Poverty in U.S. and Canadian Financial Literacy Curriculum Frameworks: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This thesis examines the topic of poverty and the treatment of economically marginalized individuals in official high school financial literacy curriculum frameworks in the United States and Canada. Employing critical discourse and ideological analysis, this study investigates the stated and unstated ideological assumptions underpinning financial literacy curriculum documents and what they imply about poverty and people who are poor. Findings suggest that official financial literacy curriculum frameworks overwhelmingly ascribe to individualistic paradigms of poverty that see individuals as personally responsible for their financial outcomes. Few documents examined delve into the social, political, and economic contexts affecting individuals’ ability to maintain financial security and build wealth. Additionally, topics of relevance to people who are poor as well as their perspectives and experiences are avoided in the majority of these documents, which are found to be middle-class centric. Offering a critique of financial literacy as it is manifested in contemporary U.S. and Canadian curriculum frameworks, this thesis contributes to scholarship problematizing financial literacy initiatives and calling for more inclusive, critical, and social justice oriented approaches to financial literacy education.