Guest pen | The financial thinking of young people must be deepened and diversified

in Finland there has been a lot of discussion about school problems lately. Attention has been paid, among other things, to the differentiation of students’ skills. It has been estimated that the gap between students with excellent results and students with poor learning results has grown.

In the 2018 Pisa survey, the financial competence of Finnish 15-year-olds was very good internationally, but the competence varied between students more than in other countries. The student’s family background also had a stronger connection with competence in Finland than on average in OECD countries.

In Nordic studies, it has been found that young people whose social interest and skills are poorly supported at home benefit from social education at school. One can ask how a Finnish school would promote equal opportunities for young people better than at present, for example in financial skills.

In public in the discussion, it is often emphasized that school financial education should be practical guidance on managing one’s own finances. The financial skills of young people are suspected to be weak, and there are especially warnings about the over-indebtedness of young people. Another standard topic of discussion is entrepreneurship education, but its goals arouse contradictions; is it coaching for entrepreneurship or supporting an enterprising life attitude?

Of course, it is good that, especially in elementary school financial education, the aim is to be practical. However, the teaching must also be theoretically ambitious enough, because a deeper understanding of economic phenomena requires concepts. All young people have the right to use sharp financial thinking tools. Vocational education students in particular are in a weak position here, as social education is scarce in vocational education.

“

Textbooks emphasize neoclassical views.

in Germany there is a lot of talk these days about economic and social education. In it, the economy is seen as part of society and economic education as part of democratic education. Finnish youth easily perceive the economy as a natural force outside society. Economic speech reflecting this kind of thinking is common in Finland anyway: economic decisions are presented as necessary and without alternatives.

From the point of view of democratic education, it is problematic if financial decisions only look like necessities or value-free management. The state of participating citizenship is limited to almost non-existent in this kind of thinking.

Everyone’s the civic capacity of young people to think about economic matters would probably be supported by the fact that the diversity of interpretations about the economy would be brought to the fore in school economic education. In textbooks, as well as in public debate, the views of neoclassical economics are emphasized. It is a significant school of economics, but it is visibly challenged in international economic education research, and other trends in economics and schools of economic thought are also brought alongside it. The views partly differ from each other, so the teaching could reflect on what kind of alternatives there are in the interpretations concerning the economy, how economic decisions promote the interests of different population groups and what political choices are made in them.

The treatment of the diversity of economic thinking in teaching brings the economy into the scope of social discussion and value discussion. It would support the economic knowledge of young people more widely than at present, because young people would have to think about the questions of economic democracy, economic policy decision-making and economic ethics as citizens as well. Thinking about citizens’ own agency and alternative futures is valuable in a situation where faith in the citizen’s potential for influence is put to the test as different crises follow one another.

Löfström is a professor of historical and social education at the University of Turku and van den Berg is a docent of historical and social science education at the University of Helsinki.

Guest pens are speeches by experts that have been selected by the editorial board of HS to be published. The opinions expressed in guest pens are the authors’ own views, not HS’s positions. Writing instructions: www.hs.fi/vieraskyna/.