The Role of the American Economic Association in Economic Education: A Brief History by E. Elton Hinshaw and John J. Siegfried. Reprinted from the Journal of Economic Education, Fall 1991 Vol. 22, No. 4, pages 373-381.

Sometime in the late eighteenth century, Bishop James Madison, president of William and Mary College, included political economy in his program of social studies, using The Wealth of Nations as a text. According to Laurence Leamer, "Bishop Madison was probably the first teacher anywhere to seek to make economics an element in a truly general education appropriate to a free society" (Leamer 1950, 20).

A century later, when the American Economic Association (AEA) was formed in 1885, the founding fathers expressed their interest in economic education. One explicit aim of the nascent society was to educate public opinion about economic questions and economic literature. "The ideal of this new society, as it presented itself to the minds of its projectors, was to seek light, to bear light, to diffuse light-ever the highest aim of all true science" (Ely 1886, 6).

The founders of the AEA committed themselves to an educational mission in action as well as in word. The lead article in the third volume of Publications of the American Economic Association (1889) (hereafter cited as Publications), which contains papers presented at the second annual meeting, held in 1887, is an appeal for reform of the curriculum of colleges and universities to include the study of statistics (Wright 1889). The next annual meeting included a paper that outlined a course in statistics suitable for colleges (Dewey 1889).

In 1890, Simon Patten, a future president of the association, penned what may be the seminal work in model economic education-"The Educational Value of Political Economy" (Patten 1891). A century later, it is a paper still worth reading. Patten argued that economics should replace mathematics and physics for training in reasoning and that moral and political thought should be separated from instruction in economics. Of the nine sessions organized for the 1890 meetings, two were entirely devoted to economic education (Publications 1891). Shortly thereafter, the bylaws of the association were amended to include a standing committee "On the Teaching of Political Economy."

After this initial flurry of activity, the association's interest in economic education apparently waned. Not until 1897 did the subject again make the agenda, when a special committee on the teaching of economic history was appointed, and the association published the discussions generated by two roundtables on teaching economics held at the annual meetings: "The Relation of the Teaching of Economic History to the Teaching of Political Economy" and "Methods of Teaching Economics" (Economic Studies 1898). The renaissance in interest seems to have been at least in part a response to the growing number of AEA members who were academics. In his report to the eleventh annual meeting, Walter Willcox, the secretary, wrote that "of the regular members in 1886 about one-fourth (26.6 percent) were associated with educational institutions. At the present time [1899] the proportion is about one-third (33.6 percent). I believe there has never been any intention of choosing a majority of members of the Council from the ranks of teachers, but at the present time about four-fifths of that body are to be regarded as such. This evidence tends to show what one who has been in attendance at recent meetings will not be disposed to question, that our Association is largely and perhaps increasingly an academic one" (Willcox 1899).

As economics or political economy began to emerge as a separate discipline from politics, philosophy, and history toward the end of the nineteenth century and to find a niche in the curriculum of many colleges and universities, more and more professors began devoting their attention to the problems of teaching economics and the appropriate role of economics in the curriculum. By the turn of the century, the place of economics as a separate and distinct subject appropriate for the college curriculum appears to have been secured.

Attention then shifted toward economics in secondary schools. In 1899, Frederick Clow wrote a long description of what was known about teaching economics in secondary schools. After a detailed discussion of the educational value of economics, he asked whether it could be taught profitably at the high school level. The main concerns were the capacity of students and the fitness of teachers. Some argued that high school students were too immature to intelligently grasp economics. The president of Tufts College (Capen), for example, doubted "...the wisdom of trying to teach [economics] to immature minds. It is a grave question how far minds of the high school period are capable of rising to the delicate distinctions required or how much of what may be taught them at that stage they are capable of carrying with profit into after life" (Clow 1899, 199). Others argued that the limitation was primarily on the teaching side. For example, C.J. Bullock of Cornell is quoted as arguing that "there is no real difficulty in bringing the elements of the science within the comprehension of scholars in secondary schools, provided only that sufficient attention is paid to methods of instruction" (Clow 1899, 199). Clow concluded that economics can be studied successfully in secondary schools if taught by well-prepared and skillful instructors, and he urged its introduction into high schools. In passing, he noted a marked difference between the sexes in grades attained; females scored lower than males. Clow ends with advice on how to teach economics more effectively. His pedagogical advice can still be read with benefit. An annotated bibliography of 28 books and articles on teaching economics and a list of 23 economics textbooks is appended to the Clow article.

