Primary Priorities and Economics Education

Abstract

The attitudes towards economic and industrial understanding of 58 primary student-teachers who had taken a business placement in their final year of training is explored through questionnaires, interviews and assignments. An analysis showed that economic and industrial understanding did not rank highly in their priorities for Primary pupils, confirming the findings of Ross, Ahier & Hutchings (1991). They were, however, interested in business links and industrial simulations as a context for their priorities in teaching of active learning, co-operation and other personal and social skills. Another of their priorities, linked particularly to environmental protection and conservation, was a sense of responsibility and social conscience. A way forward may be to provide teachers with a conceptual framework for economic concepts which is consonant with those priorities and to take advantage of the current interest in moral education and citizenship to re-focus economics education on using economic concepts as a tool to extend children's thinking on a wide variety of issues in those areas.