The AEA Goes to High School in the Age of Sputnik

Abstract

The 1957 launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union led to extensive efforts across the Unted States by the federal government, foundations, universities, and the private sector, all aimed at dramatically improving how science was taught in the nation's schools. Part of this reform focused on how economics was taught in high schools. Prior to this new influx of resources and attention, only a few professional economists in the US had shown any interest in economics education outside of the universities, and many even resisted the idea that the subject could be taught effectively before college. Following Sputnik, new institutional commitments by the American Economic Association (AEA) and many of its leading members led both to a comprehensive review of how economic ideas were being taught through the nation's most popular high school textbooks and to the first commitment that the AEA had an ongoing responsibility to support the nation's basic economic literacy.