Breaking Down the Language Barrier: Using Pop Culture from Across the Globe to Teach Microeconomics

Abstract

Economic educators have been teaching with pop culture for decades, but the idea of using foreign-language teaching resources to create a more inclusive and diverse classroom has only recently been taken up. This paper builds on the work of Wooten et al. (2020), who have shown how K-pop can be integrated into an English-language classroom. We expand on that work by compiling a set of 12 teaching guides using material from 12 different countries that demonstrate economic concepts commonly taught in a principles of microeconomics course. Al-Bahrani (2020) has called on educators to take a deliberate approach to diversifying their lecture material. It is our hope that, with time, broadly diverse and inclusive media will be ubiquitous when students are introduced to economics.

Keywords: inclusive teaching, diversity, media, teaching economics

JEL Classification: A20, A21