AISC 2024

The global COVID-19 pandemic and following financial turbulence and energy crisis prompted an increased focus on the urgent need for financial literacy education in national curricula. The OECD spearheaded the trend by promoting guidelines following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and introducing PISA Financial Literacy Assessments for 15-year-old students. This presentation offers critical insights into why financial literacy is essential, whose interests it serves and how financial literacy curricula are constructed. Critical pedagogy lens helps examine definitions, purposes (both social and political), policy responses and teacher support for delivering financial literacy education in K-12 schools. The presentation reveals problematic aspects of teaching financial literacy including inadequate teaching resources and teachers' PD, lack of student agency, and the consumerist and conflicted outsourcing of financial literacy curricula and creation of teaching resources to for-profit financial organisations. The Ontario Financial Literacy Scope and Sequence of Expectations is an excellent example of a sophisticated, world-class, integrated curriculum. However, dominant neoliberal policies and marketisation of education influence heavily the implementation of such curricula. Educators suggest more investment and alignment among key stakeholders is necessary in co-creating and embedding financial literacy into K-12 curricula.

Key words: financial literacy, critical pedagogy, consumerism, hidden curriculum, teachers’ professional development

Expected Outcomes:
Participants of this presentation can expect to become familiar and empowered to discuss and evaluate the urgent need to incorporate financial literacy into K-12 curricula, but also become more critical while reflecting on the inherent conflict of interest embedded in the subject of financial literacy. Considering which financial institutions and organisations currently promote and create teaching materials and who benefits from financial literacy at schools challenges current status quo which uncritically assumes that financial literacy is important without considering whom it supposes to serve and to which ends. Teachers of all subjects can foster internal dialogues to embed financial literacy cross-curriculum in schools and consider the role of financial literacy to prepare the next generation to manage own financial wellbeing and financial inclusion in the era of AI, digital finance and disappearing money replaced by digital fiat currencies.

Teachers can also expect to learn more about critical pedagogy as an educational philosophy in promoting social justice and critically examining power and political structures in education systems. The works of Arendt, Bjorklund, Freire and Henderson empower today’s teachers to address learning gaps through the lens of citizenship education and empower students to ask “big why” questions.