This article focuses on the intersection of three areas of Peter Jarvis's work that have profoundly influenced the field of adult education generally and the authors own research trajectories, in particular: (a) learning from everyday life and in social context, (b) incidental and tacit learning in consumer societies in a globalised world (i.e.…

In this paper, the authors explore what citizenship means in an age that is largely defined by consumption and when education--both within and outside of schools--has become increasingly commodified and commercialized. They raise questions regarding how citizens, publics, and axiological dispositions are formed and deformed by the parasitic…

In this article I call for adult educators to begin taking consumption seriously as a site of adult learning and education. I provide an overview of various sociological perspectives on consumption, and also discuss several areas where education, learning, and consumption intersect. In doing so, I seek to convince adult educators to more…

We focus on the recently emerging "baby culture" that is fostering a curriculum of consumption and consumerism among parents-to-be and infants aged zero-to-three. To gain insight into how the cultural artifacts, practices, and trends emerging from this demographic are shaping the way we think and act in a consumer culture, we investigate…

Little empirical evidence exists on how adult literacy learners act as consumers. Yet, adult literacy programs often employ a "functional" approach to consumer education and assume that adult learners are deficient in consumer skills. Data from a qualitative study of the consumer behaviors of adult literacy learners are used to explore how adult…