Title: Challenges and pedagogies for teaching inequality in undergraduate development economics

Authors: Sucharita Sinha Mukherjee

Addresses: College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University, 37 S College Avenue, Saint Joseph, Minnesota 56374, USA

Abstract: Students in undergraduate economics classes, bogged down by mathematical and statistical technicalities, often fail to connect classroom learning to real world experiences which would better help to understand concepts and to examine policy prescriptions for economic issues such as economic inequality. Through a combination of different pedagogies involving academic resources, media, data analysis and experiential learning, students in my economic development course are exposed to the challenges of measuring and combating inequality. By looking at income inequality in conjunction with inequalities of health and education access, and understanding gender and racial differences across nations as well as locally, students grasp the complexities of public policies addressing inequality. Adopting a feminist methodology in class provides students a framework to analyse the heterogeneity of the human experience critical to the study of inequality.

Keywords: inequality; pedagogy; undergraduate economics pedagogy; development economics; feminist pedagogy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEE.2018.092241

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2018 Vol.9 No.1/2, pp.69 - 80

Received: 25 Jul 2017
Accepted: 17 Feb 2018
Published online: 11 Jun 2018 *

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