From Cold War Anxiety to Scholarly Field: The Academicization of Economic Education in the United States, 1945–1979

Abstract

This article examines the emergence of economic education as a recognized research field in the United States from the late 1950s to the 1970s. It argues that growing Cold War concerns about citizenship, economic literacy, and national competitiveness created a favorable environment for renewed interest in economic education. Within this context, organizations such as the Joint Council on Economic Education and the American Economic Association sought to professionalize the field by adopting the methodological standards of economics itself. The development of standardized assessment instruments, notably the Test of Economic Understanding (TEU) and the Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE), enabled the systematic evaluation of teaching methods and helped establish economic education as a legitimate area of empirical research. At the same time, these instruments contributed to standardizing the content of introductory economics, reinforcing a particular conception of economic knowledge while narrowing debate over alternative approaches to teaching the discipline.