The criticism of financialisation of the daily life (Martin, 2002) has been present even before the current financial crisis, but the raising costs of higher education (especially in the UK and the USA) gave reason to call it a tool of 'pedagogy of debt' (Williams, 2011) that is the way a certain rationality is implemented into citizens. In order to fight the contemporary 'banking model of education' (Hannon, 2011; Freire, 2005) various social movements started to question debt on the moral grounds (Caffentzis, 2011) and called to refuse repayment of student debt (OSDC, n.d.). Economic assumptions concerning debt present in the system of education started to be challenged from the perspective of anthropology (Graeber, 2011).

The poster will show the role of debt in the timeline of people's life – from primary school to learning in adulthood. It will also point at a number of institutions which have been involved in promoting financial education since 1997. At that time the concept of 'financial literacy' was employed by international institutions as a response to the financial crisis in Asia (OECD, 2005). Financial education has been present at several levels of education: from separate sections at central banks' websites, through bank-related NGOs providing courses for secondary schools, to the implementation of specific axioms concerning debt in the primary school curriculum (e.g. in mathematics education for the 1st grade students in Poland). At the level of higher education, debt stops being an abstract issue and becomes an everyday experience for many, especially since the 1990s, when subsidised student loans started to replace scholarships in many countries around the world (Kowzan, 2011). 

I conducted research on the role of debt in the biographies of individuals and their families in Iceland in 2010. I have conducted further research concerning the role of debt in political mobilisation of students in the international student movement in Europe. Furthermore, I studied the presence of initiatives concerning financial education on the level of the educational system in Poland.

Caffentzis, G. (2011). Plato’s Republic and Student Loan Debt Refusal. Edufactory, retrieved 31.1.2012 from: http://www.edu-factory.org/wp/plato%E2%80%99s-republic-and-student-loan-debt-refusal/ Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th Anniversary Edition. London: Continuum. Graeber, D. (2011). Debt: The First 5,000 Years. New York: Melville House Publishing. Hannon, A. (2011). The banking model of Education. Periscope of Social Text. Kowzan, P. (2011). Kredyty studenckie w Polsce. Edufactory, retrieved 31.1.2012 from http://ha.art.pl/prezentacje/39-edufactory/1673-piotr-kowzan-kredyty-studenckie-w-polsce.html Martin, R. (2002). Financialization of Daily Life. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. OECD (2005). Improving Financial Literacy: Analysis of Issues and Policies. Occupy Student Debt Campaign [OSDC] (n.d.). Our Principles. Retrieved 31.1.2012 from http://www.occupystudentdebtcampaign.org/our-principles/ Rutkowiak, J. (2010). Czy istnieje edukacyjny program ekonomii korporacyjnej? [in:] J. Rutkowiak, E. Potulicka, Neoliberalne uwikłania edukacji, Kraków: Impuls. Williams, J. (2011). Pedagogy of Debt. [in:] The Edu-factory Collective (eds.) Toward a Global Autonomous University. New York: Autonomedia.