Review of Extant Curricula and Resources for Elementary School Teachers

Lessons related to economics and civics in elementary school classrooms are generally taught as part of social studies instruction. However, the instructional time devoted to social studies has declined over time (Heafner and Fitchett Reference Heafner and Fitchett2012) and the instructional guidance available for teachers who teach social studies varies tremendously across states. For example, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), currently adopted by 42 states (CCSS Initiative n.d.), provide national standards for English Language Arts and Math, but not social studies (CCSS Initiatives 2010). In response to a lack of national standards for social studies, the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) recently released their own College, Career, and Civic Life Framework for Social Studies State Standards (C3 Framework) to guide state and district development of social studies standards. In alignment with CCSS, the C3 Framework emphasizes the importance of inquiry-based instruction in civics, economics, geography, and history. Although some states, including Connecticut and New York, have incorporated tenets from the C3 Framework into their state social studies standards, it is too early to know how widespread adoption of the C3 Framework standards will be. The Connecticut Elementary and Secondary Social Studies Frameworks (2015), for example, includes compelling questions to guide instruction, inquiry expectations for students informed by the C3 Framework, themes and content to be addressed, and considerations for developing district curriculum at each grade level (Connecticut State Department of Education 2015). In 2nd grade, for example, a compelling question is, “How do both individuals and groups of people make a difference in our town, state, country, and world?” (Connecticut State Department of Education 2015, 29).

A lack of national content standards in combination with reduced attention to social studies curricula in elementary school has implications for educators’ access to resources related to economics and civics. Although no research to date has examined educator practices within the C3 Framework, extant resources are available to educators to inform their discussion of economic status and inequality with elementary-school-age children. Some such resources are based on empirical evidence. Lee, Ramsey, and Sweeney (Reference Lee, Ramsey and Sweeney2008), for example, focus on the importance of roleplaying activities in helping young children grasp an understanding of the concept of economic inequality. Examples include using different sized doll houses to help young students represent differences in access to shelter and allocating differential amounts of money as part of a class simulation activity to foster students’ understanding of the consequences of differential access to resources. Chafel and colleagues (Chafel et al. Reference Chafel, Flint, Hammel and Pomeroy2007) made strategic use of children’s literature with themes related to economic differences (i.e., Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen) and drawing activities to guide student discussions and reflections. In addition, resources such as the website Teaching Tolerance also offer lesson plan suggestions for educators (although there are fewer examples for the early elementary grades as compared with later grades). Examples include a lesson about wants versus needs in which the learning objectives are to help students “understand the concepts of having, not having and the feelings associated with these concepts” through class discussions about what it means and how it feels to have or not have something, as well as what it means to be rich and how you can be rich in ways other than material possessions (Teaching Tolerance a n.d.). A second lesson focuses on fairness and inequality in access to resources and has students participate in an art activity with low- and high-quality resources (e.g., scissors, crayons) as a lead-in to a larger discussion about how unequal resources affect student performance in school (e.g., “What if my school had a library with thousands of new books and your school had a library with just a few old worn out books? Would that be fair?”). The objectives include concluding the lesson by having students develop and carry out an action plan to foster educational equality (Teaching Tolerance b n.d.).

Although the above are wonderful illustrations of individual, developmentally-appropriate lesson plans for discussing concepts such as wealth, poverty, fairness, and distributive justice with young children, the potential to affect children’s attitudes and beliefs would be greater if they were integrated into a larger unit on economics and civic engagement. We highlight one example of such an approach in the following section.

