DECEMBER 2005JOURNAL OF MACROMARKETING Critical Consumer Education: Empowering the Low-Literate Consumer

Consumer education programs assume that consumers have the right to full product information, and well-informed con-sumers will be able to get their needs met in the marketplace. Adults with limited literacy abilities, however, enter the mar-ketplace without the literacy resources of other consumers and are potentially more vulnerable. Many adult literacy pro-grams assume adult literacy students lack both literacy and consumer skills. The results from an interpretative study sug-gest adult literacy learners combine a range of social skills and resources and an ability to manage the shame of the low-literacy stigma to get their needs met in the marketplace. Four consumer literacy profiles are discussed, and an alternative form of consumer education tailored to each profile is pro-posed. We discuss the role of a more critical consumer edu-cational approach in literacy assistance programs and its impact on adult learners ’ feelings of self-esteem, empower-ment, and agency