Performing Economics: A Critique of ‘Teaching and Learning’*

Economics students find difficulty in developing effective learning strategies; they would also welcome and benefit from a more pluralistic teaching of economics. Nevertheless, economics teaching has become less pluralistic over the recent past. Recent benchmark statements seem content to underwrite an essentially monist approach to the discipline in the hope that a deepening crisis in economics teaching can be averted by expanding teaching and learning programmes taking the content of teaching as given and instead concentrating on presentational reform.The paper argues that such teaching and learning strategies are part of the problem rather than its solution.