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The Committee on Economic Education: Its Effect on the Introductory Course and Women in Economics

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Forum for Social Economics

Abstract

The percentage of women economics majors has stagnated for decades. This is creating a bottleneck in the pipeline of female economists. The Committee on Economic Education (CEE) of the American Economic Association (AEA) is charged with fostering economic understanding and effective teaching. An examination of its structure, membership and activities over the past 35 years, however, suggests that it has narrowed the scope of economic ideas presented in introductory economics and has not convinced instructors of the benefits of a more active learning environment. The task of engaging students in the search for greater knowledge has largely been left to heterodox “visionaries,” members of the profession who have tried to find ways to make economics courses more interesting and inviting to all students, and especially to under-represented groups. We conclude that the CEE’s membership and structure contribute to the small percentage of the increasingly female undergraduate population who major in economics.

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Notes

  1. We believe that both of these deficiencies are in significant part the result of the virtual exclusion of heterodox economists from this influential committee, as discussed later in this paper.

  2. We hasten to note that the difficulties of minorities need to be investigated as well, but this subject is beyond the scope of this paper.

  3. According to Siegfried and Stock (2006), economics, not mathematics, is the predominant major of matriculating graduate students in PhD-granting programs in economics (p. 3). The issue would be less important if there were a large proportion of women among the increasing share of foreign students entering graduate programs in economics (Siegfried and Stock 2006). However, this does not seem to be the case.

  4. For more information on these subjects go to http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/CSWEP.

  5. The view that heterodox economics has a contribution to make may have been strengthened by the outbreak of the economic crisis of 2008.

  6. See Mearman (2007) for a discussion of the various notions of heterodox.

  7. See Bartlett and Ferber (1998). Topics such as the division of childcare and housework; the economic risks of being a housewife (the title of a path-breaking article by Bergmann (1981); the value of non-market time; and the contributions made by volunteer workers are most often shortchanged or entirely ignored. Although some disagree that men and women have different concerns, there is considerable evidence that this is the case. For instance, Abrams and Settle (1999) as well as Lott and Kenny (1999) have shown that women voters have different priorities than men.

  8. See Bartlett and Feiner (1992) and Owen and Jenson (2001).

  9. See Dynan and Rouse (1997) and Greene (1997). Indeed, Greene refers to “ generally acknowledged gender gap in some quantitative abilities” (pp. 25–26).

  10. See, for example, Jensen (1998) and Summers (2005).

  11. See Salemi et al. (1996).

  12. The Test of Economic Understanding for 12 th graders, later morphed into the Test of Economic Literacy (Walstad and Soper 1999), is one example of testing instruments they helped to develop for the high school curriculum.

  13. See Siegfried and Meszaros (1997, 1998).

  14. For useful research on this subject see, for instance, Blumberg (1988) and Qian (2006).

  15. It is entirely likely that women, who spend considerably more of their income on their children than do men (Blumberg 1988), and spend considerably more of their time on volunteer work (Folbre 2001), are also more likely to be interested than men in such public facilities.

  16. For a detailed critique of the recommendations of the leading men (sic) concerning teaching economics at the pre-college level see Ferber (1999).

  17. See Bartlett and Weidenaar (1988). It would be interesting (but beyond the scope of this paper) to interview authors of textbooks considered to be more heterodox to learn whether they were pressured by their publishers to keep their textbooks mainstream

  18. The average class size these upper level students reported was over 22 students.

  19. The department referred to is economics.

  20. See the CEE website at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/CEE.

  21. A good example of the importance of value judgments is deciding whether wellbeing increases if income increases but is less equally distributed.

  22. See, for example, Bartlett (2006).

  23. However, IAFFE was not founded until 1990.

  24. As suggested above, this result shows that the heterodox directory is not a complete listing: many members of CSWEP are also members of IAFFE.

  25. The advantages of this arrangement are that more individuals have the chance to participate and that members know they have only three years to make a contribution.

  26. Despite its more rapid turnover, no less than 85 percent of the members of the CSWEP board had affiliations with these institutions but, as stated above, since this group does have more heterodox leanings, they tend to be more open to innovative ideas. It may also show that more rapid turnover can bring increased energy and creativity.

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Author notes

  1. Carole A. Green

    Present address: , 219 Wahuhu Lane, Loudon, TN, 37774-2856, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Denison University, Granville, OH, USA

    Robin L. Bartlett

  2. University of Illinois –Urbana/Champaign, Urbana/Champaign, IL, USA

    Marianne A. Ferber

  3. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Carole A. Green

Authors
  1. Robin L. Bartlett
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  2. Marianne A. Ferber
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  3. Carole A. Green
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Correspondence to Carole A. Green.

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The authors would like to thank Emma Rose Hill, Denison University for her assistance in gathering the information.

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Bartlett, R.L., Ferber, M.A. & Green, C.A. The Committee on Economic Education: Its Effect on the Introductory Course and Women in Economics. For Soc Econ 38, 153–172 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12143-009-9038-9

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