At its thirteenth annual meeting in 1900, the association, having previously dealt with the teaching of statistics, economics in high school, and economics in colleges and universities, took up the question of the appropriate roles for business education, economic geography, and accounting (Publications 1901). Almost a century ago, economists already exhibited tendencies toward academic imperialism.

During the next four decades, interest in economic education waxed and waned but never disappeared. Articles and sessions devoted to the teaching of economics appeared sporadically but frequently in the association's publications and annual meetings. From 1901 to 1940, ten sessions focused on some aspect of economic education. These included roundtables on higher commercial education (1907), accounting (Cole 1909), the teaching of elementary economics (1920, 1921; Bogart 1922), aims and methods of college courses in transportation (Butterbaugh 1923), the teaching of business and economics (1925), and problems in the teaching of economics (Donham 1922; Ise 1922; Bye 1940). In addition to these, numerous articles, communications, and comments on economic education appeared during the interwar period (Folsom 1925; Cummins 1928; Bohan 1937; Hunsberger 1937; Tuttle 1938; Beach 1938; Eldridge 1938; Grady 1939; Hewett 1940; Mitchell 1940; Hudson 1949; Parrish 1941; and Shilland 1940). Many of these short papers considered the appropriate content of the introductory course in economics. Each suggestion for the arrangement of the course brought reaction; a lively debate continued throughout the period. Several actions of the Executive Committee, resolutions at the annual business meetings, and activities of committees related to education were reported in the association's minutes (Minutes 1915, Report 1917, Report 1918, Report 1919, Committee 1922, and Report 1924).

In 1941, Charles M. Elkinton (1941) hypothesized that students' biases act as a barrier to good analytical reasoning. He proposed a diagnostic test for such biases, consisting of 19 statements related to some economic policy which the student was asked to support or oppose. For each statement, there was another "paired" assertion that contradicted the first. Responses were considered consistent if one of the statements was checked as false and the paired statement as true. Replies were contradictory if both statements were checked as true, and replies were of doubtful consistency if both statements were checked as false. Elkinton argued that the experience of being confronted with specific contradictions concerning policy issues stimulated interest in analytical reasoning about the contradictions and helped students evaluate their implicit value judgments. We have found no follow-up to this intriguing suggestion as an approach to teaching economic principles.

Another salvo in the debate on what to teach in the introductory economics course was fired by Richard Clemence and Francis S Doody (1942) when they argued, among other things, for introducing Keynesianism in the beginning course. Not until after World War II did the profession reach any sort of consensus about beginning course content.

The most comprehensive study of undergraduate teaching of economics ever undertaken was initiated by the association's Executive Committee in 1944 with the appointment of the Committee on Undergraduate Teaching in Economics and Training of Economists, chaired by Horace Taylor of Columbia University. Ten subcommittees were appointed to handle various aspects of the problem; elementary courses in economics, interdepartmental introductory courses in social studies, the undergraduate economics curriculum and related areas of study, the training of teachers of economics, the study of economics in schools of business, undergraduate economics in preparation for careers in public service and in business administration, treatment of especially able students of economics, the teaching of economics in the secondary schools, the study of economics in relation to education in agriculture, and the study of economics in relation to education in the professions. One year later, another subcommittee was added - visual and auditory apparatus for the teaching of economics. All together, 56 association members (including two future Nobel Prize winners - Stigler and Schultz) and 22 consultants worked on this massive project. Never before or since has the association devoted so many resources to a specific study.

