Title: The social science principle in socio-economic didactics

Authors: Reinhold Hedtke

Addresses: Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science, Goethe University Frankfurt, Theodor-W.-Adorno Platz 6, 60629 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Abstract: The didactic of socio-economic education conceives the subject as social science. Together with the principle of learner orientation, social science has a long tradition at the heart of socio-economic education. This differentiates socio-economic education from orthodox economic education, which derives its identity solely from the discipline of economics. This paper lays out the foundations of the social science principle and its justifications in terms of educational theory, subject didactics, and academic reference. Rather than splitting economic education into separate mono-disciplinary subjects, this paper outlines a social science-oriented approach to education on socio-economic issues that focuses teaching and learning on key commonalities of the social science disciplines.

Keywords: socio-economic education; social science approach; learner orientation; multi-disciplinarity; transdisciplinarity; contextualisation; subject didactics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEE.2019.106130

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2019 Vol.10 No.4, pp.350 - 368

Received: 15 Apr 2019
Accepted: 10 May 2019
Published online: 30 Mar 2020 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article