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…

This paper assumes that contemporary Western society is a consumer society and argues that the need of global capitalism to sell its commodities in the market place is the fundamental force behind consumerism. A model of globalisation is discussed. In it, we see how the control of information technology means that producers have the power to…

In this paper, we argue against the over-simplistic accusation that the media "dumb down" the study of history. Instead, we critically examine the contemporary presentation of history on British television within a framework of analysis of commodification and consumption. We argue that central to the debate is the idea that whilst…

In investigating the place of consumption in education it is necessary to question both critical theory's language of manipulation and neo-liberalism's language of rational action as ways of explaining the significance of consumption in people's lives and where it has assumed a central status in the contemporary social order. This paper argues…