Researchers' understandings of the importance of Financial Education in Basic Education

Abstract

The objective of this article is to present the understandings of researchers in Mathematics Education and related areas about the importance of Financial Education (FE) in Basic Education (BE), encompassing the theoretical perspectives expressed by the authors. For this purpose, texts from a special edition of the Iberoamerican Mathematical and Technological Education Magazine – EM TEIA, promoted in 2021, whose theme was School Financial Education, were considered. The study is situated within the scope of qualitative research, using a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, which gives us support to make insights through the interpretations/understandings we make when reading each of the articles. As a way of guiding us during the investigative process, we chose to elaborate the following research question: What do researchers say about the importance of Financial Education in Basic Education? The formulations made by the researchers allow us to highlight the importance of FE to promote critical reflection and social justice, adequate consumption, overcoming the earn-save-spend cycle, personal organization, financial planning, understanding mathematical elements, human development, day-to-day decision making, in addition to teaching about investments, commodities, percentages, interest, graphical analysis and basic concepts of economics and geopolitics. Furthermore, in our conclusions, we understand that the authors pointed out different reasons to justify the importance of FE in BE, which is reflected in the approaches and perspectives taken in their investigations.

Keywords:
Mathematics Education; Financial Education; Basic Education; Hermeneutics; Phenomenology