An Inquiry-Based Pedagogical Approach to Wealth and Poverty, and Civic Engagement

Motivated by developmental science on young children’s conceptions of wealth and poverty and by the paucity of extant curricula focused on addressing these topics with young students, we recently undertook an intervention study in collaboration with a team of elementary grade teachers to design, implement, and evaluate an arts-based inquiry guided unit focused on teaching children about wealth and poverty, and civic responsibility (see Mistry et al. Reference Mistry, Nenadal, Griffin, Zimmerman, Cochran, Thomas and Wilson2016; Mistry et al. Reference Mistry, Griffin, Nenadal and Hazelbaker2017; Nenadal and Mistry Reference Nenadal and Mistry2017). Guided by developmental theory about children’s beliefs about others (Developmental Intergroup Theory; Bigler and Liben 2006) and a shared commitment to using education to better support students’ understanding of what it means to be civically minded citizens (Why School? 2016), we assessed whether explicit instruction influenced students’ reasoning about the meanings, causes, and consequences of wealth and poverty.

Using inquiry as their primary instructional method, the teachers in this collaboration informally assessed students’ understanding of wealth and poverty, planned lessons according to these understandings and possible misconceptions, guided students’ thinking through questions and conversations, and worked with students toward a culminating action-oriented final project. Teachers used a variety of developmentally appropriate and engaging methods for their specific-aged students, including read-alouds (e.g., A Chair for My Mother, Where Children Sleep), art activities (e.g., “How might you use collage materials to represent your feelings about the words poor, rich, and in-between?”), and action-oriented projects (e.g., a donation drive of children’s nighttime needs such as blankets, toothbrushes, pajamas, etc.). Lesson topics included looking at the similarities and differences between people in different economic groups, within-group differentiation (e.g., using the terms “none, some, most, all” to talk about people), and the difference between “wants” and “needs.” For example, in one classroom, the students worked together to compile a list of things that people need to survive (e.g., food, water) and a list of things that people want, but do not necessarily need in order to live (e.g., candy, toys). This activity later informed a donation drive that the class participated in (see Nenadal and Mistry Reference Nenadal and Mistry2017, for greater detail about curriculum implementation).

The efficacy of the curriculum intervention was evaluated using a quasi-experimental design (see Mistry et al. Reference Mistry, Nenadal, Griffin, Zimmerman, Cochran, Thomas and Wilson2016; Mistry et al. Reference Mistry, Griffin, Nenadal and Hazelbaker2017 for more details). Participants—from racially and ethnically diverse but mostly upper-middle class backgrounds, based on household family income and parental education data—were students enrolled in one of two kindergarten and two primary grade (combined first and second grade) classes (N=89). Students in one classroom at each grade level were taught the inquiry unit over 5-7 weeks while students in the other classrooms acted as a comparison group and received instruction as usual. Students in both intervention and comparison classrooms, whose parents consented to their participation in the evaluation study and who were able to comprehend and complete the study measures (n = 42 and 44, respectively), were individually interviewed before and after the curriculum implementation about their conceptions and causes of wealth and poverty, ideas about wealth distribution in society, and ways to help the poor. This included a series of open-ended questions at the beginning of the interview designed to gauge students’ conceptions of wealth and poverty (see Mistry et al. Reference Mistry, Griffin, Nenadal and Hazelbaker2017 for details) and survey items in response to a vignette about a child and his family living in poverty (see Mistry et al. Reference Mistry, Nenadal, Griffin, Zimmerman, Cochran, Thomas and Wilson2016 for details). The interviews were completed across two sessions for primary grade students and two to three sessions for kindergarten students. The study was approved by the researchers’ university human subjects and the elementary school’s research ethics review boards, respectively.

The findings indicated that the curriculum intervention was related to students’ beliefs about wealth and poverty, economic mobility, and ways to help those in need. Specifically, compared with students in the comparison classrooms, post-intervention, those in the intervention classrooms were more likely to say that poverty is malleable over time. Further, they were less likely to say that giving money was the only way to help those living in poverty and instead offered more varied explanations for helping families that are poor, including through charitable in-kind donations and helping parents find jobs. These explanations were likely influenced by students’ discussions of an actionable project in the intervention classrooms—an integral component of an inquiry-based approach. Consistent with the earlier reviewed empirical findings (Chafel et al. Reference Chafel, Flint, Hammel and Pomeroy2007; Lee et al. Reference Lee, Ramsey and Sweeney2008), our results suggest that concrete and developmentally-appropriate activities can be beneficial for fostering young students’ perspective taking abilities and reasoning about economic differences.

