A key word in current initiatives to help people stabilize their personal finances, and thus prevent macro-economic crises that result from overindebtedness of the population is “financial literacy”. This “literacy” consists of knowledge about finance and good consumer behaviour – and sees the proof of the pudding in the material wealth of the financially literate (Willis, 2017). The promotion of economic knowledge through the 19th and 20th century has been closely entwined with compulsory schooling, not only with the aim of teaching economics as a specialist subject, but also as general knowledge for all citizens and consumers (Maß, 2018). And it has been argued that economic education became a means to persuade a broad audience of the advantages of living in a market society (Augello & Giudi, 2012). This paper seeks to investigate some of the contexts and conditions within which economic knowledge evolved into (an influential) educational issue. It takes into account not only the impact of economic doctrines, but also the phenomenon whereby specific cultural scripts are enforced through the teaching of good economic behaviour and economic knowledge. The history of capitalism in this respect should also very much be seen as a history of education. Investigating this evolution implies tracing the history of a global banking association which has defined itself as an educational actor ever since its foundation, and which has been a leading actor in developing and transmitting concepts and practises of general economic education – the International Savings Banks Institute (ISBI). Based on sources from the institute’s archive, this paper will focus on the ISBI’s policy of fostering general economic education in the 20th century. As an international hub for concepts of economic education, the ISBI has diffused ideas and practices through its member associations, to teacher associations and to national educational policy makers. Using additional archival sources from several member associations, the ISBI’s circulation of teaching and propaganda materials, as well as of concepts about economic education, will be studied. The paper will reconstruct the self-presentation of what some protagonists termed “Capitalistic Education” as a means to address the risk of economic crises. Beyond that, this study’s inquiry into the specific context of when and where economic education became a concern within and beyond this banking association, will allow some reflection concerning the relationship between economic knowledge, education and crisis.

Augello, M. & Giudi, M.E.L. (2012). The economic reader: textbooks, manuals and the dissemination of the economic sciences during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. London: Routledge. Maß, S. (2018). Kinderstube des Kapitalismus : Monetäre Erziehung im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg. Willis, L. E. (2017). Finance-Informed Citizens, Citizen-Informed Finance: An Essay Occasioned by the International Handbook of Financial Literacy. Journal of Social Science Education 16 , Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2017-42. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3066954