In times of societal changes and economic crises, different political demands with regard to economic issues in general and economic education in particular may be expected (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2003). Economic education has become increasingly important on all school levels in Europe in the aftermath of the financial crisis 2007/2008. The boom of financial education (Aprea et al., 2016), entrepreneurship education (Galvão, Ferreira, & Marques, 2018), and a rising engagement of private organisations in educational issues (Ackermann, Ruoss, & Flury, 2018) bear evidence to this development. The ongoing societal changes and political pressure on collective social security systems amplified the perceived need to promote economic education in order to face these societal challenges (Williams, 2007). This shift from collective to individual responsibility – and to schools – follows a logic of “responsibilization” (Arthur, 2016) or “educationalization of social problems” (Labaree, 2008). As a consequence, the educational system is described as “extraordinarily important to understanding how people make jurisdictional claims to theorize about and act on the economy” (Fourcade, 2009, p. 250). This reliance on schools to solve societal and economic problems does not necessarily lead to a consensus regarding goals, content and methods of teaching. Indeed, various conceptions of economic education can be found in subject-specific literature and contrasted by, for instance, reference discipline, subject field, perspective and target group (Hedtke, 2011). These conceptions have different normative presumptions and are thus controversially discussed in educational research and policy.

Consequently, our primary epistemological interest were conceptions of economic education at the level of grammar school curricula in Switzerland. Grammar schools (“Gymnasium”) in Switzerland are characterized by large heterogeneity regarding entry requirements and graduation rates (Eberle & Brüggenbrock, 2013). In addition, grammar school curricula differ substantially between cantons and even between schools (Bonati, 2017). Economic education is part of the subject “economics and law”: the introductory subject is compulsory for all students, and they can choose to study it further as a major or minor subject. The rationale for the compulsory introductory subject should be justified not only at the level of educational policy discourse, but by distinct and coherent subject goals in the implementation of the curricula themselves. Thus, our research goal was twofold: (1) to compare curricular subject goals and subject content between curricula, and (2) to analyse the conceptual relationship between subject goals and subject content.

We compiled a dataset with 47 curricula, representing the 168 state-approved grammar schools, and systematically indexed the documents (e.g., enactment year, hourly timetable, curriculum language). In each curriculum, we selected “economics and law” as introductory and major subject. We qualitatively analysed the documents, whereas each document was coded to consensus by two coders. For subject goals, we developed a coding system that considers educational goals of Swiss grammar school and competence models (e.g., knowledge/skills/attitude, disciplinary/interdisciplinary competences). For subject content, we applied a coding system that refers to the academic research and teaching disciplines of “economics” and “business administration” (Ackermann, 2021; Schumann et al., 2010).

Almost all curricula under study explicitly or implicitly refer to the grammar schools’ educational goal of deepened societal maturity, illustrated by the educational ideal of the mature economic citizen (Dubs, 2011). On contrary, only around half of the curricula refer the educational goal of general study skills, while only around half of the curricula even formulate different subject goals for the introductory subject and the major subject. The introductory subject shows a scattered pattern in subject content between the curricula. This may be explained by an opposed understanding of the subjects’ contribution to general study skills and deepened social maturity at grammar schools. This is striking, because the introductory subject should bring all students to a minimum level of competence in order to deal with societal and individual challenges. Conversely, the major subject shows a dense pattern of subject content and a clear homogeneity. This could be explained by a presumable silent consensus on the conception of economic education in this subject category: the major subject contributes to specific study skills and science propaedeutics. We conclude that schools seem to have a different understanding of the contribution of “economics and law” to general study skills and deepened societal maturity. Moreover, they seem to have a different approach regarding an educationalization of societal problems. Our study merely refers to the macro level of education and to the formal curriculum. Thus, our findings cannot be interpreted on the micro level of teaching/learning in the classroom. There may also be cultural differences in teaching/learning across subject categories and language regions (Marty, Venturini, & Almqvist, 2018). Yet, our findings on cultural differences in economic education may be fruitful for future curriculum development and implementation.

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