Building economic citizenship: the rule of pedagogy

Abstract

The relationship between pedagogy and economy has always been complex and unresolved: difficulty of culture of education in dialoguing with the economic sciences has led pedagogy to neglect this issue, leaving pedagogical topics into economy to other sciences. Understanding economy is fundamental to know and govern some of the dynamics of today's society and, therefore, economy must be part of education, in view of active citizenship. For this reason, a greater educational role with reference to economic dimension of daily life could be promoted by adults as well.

Economic education, as process intentionally aimed at providing knowledge and skills related to management of money, constitutes a part of culture of citizenship, that allows citizens to become aware agents during their economic and social life. Final objective of economic education, starting with financial literacy, should therefore be promotion, in families and at school, of planning ability, recognizing nature of money as means and not as an aim for the promotion of personal and collective well-being.