The first paper resulting from the committee's work appeared in 1945 (Hacker 1945) and concerned interdisciplinary courses. Two other subcommittees reported their findings at the 1945 annual meetings (Newcomer 1946; Hewett 1946). After this initial burst of enthusiasm and activity, however, the committee bogged down. Bits and pieces and passing references to its work appear here and there for the next three years, but nothing substantive was completed. The Executive Committee became increasingly exasperated with the pace of the project. At its April 1-2, 1949, meeting the Executive Committee refused the Taylor Committee permission to publish its reports piece-meal in order to "convey word to the Committee that we hope that its work would be at the end of [1949] results in reports which would merit publication" (Minutes 1950). In an effort to save the project, an arrangement was reached with the Higher Education Department of the U.S. Office of Education to provide the committee with staff support. The additional manpower had its intended effect. The Taylor Committee submitted its final report to the Executive Committee at the December 1949 meetings. Its recommendations were (1) that an overall summary report and recommendations be published as a supplementary volume of the American Economic Review, (2) that it be constituted as a standing committee and that a separate Committee on Graduate Training be appointed, and (3) that the association affiliate with the National Council on Social Studies and the Committee on Economics in Secondary Schools of the U.S. Office of Education. The Executive Committee voted to publish the committee's report but took no action on its other recommendations (Minutes 1950). At its April 7-8, 1950, meeting the Executive Committee voted explicitly to "postpone action on establishing a permanent or standing committee on education in economics" (Minutes 1951). The Taylor Committee persisted in its request for a standing committee on economics education until finally at the December 26 and 30, 1950, meeting the Executive Committee "voted to discharge the [Taylor] Committee with thanks" (Minutes 1951). The work of the committee finally culminated in the publication of its report, The Teaching of Undergraduate Economics (Taylor 1950).

The association was active in economic education at other levels, too. At the December 1950 meeting, the Executive Committee formed a special Commission on Graduate Education, chaired by Howard Bowen. Its work was conducted over the succeeding few years. At its spring 1952 meeting, after a lengthy discussion the Executive Committee voted to accept membership on the Commission on Economics in [Elementary and Secondary Level] Teacher Education, and in light of this experience, to investigate the desirability of further cooperation with the Joint Council on Economic Education (JCEE) (Minutes 1953). The purpose of the commission was to prepare elementary and secondary teachers to teach economics. Later that same year, the Executive Committee voted to establish an office Ad Hoc Committee on Economics in Teacher Education, which was charged with concern about precollege economics education (Minutes 1953).

Finally, at the December 1955 meeting of the association's Executive Committee, the Ad Hoc Committee on Teacher Education was recast as a standing Committee on Economic Education (CEE). This standing committee was to serve as a focal point for improving the status of economic education within the field of professional economists, to stimulate and encourage professional work on economic education, and to encourage the preparation of articles about and arrange sessions at the annual AEA meetings on economic education (Minutes 1956). Thus, the association's postwar activities in secondary, college, and graduate economic education finally led to a standing committee with broad responsibilities in economic education, albeit a few years later than had been hoped by the Taylor Committee.

Sessions on the teaching of economics in the schools were included in the 1955 and 1956 AEA annual meeting programs and published in the succeeding years' Papers and Proceedings. By special request the CEE, sessions on economic education occurred again in the 1960 and 1961 annual meetings. During the late 1950s, the CEE focused on precollege teacher training and developed a formal affiliation with the JCEE. Other activities of the period included preparation of a roster of economists interested in economic education, and a study of textbooks used in secondary school courses in American history, social problems, and economics. In 1960, the committee helped establish the National Task Force on Economic Education whose goal was to describe the minimum level of economic understanding essential for the practice of good citizenship. The Task Force's report, Economic Education in the Schools (Bach 1961), described what economics should be taught at the high school level. The committee also assisted in producing "The American Economy" television series aired nationwide by 241 television stations in 1962-63. This series of 160 half-hour programs reached an audience of over a million viewers (Bach and Saunders 1965).

