Pre‐schoolers,parents and supermarkets: co‐shopping as a social practice

The objective of this paper was to examine the co‐shopping practices of children and parents in supermarkets, i.e. the practical enactment of grocery shopping. Our special focus is on how informal consumer training occurs during parent–child interaction. We use observational data collected in spring 2008 in different Estonian supermarkets, post‐shopping interviews with parents and focus group interviews with their children. Our analysis is informed by practice theory, which helps to look in detail at how the activities in a particular situation are coordinated by understandings and procedures, and are guided by the engagement in a particular shopping trip. Co‐shopping interactions mostly revolve around particular material objects, although not exclusively. Product choice is a deeply contested area, where both parents and children face numerous pressures in this situation of two‐way socialization. There are implications for consumer education more broadly. To accomplish lasting and meaningful effects on the everyday lives of families, there has to be a wider range of actors – supermarkets, producers, governmental bodies, schools and families – who care about both formal and informal consumer education.