Teaching Economics in Primary School: The Concepts of Work and Profit

Abstract

Research on children's social cognition has dealt mainly with face to face relations; only a few studies have considered how children understand impersonal aspects of society such as economics. This study involves an investigation of teaching the concepts of work and profit to third-graders. Five instruction units were created and during a one-month period these were presented to five classes at different schools in Rome. A sample of 80 pupils was interviewed before and after teaching aimed at ascertaining their ideas on prices, profit and product distribution. Children's responses were scored on several scales, on which separate ANOVAs (class x sex x repeated measures or class x repeated measures) were carried out. The results show an overall improvement in children's knowledge, with differences that may be related not only to the complexity of the different concept but also to children's initial levels of competence.