A year ago the Journal of Social Science Education 4/2010 invites to debate the foundation of social science literacy. What are the competences, and 'what are' the contents, and individual needs to understand the relations, systems and orders of society, economy and politics? What helps to make autonomously found decisions and responsible judgements in individual and social life? What kind of abilities are needed for autonomous action within ones own life in order to participate within the given frames of society, economy and politics, in shaping them or in creating new rules. Search and discussion of the relevant concepts and competences in the domain of social science education are going on. Nevertheless the research on testing and diagnosing social science literacy is carried as well – despite the absence of a consensus on content.
Since international tests compare the performance of students in different subjects, the issue of literacy in the social science subject is becoming more pressing. The successes and failures in international tests influence the national education policies considerably. First, the inclusion of subjects in international comparisons has consequences for their importance. Second, the race in the Olympics of education leads to an increasing focus on the output of educational processes, also measured in the central exams. Social Sciences can refuse to take part in the national comparison studies with the price of losing much more importance; they can participate with the danger of undermining their goals. This raises a lot of questions: What competences students need in this social world to reason about it und to act responsibly? What is the foundation of concepts from social science students need for guidance and understanding their place and role as an individual in society? The social science disciplines, as sociology, political science and economics in a narrow sense, history, law and geography in a broader sense, supported by philosophy, pedagogy and psychology are able to select them for educational purposes or determine such educational aims. This Journal wants to resume und discuss competences and core con¬cepts for political and economic teaching and learning as Social Science Literacy". Contributions in this issue do not only discuss and recommend competences and core concepts from a domain specific political or economic point of view, but also from an interdisciplinary or psychological point of view. They analyse preconditions and interdependencies as well as obstacles und problems of development and diagnosis core concepts and competences of Social Science Literacy.
Children are affected by poverty, unemployment and pollution; they are a target group for firms. Without doubt they have to deal with the problems of economic allocation, distribution and stabilisation. But children are also individuals with needs and purchasing power, who make economic decisions themselves and influence those of others. Children interpret and construct their own explanations for these phenomena and build their own problem-solving strategies. Do shops create goods themselves? Do banks produce money? Is the function of a bank the protection of money against theft? Does the government tell people which job to do? Can everybody choose what he or she wants? Is a car more expensive than a jumper because it is bigger or because it can be driven? If school is supposed to help children understand and act in the world they are living in, then even at primary school economic world can not be blanked out. The main aim of this contribution is to analyse, if German curricula for primary schools as well as the main association of primary school attach importance to the economic phenomena in a child's world. As these concepts are not developed by experts of economic education but by experts of primary education, I want to contrast these aims with three concepts respectively aims of economic education at primary school developed by experts of economic education. So the extremes can be shown: Which importance could economic education get und which is currently attached. However, also the concepts and aims of constructors of concepts for economic education do not satisfy totally. Either they derive their aims directly from economics as a science or from economic situations children take part or should know about. They draw out what children should know about or what children could do to learn about, seldom is pointed out, what children should be able to understand and responsibly act. Therefore an understanding of children's construction of economic world is necessary. These constructs are analysed by economic ...
