In this article, we examine John Updike's short story "A&P" and its depiction of the grocery store as a curricular space re/presenting consumption and resistance to it. We position Updike's fictional A&P as a space where the "big curriculum" (Schubert, 2006a) of consumption is enacted in everyday life and explore both how the curriculum of…

The term "public pedagogy" first appeared in 1894 and has been widely deployed as a theoretical construct in education research to focus on processes and sites of education beyond formal schooling, with a proliferation of its use by feminist and critical theorists occurring since the mid-1990s. This integrative literature review provides the first…

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…

Background and Context: The context for this study is the American legislative landscape covering the past 35 years, which witnessed a shift in political philosophies concerning the role of government in ensuring the social welfare of its citizens--from a focus on a "safety net" to a focus on "individual responsibility." We frame these contrasting…

Content analysis of five consumer education workbooks used in adult literacy classes examined depictions of the market and literacy learners as consumers. A hidden curriculum that promotes ideologies disrespectful of learners was discerned. The ideologies maintain inequalities by blaming financial failure on consumers, ignoring the larger social,…

Interviews and observations in literacy programs for welfare recipients indicated that, when learners tried to discuss problematic issues, teachers deflected discussion, upholding official discourses and ideological beliefs about learners and program purposes. The curriculum-in-use supported dominant discourses about meritocracy and racist and…

A study analyzed the ideological messages about welfare recipients promoted in two welfare-to-work educational programs. Data were collected through interviews with students, teachers, and administrators at an adult literacy classroom serving unemployed women on welfare and an employment preparation program designed to increase job skills of women…