Undoing Neoclassical Economics in Elementary School: Three New York City Classrooms and the Teaching of Class Division

Abstract

This paper highlights three films made in three New York City elementary school classrooms as teachers teach about social class and economic inequality to young children. Each of the teachers in these first, third, and fourth/fifth grade classrooms drew from their observations of how social class affected their children and mobilized an array of pedagogical decisions to create learning experiences that unpacked common capitalist-driven ideologies they had internalize years before entering their first days of school. While economics education often excludes elementary school, the aim is that teachers and teacher educators everywhere come away with a sense that broaching these topics with young children is not only possible, but that accounting for the study of economic inequality in elementary schools is necessary to any agenda that views education as a vehicle for social justice.