What is a pluralist approach to Teaching Economics?

The term pluralism is generally used to contrast with so called ‘mainstream’ economics teaching which generally only focusses on one school of economic thought called neo-classical economics. This has a number of key assumptions that are central to its approach such as economic agents seeking to maximise their individual happiness and markets tending towards equilibrium and generally leading to efficient outcomes. Pluralism in contrast recognises and teaches a range of different approaches to understanding the economy and its interaction with the wider social and environmental systems in an interactive, reflective and engaging manner.

We have co-created a set of high-highlevel principles for teaching from a pluralist approach here.

You can also find a range of more extensive material from other sources:

Professor Shiela Dow provides a useful background to and overview of Pluralism in Economics.

Video project funded by the Independant Social Research Foundation. You can see other videos in this series here.

Ha Joon Chang has also recently created a great set of lectures with INET which start with this trailer with the lecturers following:

A good source of learning material and more is at Exploring Economics.  This e-learning platform offers an introduction to pluralist economics, it aggregates online accessible learning material and lists online study courses from throughout the world.