Chapter 13: Teaching and Learning Economics in the Schools: An Overview of the Origins and Evolution of Economic Education in the United States of America

—From a classroom recording at a local high school, Spring 2010, Zevin

Economic education can and should be broadly defined as encompassing a wide range of groups, objectives, and types of curricula. The range and variety of topics are extensive, encompassing financial literacy, classical economic theory, consumer economics, labor and management, entrepreneurship, business, and the history of economics as a subject, as well as other related areas. What distinguishes economic education from academic economics is its mission to bring economics as a subject into Pre-K to 12 school curricula throughout the country.

Economic ideas, theories, and practices have been reshaped and adapted to school settings across all grades, but typically tend to be most heavily represented at the secondary levels of middle, and most especially, senior high school. Economic educators are concerned about how to help children and youth understand and apply the often abstract and theoretical concepts and formulas of economics to daily life in and out of classrooms. Translation by economists and educators, working solo or in teams, is a hallmark of the economic education movement with a great deal of work expended on bringing financial literacy to youth, creating ‘mini-societies’ for kids that bring economic concepts into play, and providing graspable versions of micro-and macroeconomic courses to schools and workshops for teachers.