Misinformation- Economics is commonly associated with financing and banking.Curriculum- Economics can be mired in an encyclopedic coverage of facts, concepts and graphs due to curriculum restraints (Schug & Wood, 2011) and tends to rely on textbooks and rote-learning through a prescriptive curriculum instead of student-centred learning such as gaming (Dobrescu, Greiner & Motta, 2015).Role models- Fewer female economic teachers and lecturers acting as role models economic commentators are male-dominated textbooks predominately use men and place them in leading, decisive roles.Mathematical skills underpin economic equations and calculations which marginalises some students (Schug & Wood, 2011) Mathability- Fewer girls are electing to study advanced and extension maths. A number of contributing factors have been cited in the literature to explain this trend: Fewer students, especially female, are choosing economics perceiving it as elitist, dry and difficult, even though “there are more female students than male students in the higher performance Bands” (NESA, 2017). Young people feel like economics is something that happens around them and economic events such as the GFC are inevitable and blameless. Generating economic literacy works with us to counteract this.Īprea (2015) contends that the misconceptions surrounding economics and the prevailing apathy towards understanding complex economic phenomena stem from disconnection in education. The Fourth Industrial Revolution has the potential to deliver a potent digital divide that will exacerbate the gender gap. We need to give our young women role models in the curriculum and a learning environment that embraces change through collaboration, that fosters peer-to-peer learning and self-efficacy through challenge and engagement. For them to do this, we need a future-ready curriculum in Economics that reimagines what and how we are teaching by incorporating an ethical or humanistic perspective for economic modelling and discussion. The Melbourne Declaration as a visionary document recognises this in acknowledging the need for young people to accommodate change, create change and implement change in their thinking and design.
As educators in the burgeoning knowledge economy, rethinking how talent is developed and deployed needs to happen now. As teachers we can bring that realisation to our students and develop authentic and purposeful assessment that provides a relevant and connected experience for all students, but especially to the most marginalised and all our girls - fearful and fearless! Click on the images for links Women in economics gravitate to people-centred areas such as health and education, and as students in pre-tertiary environments, they are looking for people-centred studies. Economic conversations happen daily in every household because economics is about how we behave as individuals, households, businesses and policy makers. McCloskey (article available here) speaks about humanomics.
and profits act as a magnet for innovation and progressĪpplying economic thinking to ethical and moral dilemmas focuses on what is missing in the curriculum: the human experience.transaction costs are barriers to trade.Structuring teaching and learning plans that help students understand the world using an economic way of thinking centre on some key ideas (Gwartney & Schug, 2011):
This is something we all need to invest in for young women and men. Ultimately that will lead to sustainable and cooperative systems, building social and moral capital. Teachers who develop an understanding of the simple but ultimately powerful concepts of knowledge in economics will expose their students to the core principles of real economic thinking. This is not truly an economic way of thinking. It relies on a rationalist perspective that privileges a formalised way of thinking (The Economist, 2017). The way that economics is taught is less palatable for young women than it is for men.
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