An International Perspective on Economic Education.

This collection of papers presents an international comparison of the economic education efforts and accomplishments in a variety of countries. The beginning papers raise issues familiar to those following the economic education literature in the United States. After an introductory chapter which presents a summary of the other papers, William Baumol, in Chapter 2, argues that economic education is important and needs to be a necessary aspect of precollege curriculums. In the next paper, Phillip Saunders reviews the National Council on Economic Education's A Framework for Teaching the Basic Concepts. Saunder's believes that the economic concepts presented in the Framework are "universal" and not "country specific." The Framework could be used to develop "a global framework of basic concepts" to teach economics at the precollege level throughout the world.

Michael Watts's paper discusses ideological conflicts in the economics profession. He argues that in the areas where there is dissension, this dissension should be recognized in economic education curriculums. While this view may be intellectually correct, one weakness of this paper is that it does not present any practical ideas to operationalize this at the precollege level. I have serious doubts that most precollege economic educators are recognizing these differences. Economic education efforts at the precollege level are aimed at explaining how markets work and the virtues of the free market system. If economists believe that ideological conflicts should be presented in the curriculum, it will be necessary that they take a leadership role in developing new curriculum materials.

The paper by Becker, Walstad, and Watts is one of the most interesting papers in the book. They report results of a survey of economic opinions of economic educator, high school teachers, and journalists. The survey questions are based on similar surveys of United States, Canadian, and European economists. A comparison of the economic attitudes of economists, journalists, and teachers is made. "Economists and economic educators seemed to think alike on economic propositions, and teachers and journalists seemed to think alike. Teachers' and journalists' opinions, however, were not similar to those of economists and economic educators. Although high school economics teachers showed somewhat more affinity for economists' ways of thinking than did other teachers or journalists, even among this key group there was greater concordance with the views of other teachers and journalists than there was with those of economists or economic educators." One effective strategy for improving economic education at the high school level is to increase the economic understanding of journalists, since the results of this paper indicate that teachers rely heavily on the media.

In Chapter 6, Becker, Greene, and Rosen present a summary of previously published research regarding high school economics in the United States. This chapter is an updated version of a paper which they published in the Journal of Economic Education. In Chapter 7, William Walstad presents an updated version of a paper published in the Journal of Economic Literature which assesses economics instruction in high schools in the United States. Students learn more economics when economics is taught as a separate course rather than being infused in the rest of the curriculum and this learning may improve the performance of students in the college principles course. More high school students are enrolling in economics. In 1990 44 percent of high school students completed a course in economics. This dramatic increase (only 16 percent completed a course in 1961) is mostly due to state mandates: "By 1990 about 45 percent of students graduating from public high schools took some form of a required course in economics."

Chapters 8-16 present an overview of pre-college economic education in specific countries. The countries include the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Germany and Austria, South Korea, Australia, Russia, Bulgaria, and China. For all of the countries except Russia, Bulgaria, and China an adopted version of the Test of Economic Literacy(TEL) is administered to a representative sample of high school students. The analysis highlights the importance of various institutional factors in determining the level of economic knowledge. In the United Kingdom the level of economic knowledge helps to determine admission to institutions of higher education for those students choosing economics as one of their fields of high school concentration. These students take more courses in economics at the high school level and are highly motivated to learn economics. On the other hand in South Korea, while economics is mandated and high school students take the course for four semesters, economic knowledge is almost irrelevant to the college entrance exam and "in general Korean students seldom show any interest in subjects irrelevant to the college entrance examination." The mean score on the TEL in United Kingdom for those with two years of high school economics is 36.87, while it is only 24.42 for those students in South Korea with two years of high school economics.

Several of the countries have national contests where teams of high school students compete in a macro-economic computer simulation. Students aim to manage the economy to reach a social welfare maximum through the use of policy interventions. These competitions seem to be very popular. In Australia "the national finalists include many of the best economics students in the country. Many of these students, however, are outstanding in their other subjects also, and casual surveys of these students indicate that most of them intended to go on to study mathematics or science at university. After the national final, however, a significant number indicate that they will change their university applications and will now enroll in economics courses." Given the recent decline in students in the United States graduating with a college degree in economics and now that the high school advanced placement course in economics is firmly in place, economic educators may wish to sponsor such a contest in the United States in an effort to increase both the economic knowledge of high ability high school students and the number of college economics majors.

The final three chapters which cover Russia, Bulgaria, and China highlight the difficulties facing economic educators in countries with transition economies. The chapter on China which in part focuses on how economics textbooks deal with the ideological conflicts between a centrally planned economic system and a market system is most interesting.

Martin Milkman Murray State University