A Critical Cultural Social Marketing Approach

Abstract

This final chapter of The Promotion of Education: A Critical Cultural Social Marketing Approach discusses how this approach can be ‘conceptualised’ and applied. The chapter discuss the idea of actively engaging with social marketing and adapting and explaining new work informed by a critical and cultural social marketing approach. The point is made that a template is not proposed—nor possible; but rather we are signalling how attention to a critical and cultural approach can be used to engage with concepts and methods from social marketing in education. The Lead My Learning campaign, described in this book, is an example of a critical cultural social marketing approach. The work described in this book might be a stimulus for creating other campaigns in education that can respond to the twofold needs of practices of critique and attention to the cultural. In this chapter the importance of critique and the cultural are revisited and an overview is provided of the key points of a critical cultural approach to social marketing. This includes discussion of practising critique, appreciating the social and cultural contexts and how these are brought together. We also reflect on the challenges of understanding and reporting what is achieved, the beauty of formative research, collaboration and critical feedback and the use of critical methodologies.