Approaches to The Humanities − Economics
When designing their learning program, schools can offer Economics as a separate subject or they can address the Economics standards using an integrated approach. An integrated approach could involve combinations of other discipline-based domains as well as the Interdisciplinary Learning and Physical, Personal and Social Learning domains. A few examples are outlined below.
Ecological sustainability
The economy could be seen as a ‘wholly owned subsidiary’ of the environment. A unit on ecological sustainability could integrate aspects of Economics and Science. Any study about ecological sustainability requires knowledge about economics and economic decision making for students to appreciate how decisions – including consumer behaviour and resource use – related to ecological sustainability occur.
Promotion of wellbeing
A unit on the promotion of wellbeing could integrate aspects of Economics and the Health and Physical Education domain. There is growing concern that even as we access higher levels of income, many of us are feeling worse off. This unit would be about exploring the tension between the pursuit of higher levels of economic growth and income, and the impact this has on quality of life. Themes could include the work–life balance; the role and importance of health and emotional wellbeing, and the importance of consumer and financial literacy for success at school, at work and in life.
‘Earn and Learn’
In a unit based on the Earn and Learn program, primary students could set up a ‘mini-society’ in the classroom which explores commerce, banking, earning and income, budgeting and so on (see Rob Vingerhoets, Earn and Learn , Dellasta Publishing, Melbourne). The mini-society concept is about modelling a community, with students taking on roles such as shopkeepers and stall-holders who ‘supply’ goods and services other students may wish to buy (demand). They need to consider a basic business plan where they must record costs, sales, wages, profits and so on – employing knowledge, skills and behaviours related to the Economics, Mathematics, and Civics and Citizenship domains.
Inquiry
An inquiry as part of a class project for Economics, for instance, can be assessed not only within the Economic knowledge and understanding and Economic reasoning and interpretation dimensions, but also in terms of the knowledge and skills in other, interdisciplinary, domains – Design, Creativity and Technology, ICT (depending on the nature of the research undertaken and presentation mode/s) and Thinking Processes – and those related to personal and social learning – as in Personal Learning, Interpersonal Development, and Civics and Citizenship.
Inquiry across the stages of learning
Some examples of the sort of economics inquiry that could be investigated across the stages of learning are outlined below:
- A school family needs to know how much it costs to buy and keep a pet so that they can build the cost into their family budget. They ask Year 5 students to compare the costs of owning a cat or a dog and prepare a report which recommends which pet to buy and how much it would cost to keep it for one year.
- Parents of a Year 7 student wish to purchase a mobile phone for their daughter’s birthday. They commission Year 7 students to investigate the sorts of mobile phones and plans available, and make a recommendation about which phone to purchase.
- Students in Year 9 watch a documentary about the labour conditions in some ‘sweat shops’ that produce clothing for the Australian market. They are interested in undertaking an investigation about the global fashion industry to explore ways of purchasing clothing that has been produced fairly and ethically rather than from workplaces which may exploit workers and/or provide unsafe working environments.
Economic literacy
It is important to note that the Economics standards are not tasks; rather, they identify what a student should know and be able to do. Students can demonstrate these standards in many different ways.
For example, one way to develop students’ economic literacy at school might be by encouraging them to use economic knowledge and understanding and economic reasoning and interpretation to meet the demands of other curriculum areas. As literacy has become every teacher’s responsibility, a multi-literacy approach may focus on communication, ICT and economic literacy.
The essence of Economics
The essence of Economics can be understood using the metaphor of ‘playing a game’, where there is a playing field and a variety of players, teams, goals, scores, rules and boundaries, coaches, umpires, commentators, and so on.
There are a number of players in the Economics game – consumers, producers, workers, governments, other economies and so on – who may form teams such as the household team (made up of a number of consumers); employer associations (such as the Business Council of Australia representing the interests of large employers/producers); trade unions (made up of teams of workers); the government (public) team consisting of commonwealth, state and local representatives; the rest of the world; and so on.
All players and teams are in the game to score goals: for example, consumers want to maximise satisfaction by consuming as many goods and services as possible; producers want to maximise profits and minimise costs; workers want to maximise their income and working conditions; the Commonwealth Government aims for price stability, full employment and strong economic growth among other things. Others, such as The Wilderness Society, play for environmental objectives.
