What do future primary school teachers know about conscious consumption and how do they behave?

Abstract

Unconscious consumption of resources by individuals leads to many economic, social and environmental problems. Therefore, conscious consumerism and consumer education are criticallly important to develop knowledge and skills to make informed and rational choices taking social values and goals into account. Based on that, the research was conducted as a descriptive case study to assess pre-service primary school teachers’ awareness of 'conscious consumer'. The study was conducted with a cohort of 60 pre-service teachers enrolled as secondyear students in primary education programs. The results showed that the participants had insufficient knowledge about the conscious consumer. Their conceptualisations were primarily manifested through limited and superficial patterns of behaviour. Their practical behaviour related to conscious consumer in everyday life appeared to be limited. In addition, the definitions and behaviours articulated by the participants were largely consistent with the principles of rational consumption. Importantly, almost all the pre-service teachers did not demonstrate behaviours associated with ethical and socially responsible consumption in their daily lives, highlighting a lack of prioritisation of these dimensions.