Vulnerability in the Marketplace: Concepts, Caveats, and Possible Solutions

Vulnerable consumers fail to understand their preferences and/or lack the knowledge, skills, or freedom to act on them. To protect them, some want to censor information, restrict choices, and mandate behaviors. One-fifth of the American public is functionally illiterate, K-12 performance is declinin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of macromarketing Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 202 - 214
Main Author Ringold, Debra Jones
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Thousand Oaks, CA SAGE Publications 01.12.2005
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Adult education
Adult literacy
Consumer education
Consumers
Education reform
Marketing
Public policy
Schools
Studies
United States > US
education reform
school choice
consumer vulnerability
adult basic education
public policy and marketing
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Summary:Vulnerable consumers fail to understand their preferences and/or lack the knowledge, skills, or freedom to act on them. To protect them, some want to censor information, restrict choices, and mandate behaviors. One-fifth of the American public is functionally illiterate, K-12 performance is declining, and yet a substantial majority of American consumers (adolescents included) appear to be marketplace literate. Rather than curtail consumer prerogatives to protect a vulnerable minority, education reform focused on the values, knowledge, and skills necessary to create and navigate responsive markets is proposed. Reformed adult and K-12 education can refine, expand, and accelerate learners’ informal and experiential understanding of marketplace fundamentals. The aim is to significantly replace trial and error with a robust understanding of markets, markets habitually governed by social virtues. Evidence suggests that these aims can be better achieved via K-12 choice and should be the focus of adult basic education reform.
ISSN:0276-1467
1552-6534
DOI:10.1177/0276146705281094