Education, knowledge and economic performance have consistently described some central conditions of citizenship in liberal democracies (Van Ruyskensvelde and Ketch 2018). With the emergence of post-war consumer societies, new actors entered the scenery to redefine the relation between citizens and the economy. In particular, the idea of the consumer became the center of citizenship concepts - and consumer education became a core task in the production of good citizens (Sandlin & McLaren 2009). The idea of the “consumer citizen” emerged (Arthur, 2012). As an alternative to the political subject, the consumer citizen’s relationship to society was no longer defined primarily in terms of democratic rights and social integration, but primarily by the possibility of economic interaction and the accumulation of human capital. These historical developments were also reflected in educational policy, with the consequence, that economic education became a controversial school subject within various European countries starting in the 1960ies (Chatel 2015). The goals, content and methods of economic education as a prerequisite for moulding successful economic actors or responsible (democratic) citizens, remain controversial to this day (Martinache 2018; Hedtke 2018). This paper aims to shed light on the emergence of this controversial ideal of consumer citizenship and its pedagogical implementation. Empirically, it examines the role of the most important financial business association related to economic education in post-war West Germany, the German Association of Savings Banks, and its relations to the emerging disciplinary field of empirical pedagogy. Here, from the 1950ies to the 1970ies, a debate between such private-sector associations, research institutes, and educational associations contributed to re-defining the concepts of economic education and citizenship. Accordingly, archival sources from educational science institutions and from business associations as well as educational science publications are examined. It can be shown how private interest groups pushed an agenda towards a concept of citizenship that primarily understood individual consumerism as the basis for an inclusive community.

Arthur, C. (2012). Financial literacy education: Neoliberalism, the consumer and the citizen (Bd. 53). SensePublishers Imprint: SensePublishers. Chatel, É. (2015). Pour une histoire et une sociologie de l’enseignement de l’économie. Education et sociétés, 35(1), 5–21. Hedtke, R. (2018). Pluralist Thinking in Economic and Socioeconomic Education. JSSE - Journal of Social Science Education, 2–4. Martinache, I. (2018). Teaching Economics among other Social Sciences? The issue of Pluralism in the Struggles surrounding the Economic and Social Sciences Curricula in the French High School since 1967. JSSE - Journal of Social Science Education, 34–45. Sandlin, J. A., & McLaren, P. (Hrsg.). (2009). Critical Pedagogies of Consumption: Living and Learning in the Shadow of the „Shopocalypse“. Routledge. Van Ruyskensvelde, S., & Ketch, M. K. (2018). The civics test: A political or educational tool for creating the perfect citizen? A historical overview of forms and processes of naturalization in the United States. Encounters in Theory and History of Education, 19, 205–220.