Politicizing the Discourse of Consumerism: Reflections on The Story of Stuff

Abstract

What might a critical pedagogy of consumption mean for design and technology education? In response to fervent calls for politicized forms of consumer, environmental, and science education, I submit that we also need to politicize design and technology education by providing learning experiences that encourage young people to critically analyze and question ecologically unsound processes of a market economy and, in particular, the relationship between technology and consumerism. In this chapter, I consider what a critical approach might offer to teaching for a critical literacy of the built world. First, a small section of the Ontario Elementary School curriculum is analyzed to identify how children consumers are discursively positioned and in whose interests these constructions work. Drawing on key ideas put forth by a number of critical scholars, I next consider the merits of using Annie Leonard's video, The Story of Stuff, as a resource for learning about technological design processes-including the motives underpinning increasingly short product life spans and externalized production costs. Presented as a quasi-case study, I suggest the video serves more importantly as a model for critiquing that aims to help young people prepare for and take responsible action on issues relating to their social and ecological well-being. The chapter concludes by proposing that the politicizing of discursive and technological practices in education-while challenging-will be necessary to foster critically literate, empathic, and confident problem-solvers and designers for social good.