried to address several key questions: What motivates consumption and what does it mean to be a consumer? What social, technical, and cultural systems integrate and give character to contemporary consumption? What actors, institutions, and understandings organize and govern consumption? And what are the social uses and effects of consumption?
"Utopian in theme and implication, this book shows how the practices of critical, interpretive inquiry can help change the world in positive ways.... This is the promise, the hope, and the agenda that is offered."--Norman K. Denzin, From the Foreword "Its focus on learning, education and pedagogy gives this book a particular relevance and significance in contemporary cultural studies. Its impressive authors, thoughtful structuring, wide range of perspectives, attention to matters of educational policy and practice, and suggestions for transformative pedagogy all provide for a compelling and significant volume."--H. Svi Shapiro, University of North Carolina–Greensboro Distinguished international scholars from a wide range of disciplines (including curriculum studies, foundations of education, adult education, higher education, and consumer education) come together in this book to explore consumption and its relation to learning, identity development, and education. Readers will learn about a variety of ways in which learning and education intersect with consumption. This volume is unique within the literature of education in its examination of educational sites – both formal and informal – where learners and teachers are resisting consumerism and enacting a critical pedagogy of consumption.
With entries detailing key concepts, persons, and approaches, The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies provides definitive coverage of a field that has grown dramatically in scope and popularity around the world over the last two decades. Includes over 200 A-Z entries varying in length from 500 to 5,000 words, with a list of suggested readings for each entry and cross-references, as well as a lexicon by category, and a timeline Brings together the latest research and theories in the field from international contributors across a range of disciplines, from sociology, cultural studies, and advertising to anthropology, business, and consumer behavior Available online with interactive cross-referencing links and powerful searching capabilities within the work and across Wiley’s comprehensive online reference collection or as a single volume in print www.consumptionandconsumerstudies.com
Economic research paper based on a doctoral thesis on the effect of educational level on consumer behaviour and consumer expenditure patterns - comprises a theoretical model showing variations in consumption efficiency and commodity selection, with particular relevance to the USA. References.
