The Development of Children's Economic Reasoning

Buy Low, Sell High: The Development of an Informal Theory of Economics

“…From about 3 to 7 years (Piaget's preoperational period), children have some knowledge of common, observable economic phenomena. Presumably because they have observed other people's behavior in stores, young children have rudimentary knowledge of buying and selling, for example, most young children know that buyers must pay sellers money (Berti & Bombi, 1988;Burris, 1983;Danziger, 1958;Furth, 1978;Jahoda, 1979;Schug & Birkey, 1985;Tan & Stacey, 1981). However, young children seldom make connections among different pieces of their economic knowledge.…”

The Effect of Cooperative and Mastery Learning Methods on Primary Grade Students' Learning and Retention of Economic Concepts

“…Of these, most (e.g., Ajello et al, 1987; Armento, 1982; Berti et al, 1986; Burris, 1976;Fox, 1978;Furth 1980; Schug, 1981Schug, ,1983; Schug and Birkey, 1985; and Strauss, 1952) have undertaken interview studies that look for developmental patterns in economic reasoning. The findings of these studies suggest that economic thinking develops in an age-related, stage-like sequence.…”

Naïve theories of price: A developmental model

“…In treating reasoning about price as a social reasoning skill with a strong normative component, our approach to the study of children's reasoning about price differs both from previous research on how children acquire skill in recognizing different kinds of money and in making change (Berti & Bombi, 1981) and from previous research on how children understand the chain of commercial transactions (Danziger, 1958;Furth, 1979;Fox, 1978;Jahoda, 1979;Shug & Birkey, 1985;Strauss, 1952). The N& THEORIES OF PRICE question of interest in studies of children's concept of monetary value has been how children come to understand that in order to buy an object, they must give the seller money equal to or greater than the price.…”

“…The N& THEORIES OF PRICE question of interest in studies of children's concept of monetary value has been how children come to understand that in order to buy an object, they must give the seller money equal to or greater than the price. It is assumed that price is a measure of value, but children's understanding of the source of value measured by price is either not queried, or if queried (Shug & Birkey, 1985), children are not given an opportunity to directly compare different criteria and their associated sources of value. It is only in the comparison of different criteria that children give us an opportunity to assess their concept of what a "good" criterion is.…”