Transformative Economic Education—A Framework for the Integration of Socioeconomic Education and Transformative Learning Theory

Abstract

Economic education remains shaped by a neoclassical paradigm that privileges efficiency, rationality, and adaptation over pluralism, reflection, and transformation. This article presents a design-based research (DBR) project that responds to this challenge by developing a university course in “Socioeconomic Education and Structural Reflection.” The course combines socioeconomic education with transformative learning theory to create participatory, experiential, and multidimensional learning spaces. Rather than transmitting fixed knowledge, it enables students to interrogate economic narratives, recognize their own embedded assumptions, and reframe their understanding of the relationship between economy and society. Based on a qualitative case study with student focus groups, the findings show how the course fosters dissonance, multiperspectivity, and reflexive shifts. Learners begin to identify and question entrenched economic logics, both personally and collectively. The article argues that such processes correspond to a systemic form of reflection grounded in relational and ecological understandings of learning. It concludes by proposing five design principles for transformative economic education and reflects on the implications for professional development in teacher education. The course demonstrates that rethinking economics is not only possible but necessary in order to prepare educators who are capable of shaping a more pluralistic and socially responsive approach to economic education.