Economics for Middle School

Curriculum and Pedagogy

Manju Agarwal

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032466439
• eBook ISBN: 9781000597899
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Business General

This book discusses the importance of teaching fundamental economic concepts as part of the middle school social science curriculum in India. It examines the status of economics in Indian schools and the issues faced in teaching it at the middle school level and emphasizes the need for increasing the economic literacy of students. It offers valuable recommendations to curriculum planners and educators to help them bolster economics education in Indian schools. The author presents an extensive curriculum framework with the intention of developing intellectual and social skills in students. The book also features classroom-tested lessons, content guidelines, and a comprehensive teaching plan for grades 6, 7 and 8.

A crucial contribution to the study of school education in India, this book will be of interest to teachers, students and researchers of education, economics education and economics. It will also be useful for policy planners, professional economists, administrators, school boards and research institutions.

1 Economic Literacy for 11–14-Year-Old Children

DOI: 10.4324/9781003158332-1

• Economics as a Social Science
• Economics in the Indian School Curriculum
• Why Economics for the Middle School?
• What and How to Teach Economics?
• The Research Evidences

Drawing inputs from the first phase of my Ph.D., this chapter tries to build a case for economic literacy at the middle stage of school education. Emphasizing the missing links in the social science curriculum in India, it stresses the need for a concept-based framework in economics, to lay a strong foundation for higher-level studies of the discipline. In support of this, a review of a wide range of curriculum researches in elementary school economics is presented to throw light on how economic education has grown over the past 60 years.

The Underpinnings

Economics in the Social Science Curriculum: Status, Issues and Challenges – The Indian Scenario

In India, economics has never been directly in the formal education curriculum in the initial stages. Ever since the ncert worked on the National Curriculum Framework (ncf) for school education, it formed a part of environmental studies until grade 5, and the emphasis has been on stories and narratives concerning everyday life, work, leisure and culture in the past and present e.g. goods, clothes, houses, transport and so on. At this stage, the knowledge of various social sciences including economics is imparted in an integrated manner. At the upper elementary level, a composite course in social science was followed. Initially, for quite some time, the social science at this level comprised of history, civics and geography. Elements of economics could not be identified. To add to this, these courses were much rigidly demarcated with a thrust on pure discipline and less on social science dimensions. National Curriculum Framework (ncf) 2005, for the first time, tried to introduce to the learners the economic realities through some units where the focus is mostly on the local economy, economic lives of people and the contemporary society. The textbooks accordingly tried to have chapters explaining some fundamental issues directly, like production chains, the impact of media on the market, how people in different habitations earn their livelihood, the social, political and economic institutions, their functioning and so on. Also noticeable are the glimpses of the socio-economic diversity of the country and its impact on the life of the people. Economics has been clubbed with political science or geography at this level. One unit in each grade i.e. 6, 7 and 8, has been incorporated, and the focus is on economic problems and issues in contemporary India. The purpose, as said earlier, is to ensure that the learners are well equipped to understand the process of development, its needs and implications, as well as the system of governance at all levels – local, state and national, and the citizens’ role in it.

A very important point while working on understanding the curriculum is that, as per the guidelines given by Education Commission, we, in India, in our curriculum framework, have adopted the teaching of social science, not social studies (throughout the book, “we” and “I” have been used interchangeably; same is the case with words such as “our” and “us”). The task gets complicated because each component has a social dimension attached to it, and at the same time, inherently connected to its main discipline. On the one hand, there is problem grounding the learners in the fundamental concepts from the very beginning, so that the foundations of the discipline can be laid early, and on the other, helping them understand the social implications of the related problems. For example, while teaching poverty in India, whereas it is important to understand the criteria behind the poverty line, the proportion of poor to affluent, it is equally important to understand how such a large chunk of the population of a country is forced to live in a state of abject poverty. All this is despite innumerable schemes of the government. How varied is the platform of vulnerability? Why can’t the desperate and the vulnerable groups be helped in our country? Can’t this human resource in the society be occupied (employed) in such a way that on the one hand, it helps them improve their own lives and on the other, creates social harmony? What should be done to ensure that consumerism and utilitarianism give way to egalitarianism? Maybe through a just and fair distribution of goods and services in the society. To enable the learners to understand this concept, the thrust of the context changes from knowledge of facts and concepts of poverty and population to critical thinking about the deeper and more serious issues confronting us. An egalitarian society demands changes in the attitude toward the poor and vulnerable. Although the new framework and textbooks have tried to reflect on this paradigm shift, the teachers need to be competent enough to understand both sides of their subject. The problem arises due to the fact that teaching of social sciences is integrated until grade 10. The university degrees do not produce social science graduates, and the history graduates teaching non-history components, e.g. economics, are not competent to do justice to the other subject areas. The vision of economics gets submerged.

