A Study of the Basic Economic Concepts Presented in DEEP Curriculum Guides

In recent years, economic education has become a requirement or an elective for most students in American junior and senior high schools.' The growing awareness of the importance of economics in the education of the young is due, in part, to the efforts of the Joint Council on Economic Education, which published in 1977, A Framework for Teaching Economics: Basic Concepts. This volume puts forward a conceptual structure for the discipline of economics and attempts to relate this to the decision-making processes of our society. The present study reports on the actual sequencing and conceptual content of what is included in various courses offered under the rubric "economic education," as reflected by a sampling of schools in the Developmental Economic Education Program (DEEP). In this connection, it is of interest to note that a widely publicized report titled a National Survey of Economic Education, 1981, observed that "theoretical economics-the concepts of supply and demand or the workings of international trade, for example-has a place in most teachers' classes, but the emphasis is shaded toward practical economics" (Yankelovich, p. 23). For the sample of schools represented in the present study, is this view correct? Of more general interest to economists is the extent to which the more theoretical concepts presented in the Framework are included in the economics courses for students in grades 7-12-and the specific grade levels at which this is attempted. Much of the curriculum building associated with the social studies and economic education during the last 20 years has been guided by the spiraling conceptual approach and its underlying assumption that students could learn any conceptual idea provided its presentation was made in some "appropriate" manner. Generally this suggests curriculum building wherein one set of concepts is introduced repeatedly through the grade levels, with Beverly J. Armento is associate professor of Social Science Education at Georgia State University. The study was sponsored by the Joint Council on Economic Education. A copy of the full report may be obtained from the author.