Attitudes of Economic Educators toward Markets in Eastern Europe & the Former Soviet Union by Reform Status of the Educator's Country
ABSTRACT This article assesses attitudes toward the market economy among educators of the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe before and after a one-week intensive seminar in economic education. Specifically, it looks at how attitudes differ, at the start of the seminar, by the reform status of the educators' countries and how those attitudes change after a week of market-based economics instruction. Analysis shows that attitudes do indeed vary by reform status, with educators from the more reformed countries showing much more positive attitudes at the start of the seminar than those from the less reformed countries. Additional influences on attitude include gender, education level, economics knowledge, years in education, and prior western-style economics education. After an intensive seminar in economic education, all educators show improved attitudes toward markets, with greater gains among those from the less reformed countries. INTRODUCTION From 1995 through 2006, the Council for Economic Education (CEE) in New York, through its Cooperative Education Exchange Program (CEEP), conducted a series of economics seminars for educators from Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (EEFSU). The Cooperative Education Exchange Program (CEEP) is a program is funded by the U.S. Department of Education and is conducted in coordination with the U.S. Department of State. CEEP economics, a program of the National Council on Economic Education, brings together U.S. economic educators with their counterparts from central and eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and other transition and developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, and provides technical assistance and training to help educators and their students to better understand the global market economy. In-country teacher training conducted by U.S. faculty in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union provided the dataset for this paper. "The in-country teacher training program emphasizes an active learning approach and introduces basic economic concepts to teachers with limited background in economics." (CEE, 2008). One CEEP component, a six-day introductory-level seminar for secondary teachers, was conducted in thirteen countries (Albania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan) by American university economics faculty. The introductory seminar covered basic and market economic theory and methods and material for teaching economics at the secondary or introductory postsecondary levels. A key underlying assumption of CEEP training and of this study is that, as the youth of EEFSU enter the newly reformed market economies they must understand and embrace the economic concepts that underlie the transformed economic order and that educators have a key role in this process. Both Watts and Walstad (2002) and Pleskovic, et. al. (2002), highlight the need for well-trained teachers who see the importance of teaching solid market-based economics in the primary and secondary grades, as well as at higher education levels, to assure a flow of citizens who can make informed decisions as voters and as policymakers. Previous research has shown that formal economic education significantly increases knowledge of economics and yields a more positive attitude toward markets (Watts, Walstad, and Skiba, 2002; Walstad, 2002) or toward market economics as a subject (Walstad and Soper, 1989; Soper and Walstad, 1983). As experience is also a powerful teacher, one might speculate that attitudes of educators toward free markets and economic issues and policies might depend on, in addition to formal training, their own economic status and experiences. Over the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the status of reform has varied widely among the transforming countries (Âslund, 2002). The purpose of this study is twofold: One, it is to look at attitudes of economic educators in the countries of EEFSU to determine if, before a one-week seminar in market economics and economic teaching methods, these attitudes vary by the reform progress of the educators' own nations and, if so, in just what ways. …
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