Abstract

Economics does not attract as broad or diverse a pool of talent as it could. For example, women comprise less than one-third of economics bachelor’s degree recipients, significantly lower than in math or statistics. The authors present a case study of a new introductory economics course that enrolled 400 students, achieved nearly 50–50 gender balance, and was among the highest-rated courses at Harvard. They summarize the course’s content and pedagogy, illustrate how this approach differs from traditional courses, and identify elements of the approach that appear to underlie its success: personal connection, real-world exposure, scientific inquiry, career value, and social relevance. They conclude by discussing how these ideas for improving economics instruction could be applied in other courses and tested empirically in future research.

摘要

经济学无法吸引尽可能广泛或多样化的人才。例如，女性在经济学学士学位接受者中所占比例不到三分之一，大大低于数学或统计学领域的比例。作者介绍了一个新的经济学入门课程的案例研究，该课程招收了400名学生，实现了近50-50的性别平衡，并且是哈佛大学评价最高的课程之一。他们总结了该课程的内容和教学方法，说明了该方法与传统课程的不同之处，并确定了该方法成功的基础：个人关系，真实世界的接触，科学探究，职业价值和社会相关性。他们最后讨论了如何将这些改进经济学教学的思想应用于其他课程，并在未来的研究中进行实证检验。