In addition to findings related to economic mobility and helping behavior, we observed modest evidence of an impact of the curriculum intervention on students’ beliefs about wealth and poverty, and mixed evidence of impacts on their causal attributions for wealth and poverty. Specifically, in response to open-ended prompts about what it means to be rich and poor, the responses of primary grade students in the intervention classroom were more varied than those of students in the comparison classroom. Intervention students were more likely to describe being rich or poor in ways other than money (e.g., rich with love). When describing poverty, intervention students more often focused on the psychological characteristics (e.g., poor but still a good person) and relative experiences of those experiencing poverty than students in the comparison classroom. And, they were less likely to mention only money and basic needs in their responses. In terms of causal attributions (i.e., individualistic, fatalistic, structural), findings differed as a function of measure. We observed no differences across intervention and comparison classrooms students’ causal attributions in response to a vignette about a poor child and his family (Mistry et al. Reference Mistry, Nenadal, Griffin, Zimmerman, Cochran, Thomas and Wilson2016). However, responses to open-ended prompts about how someone becomes rich or poor revealed that primary grade (but not kindergarten) students in the intervention classroom provided more structural attributions (e.g., having jobs that pay or don’t pay well; being able to get a job or having a good job; going to school) for both wealth and poverty, and more individualistic attributions for poverty (e.g., spending all of their money) than students in the comparison classroom (Mistry et al. Reference Mistry, Griffin, Nenadal and Hazelbaker2017). In general, we observed far fewer differences among kindergarten students across intervention and comparison classrooms.

Teachers’ reflections on their experiences implementing the unit provided insights into possible reasons why, and importantly, how the curriculum intervention influenced students’ conceptions of wealth and poverty and beliefs about underlying causes. With respect to creating receptive spaces for discussions of social issues more generally, the teachers stressed the importance of continually revisiting, reassessing, and adjusting their initial goals for the unit (i.e., build and develop empathy; discuss and practice perspective taking; see selves and others as agents of change; participate in authentic experiences; and build relationships and collaborate on social justice ideas) to enhance students’ learning. They also emphasized the critical importance of creating a classroom culture and community where students felt safe to share their ideas and beliefs in a non-judgmental manner. Given the children’s ages and limited vocabularies for expressing their ideas verbally, art provided an essential medium of expression for students to express their ideas and represent their thoughts through multiple modalities (e.g., drawing, watercolor, clay), which they were later asked to describe and discuss with their peers and teachers. And, finally, the teachers noted that their foray into this topic would not have been possible without the support of the school, fellow teachers, and parents—some of whom expressed reservations initially but who overwhelming supported the teachers’ efforts (Nenadal and Mistry Reference Nenadal and Mistry2017).

In sum, we find that teachers’ engagement of young students in conversations about complex topics such as wealth and poverty using developmentally-appropriate pedagogical approaches can, potentially, impact their developing beliefs about wealth and poverty. But, we also note some limits in doing so. The lack of systematic impacts on kindergarten students’ beliefs following the intervention, for example, may be indicative that the curriculum was too advanced for the youngest students in the study. This may have been due, in part, to developmental constraints in young students’ capacity to reason about more abstract concepts such as jobs and wages. It is also possible, however, that evidence of early and initial exposure to such complex topics may not be evident until later; suggestive of the need for more longitudinal investigations in this area. An additional caveat is that the current study was conducted with students from mostly upper-middle class backgrounds and that the findings may not generalize beyond this demographic. An advantage of the inquiry structure, however, is its adaptability and flexilibity across settings. It is important that future endeavors explore and investigate what such approaches might look like across diverse school settings and with students of diverse backgrounds. Understanding the experiences of teachers engaging in this work across settings and contexts will help to generate a richer description of what it means to engage young children in conversations about a variety of social issues and can inform the creation of future curriculum focused on such topics.