The game is played out in various markets (playing field), and the goals scored influence resource allocation and economic outcomes. The scores of the game are recorded on various scoreboards, such as tables, which include statistics showing, for example, average weekly earnings, levels of profits, rates of economic growth, and so on. These scoreboards can be compared with scoreboards in other economies to evaluate economic progress.
Coaches in the game, for example, Keynes, Marx and Smith, instruct players according to the economic theories they adopt. The game also has commentators who report in the print and electronic media, some of whom make their living commenting on the economic game. The rules and boundaries of the game are set by, for example, governments (laws and regulations) and businesses (codes of conduct). There are umpires such as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and government agencies who monitor the play and apply the rules and regulations.
The ‘game’ metaphor helps students access the essentials of the domain and fires their imagination. It also assists with developing understandings about economic reasoning and interpretation, in particular, how to conduct economic inquiries and investigations.
Economic inquiries and investigations
- Generate a ‘need to know’ in students by using ‘game’ vocabulary when discussing possible topics for investigation, or when negotiating topics, or posing focus questions, or linking possible topics to current media debates.
- Explore student perceptions through questioning to establish prior knowledge, discussing personal/group values, attitudes and perceptions related to the topic, and examining views in the media.
- Generally describe the point of the issue/problem by identifying the main players involved. Discuss the motives, values, the relative power of these players, their reasons for being involved, and their goals in relation to the issue or problem. Describe the strategies used by the players and discuss how the players tried to exert influence on the issue or problem.
- Frame questions for investigation. This might involve writing the topic as a hypothesis (statement, question, ‘if...then’ proposition), or students could be directed to use a problem-solving approach (see below).
- Students gather data relevant to the hypothesis and note the sources. This could include primary sources such as statistics and surveys, or secondary sources such as texts, newspaper articles and websites.
- Students establish appropriate evidence, and sources of it, to test the validity of the hypothesis and apply these.
- Students select appropriate (reliable) evidence from the collected data to test – validate or not – the hypothesis.
- Students confirm or reject the hypothesis and/or recommend further investigation.
A problem-solving approach may follow these steps:
- Identify the problem or issue by defining it, list the parties (players) involved/affected and identify sources of reliable data or evidence about the problem or issue.
- Identify the causes of the problem or issue and effects of the problem or issue in terms of costs/benefits or positives/negatives. Are there various concepts and theories which may be applied to help us understand the situation?
- Identify alternative possible solutions to the problem or issue by listing possible solutions, examining likely consequences of each solution in terms of costs and benefits and providing evidence to support or argue against each proposed solution.
- Identify the best solution in terms of costs, benefits or economic goals – for the individual players or teams and/or for society – in terms of economic objectives such as efficiency, growth, equity, sustainability.
Cost-benefit analysis
Economics is about the way society organises the use of its limited resources to satisfy as many needs and wants as possible. Economists analyse issues and problems associated with the allocation of scarce resources by using cost–benefit analysis. Scarcity necessitates trade-offs, and trade-offs result in what is called an ‘opportunity cost’. Opportunity cost can be defined as the next best use to which limited productive resources might have been put. The opportunity cost of a decision – given a choice between two or more options – is based on what has to be given up (that is, the next best alternative) as a result of that decision. Opportunity cost is expressed in relative price, that is, the price of one choice as against the price of another. It often provides better insight into the real cost of a good than the monetary price does (accounting costs do not consider forgone opportunities).
Australia’s limited productive resources consist of land resources (both the land space and raw materials), labour resources (knowledge and skills), capital (human-made equipment and tools to assist in the production process) and enterprise (entrepreneurship and innovation). When a decision needs to be made by a producer about how to use resources most efficiently to produce particular goods or services, the decision needs to reflect minimal opportunity cost. For example, a farmer with access to a new paddock (increased land resource), considers what to produce there – cattle or wheat. After ‘valuing’ each option, the farmer decides to grow wheat – suggesting that the best return will be from wheat and the opportunity cost, the next best alternative (valued less), is grazing cattle. This analysis can be applied whenever decisions need to be made about resources.
