Teaching young people more than “how to survive austerity”: From traditional financial literacy to critical economic literacy education

ABSTRACT Financial literacy education is often narrowly conceptualized as teaching students how to manage their finances. Furthermore, few studies have investigated teachers’ beliefs and approaches to teaching financial literacy beyond whether they have the knowledge and capacity to deliver personal finance lessons. This case study explores the ways in which self-identified critical teachers in Ontario and Québec, Canada swim against the current of traditional financial literacy teaching. I present data from two rounds of in-depth qualitative interviews and one round of deliberative inquiry focus groups conducted in 2019 and 2020. Findings detail the specific skills, knowledge, and pedagogical strategies teachers use to reframe conventional financial literacy toward a critical economic literacy education that asks broader questions about the political economy and intersecting systems of oppression. This study complicates the ways in which financial literacy education is conceptualized and researched and suggests the need for further research with teachers.