The main objective in this project is to identify economic concepts that pose specific challenges to certain migrant groups in Germany and the United States.
Project description
In Germany and the U.S., economic education content is shaped by a Western perspective on the economic system. Foreign students who grow up in a domestic environment in Germany and the U.S. are provided with culturally divergent perspectives on the Western economic system, and so face specific challenges in economic education. Initial interviews with (experienced) economic education teachers in Germany and the U.S. indicate that teachers - especially if these teachers grew up in a Western-shaped environment - are not aware of these challenges when designing economic lessons. At the same time, large-scale assessments in Germany and the U.S. indicate that differences in economic knowledge can be found between students with and without a migrant background, to the disadvantage of students with a migrant background.
At this point, economic education in Germany and the U.S. faces a similar challenge, which makes a joint investigation in a project of the Joachim Herz Foundation profitable. The main objective in this project is to identify economic concepts that pose specific challenges to certain migrant groups in Germany and the United States.
The research gap can be broken down into two research questions:
1. Which economic concepts do migrant students in Germany and the U.S. face difficulties in understanding?
2. What reasons can be identified for the difficulties in understanding certain concepts that can serve to explain the gap in economic knowledge between students with and without a migrant background?
According to the main objective and the research questions of the project the institute of business education and management training at the University of Leipzig and the Center for Economic Education at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln will conduct qualitative interviews to investigate these questions in the main groups of migrants in both countries.
Funding: This Project is funded by the Joachim Herz Stiftung.
Period: The Project duration is from September 2021 to August 2022.