Cultivating the consumers of tomorrow, financial literacy and ‘homo economicus’-training in Danish school education

The latest research shows that the global top 10-20% of consumers from both developed and developing countries can vastly reduce global environmental pressure by changing their consumption patterns (Chen et al, 2024).
Having the future in perspective, we found it relevant to investigate the Danish youth to establish, whether and how the omnipresent call for sustainability echoes on their life worlds and attitudes, as young people and consumers. Through a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews, we researched the everyday life, attitudes and ideals of 88 8thgraders from 4 socioeconomically diverse schools in Fynen, Denmark. Surprisingly, we found little concern for the impact of excessive consumption on the environment. The secondhand market might be booming but so are online giants like Shein.
Teaching materials for Moneyweek are created through a broad and untransparent collaboration of private and public actors, but it is sponsored and initiated by the private financial sector and the materials are promoting an ideal of ‘homo economicus’, where dreams are fulfilled through saving and spending, and well-being is anchored in maximizing one’s financial resources and access to higher levels of consumption.
We suggest that this narrow approach of money managing and budgeting skills fails to secure the consumers’ critical reflection (Björklund and Sandahl 2021) on growth, consumption or the environmental impact.