Inviting students to independent judgement: Teaching financial literacy as citizenship education

Abstract

Many financial literacy educational efforts mainly focus on teaching money management. However, money management alone does not address financial prerequisites concerning home ownership, savings or retirement planning since these issues are governed by agents outside households, namely the financial system and policy makers. This study examines students’ response to a financial literacy teaching that treats financial issues as controversial and contextually bounded to the financial and societal systems. Data consists of 36 students’ conversations during a financial literacy teaching intervention. Results show that students are capable of grasping and relating to financial concepts where association to the financial system and policy-making produce elaborate understanding. Furthermore, students that contest given financial concepts and system do not only present constructive alternate solutions for the future, but these students also seem to grasp current financial and societal systems in more advanced ways and thereby demonstrate a possible convergence between financial literacy and citizenship education.