Contending economic perspectives at a liberal arts college: a 25-year retrospective

Charles Barone

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2011, vol. 2, issue 1, 19-38

Abstract: In 1985 the Department of Economics at Dickinson College USA, a private four year liberal arts college, embarked upon a bold but promising reform of its economics programme placing it on the cutting edge of what is now called 'pluralist economics education'. This new approach to the philosophy of economics education was and is called 'contending economic perspectives'. My article 'Contending perspectives: curricular reform in economics' published in the Journal of Economics Education (1991) argued for the inclusion of heterodox economic theories and articulated the benefits of the Dickinson contending perspectives programme. After 25 years experience with this programme what have our students learned and what have we learned from this experience? In the face of the new (or renewed) worldwide discussions of a 'new' pluralist economics in the wake of the post-autistic movement started by French students in 2000, is the 'contending perspectives' model still consistent with the current ideals of pluralist economics education? This paper argues that the answer to that question is a qualified yes.

Keywords: contending economic perspectives; contending perspectives; instrumentalist educational philosophy; liberal arts educational philosophy; pluralism; curricular reform; paradigms; neoclassical economics; NCE; heterodox economics; monistic; institutional economics; feminist economics; radical political economy; RPE; Marxist economics; economics education; pluralist education; higher education. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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