After a careful review of the role of the association in economic education, the Executive Committee in December 1963 dissolved the existing Committee on Economic Education and created a successor with the same name, which has survived continuously to the present (Minutes 1964). The successor committee was to be more action oriented. It was charged with improving the quality of economic education at all levels, from precollege to college, adult and general economic education. By request of the CEE, the Executive Committee in March 1964 voted to include a special session on economic education at each annual meeting (Minutes 1965). With the exception of 1965, there has been a special session on economic education at each annual meeting of the AEA since 1964.

In 1961, the National Task Force on Economic Education (of which the association was a member) recommended that the JCEE construct a standardized Test of Economic Understanding. A specially appointed Committee on Measurement of Economic Understanding completed this high school-level exam (renamed the Test of Economic Literacy [TEL] in its revised forms) in 1963 (Joint Council on Economic Education 1963). Another blue-ribbon committee of distinguished economists was then asked to assemble a similar exam for the introductory college-level course. The college-level exam, called the Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE) was completed in 1968 (Joint Council on Economic Education 1968) and has since been revised in 1979 and 1989. The TUCE fostered rapid growth in research on teaching college economics in the 1970s by providing a standardized measure of "output." During this period, the CEE also helped the Joint Council establish the Journal of Economic Education, which published its first issue in 1969 and has been disseminating important research findings and information about teaching economics ever since.

In the 1970s, the CEE turned its attention to teacher training programs, establishing in the late 1970s national workshops on economics instruction and helping the JCEE produce material to be used with such workshops (Saunders, Welch, and Hansen 1978). Some of these materials have been recently revised (Saunders and Walstad 1990). The CEE also played a role in the Journal of Economic Literature's decision to publish a survey of research findings on the teaching of economics (Siegfried and Fels 1979), and it cosponsored a survey of the economic curriculum in U.S. four-year colleges and universities (Siegfried and Wilkinson 1982, Siegfried and Raymond 1984).

Finally, in the 1980s, the CEE was active in developing an advanced placement examination in economics (Buckles and Morton 1988; Highsmith 1989), nurturing young scholars interested in doing research on teaching high school economics (Becker, Greene, and Rosen 1990), sponsoring a conference on textbooks for the principles course (Journal of Economic Education 1988), and continuing work on the economics major (Siegfried, Bartlett, Hansen, Kelley, McCloskey, and Tietenberg 1991). All of these projects have been conducted in cooperation with the JCEE.

Our survey of the activities of the American Economic Association in economic education indicates a longstanding and fairly steady committee to the subject by members of the association. The peaks of interest were in the late nineteenth century, immediately after World War II, and from the mid-1960s to the present.

The literature on economic education grew rapidly in the 1970s. In Rendigs Fels's (1969) presidential address to the Southern Economic Association, "Hard Research on a Soft Subject: Hypothesis Testing in Economic Education," he reviewed the eight studies then available that provided hard evidence about effective economics instruction. By 1979, Siegfried and Fels (1979) reviewed 179 research articles and books about economic education. Since then, the growth of published research on economic education has slowed. A complete revision of the Siegfried-Fels survey article to bring it up to date as of 1989 would expand the list of references from 179 to approximately 250, and relatively few of the additions could be judged as "classics." The slower pace of research on economic education in the 1980s is an important and puzzling phenomenon. The question researchers are trying to answer may be becoming more difficult. Perhaps as attention has shifted from the principles courses to the economics major, the lack of a standardized assessment instrument has made research more difficult. Or perhaps some new conceptualization is needed to open up additional avenues of research.

Although the association has had a long-term commitment to economic education, it is clear that today this interest is located to a greater extent among "specialists" in economic education. Has the pressure to publish, the fragmentation of research interests, and the ever increasing specialization within this profession contributed to the apparent decline in the association's desire "to diffuse light"? Through the association's early history and until as recently as World War II, the teaching of economics was regularly a central topic for discussion and debate among the leaders of the association. That is rarely the case today.

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