Fairtrade in Schools: teaching ethics or unlawful marketing to the defenceless?

Abstract

Schools in the UK teach pupils about Fairtrade as part of Religious Education, Personal and Social Education, Citizenship, Geography and so on. There are also Fairtrade Schools, where the whole school, including staff and parents, is committed to promoting the brand. It is argued here that promoting this commercial brand to schoolchildren and using the schoolchildren to press adults to buy a product amounts to indoctrination using criteria of intent, methods of teaching and the subject matter. This conflicts with educational goals. It is also shown to be akin to the criminal offence of Unfair Trading: the methods used in teaching used would be unacceptable in normal commercial marketing. A completely separate criticism, based on a wide range of research evidence, is that the schools mislead by giving false information and by suppression of relevant information, again akin to the criminal offence of Unfair Trading. The question of who has the responsibility for preventing such actions is considered.

Keywords::

• Fairtrade
• fair trade
• ethics
• education
• values
• Unfair Trading

Acknowledgements

I have received no financial support for this research.

Notes

^1. It is the criminal offence of ‘Unfair Trading’ when the misrepresentation or withholding of information ‘causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise’. Similarly, in the Fraud Act, ‘Fraud by false representation’ is where someone ‘(a) dishonestly makes a false representation, and (b) intends, by making the representation— (i) to make a gain for himself or another, or (ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss’ (Great Britain 2006). Again, in the Theft Act, ‘(2) It is immaterial whether the appropriation is made with a view to gain, or is made for the thief's own benefit’ (Great Britain 1968).

^2. The pressures exist. Because of my criticisms of Fairtrade, I have been subjected to accusations that I support a right wing, neoliberal, free market extremist approach, though my book provides some of its sharpest criticisms (Griffiths 2003)