McGregor, S.L.T. (2008). Ideological maps of consumer

The case is made for the merit of discovering and owning the ideological and paradigmatic underpinnings of consumer-related education initiatives. After briefly profiling two camps of dominant and contending/emergent world views (ideologies and attendant paradigms), two ideological maps of consumer education are developed and applied, providing a scaffold for future deliberations about the import of worldviews in consumer education. Consumer education is one of the three themes of the Journal (along with consumer policy and consumer sciences and their application). During the last decade, less than five percent (5%) of the 380 papers published in the Journal dealt with consumer education. Of the theories reflected in this 10 year collection, consumer education theory was one of the least mentioned areas (McGregor, 2007b). Despite an absence of consumer education-related scholarship in the Journal, consumer education is experiencing a resurgence in many parts of the world, especially in the European Union. McGregor (2005b) identifies many such initiatives and characterizes them as conventional in their approach. She provides evidence that government, industry and consumer educators tend to understand consumer education as a way to empower people to acces