There is yet another problem. ncf 2005 accepted that economics, despite being a very influential social science, has received little attention in the middle school curriculum in India. The teaching of economics in our schools starts very late. Most economics teachers have confessed the fact that only a few topics related to economics are a part of the social science syllabus at the upper elementary stage, with a very insignificant weightage. These topics are neither in tune with the discipline nor do they help in teaching the economics components at the secondary and the senior secondary stages. It was very upsetting that until recently at the secondary stage, the weightage to economics used to be very little. This always led to a very non-serious attitude toward the subject, which in turn weakened the basic foundations. We need curriculum research to provide backing to bring the subject down the line in a more focused manner.

A couple of other reasons are there to understand why economics for the middle school needs to be introduced. The middle grade classrooms offer a favorable environment for experimentation. Children are curious about the world around them. In contrast to adults’ attitudes toward theory, children seek ideas that help them to make order out of a seemingly disorderly world. It is much simpler to present those basic concepts of the discipline which are a part of their day-to-day life. Though many social scientists have had reservations concerning the readiness of children to understand the social process, some economists think that economics should not even be taught in schools. They still think that only college students are capable of understanding economic theory. Many of them complain that undergraduate students are not capable of comprehending economic theory. This myth has long been shaken by the extensive research done on elementary school economic education all over the world. It has been established that

if our citizens of tomorrow are to achieve the desired minimum economic understanding, most of them must get it in the schools. It is no good to say that they can wait until college, for less than half of them go on to the college, and most of them do not study economics when they get there. Thus most of our youth must rely on the education they get till high schools for the economics they are to learn.

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Unfortunately, despite the trend in recent years toward the inclusion of more economics for the younger children, the existing situation is far from satisfactory. The concept building exercises in the early grades are not adequate, the textbook and the other teaching materials are all too often inadequate. Most teachers in social science have insufficient preparation in economics to teach the subject effectively. Very little attention is given to helping students learn to think for themselves about the big economic problems our nation faces today. Fewer economic concepts are taught and very little fundamental economic understanding is developed. Independent analytical thinking is neglected in the textbooks. The flavor of these books is descriptive with teachers placing primary stress on those areas where their own training is strongest. On economic issues, it appears that teachers often insert their own value judgments or skip them by following the minimum guidelines necessary to attempt the examination questions. Concept learning, crucial for understanding the fundamentals of economic theory, gets submerged or is never touched at. A carefully designed plan to teach a progression of economic concepts in various elementary grades has not existed.

Case for Economic Literacy and Need for a Curriculum Framework for the Middle School Stage in India

Realizing the urgent need for an economic literacy program with a theoretical base, a curriculum is planned for the middle school stage. The legacy of this work goes back to the research done by me as a part of my Ph.D. titled Development of a Course Framework in Economics as a Part of Social Science Curriculum for Upper Primary Stage. It aimed at developing a curriculum package to impart knowledge and understanding of the basic economic concepts that could be a part of the existing social science curriculum. Several parts of this work have been reworked as the context and the syllabus contents changed after the completion of this research; though the major areas researched remain equally relevant to date.

The study was conducted in three stages. The first stage focused on rationalizing the need for economic literacy and identifying the basic concepts and themes which could be included in the existing social science syllabus at the upper elementary stage through an in-depth analysis of the elementary-level curriculum to prepare a case for upper elementary school ec...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Endorsement Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Economic Literacy for 11–14-Year-Old Children
• 2 The Curriculum in Economics for the Middle School
• 3 Curriculum and Pedagogy Classroom Applications
• 4 Recommendations
• Index