This article explores how consumerism is impacting education, with a special focus on the ‘student as consumer’ model. I begin by exploring the distinctive features of consumerism and school commercialism. The tension between consumer and citizen leads into a discussion of the distinction between education as/for a public good versus as/for private gain, leading to a discussion of the notion of ‘Me, Inc.’ as an instrumental and privatized conception of education as self‐branding that redirects peoples’ attention from environmental issues to personal gain and consumption. Explanation of this phenomenon is provided through a discussion of economistic approaches to education, such as the creation of human capital and the commodification of knowledge, which minimizes the importance of environmental sustainability education (ESE). The political challenges that consumerism presents in confronting ESE are such that attention is directed away from the urgency of political change and civic engagement and instead towards consumer satisfaction. I explore how the promotion of critical thinking is compromised as a result. I conclude by suggesting that consumerism undermines how education involves risk in the sense that we don't always know what we're getting into or how we will be impacted, as consumerism promotes the assumption that education should be easy and palatable and not involve suffering or adversity.

中文翻译：

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学生正在成为消费主义学习者吗？

本文探讨了消费主义如何影响教育，特别关注“学生即消费者”模式。我首先探讨消费主义和学校商业主义的独特特征。消费者与公民之间的紧张关系导致人们对教育作为一种公共利益与作为一种私人利益的区别进行了讨论，从而引发了对“我公司”概念的讨论。作为一种工具化和私有化的教育概念，将其作为自有品牌，将人们的注意力从环境问题转移到个人收益和消费上。通过讨论经济学的教育方法，例如人力资本的建立和知识的商品化，来解释这种现象，这使环境可持续性教育（ESE）的重要性降至最低。消费主义在面对ESE时所面临的政治挑战是，注意力从政治变革和公民参与的紧迫性转移到消费者满意度。我探讨了批判性思维的提升如何因此而受到损害。最后，我建议消费主义从某种意义上讲破坏了教育如何涉及风险，因为我们并不总是知道自己将要进入什么或受到怎样的影响，因为消费主义提倡这样一种假设，即教育应该是容易和可口的，而不涉及苦难。或逆境。