Empirical educational research: “Financial issues are social issues”
2025-08-04 Good financial education not only teaches how to handle money, but also improves social participation, explains educational scientist Prof. Dr. Harald Hantke. A new research project is developing teaching programs for socially inclusive financial education.
Schools teach many things, but financial education is often neglected. That is why the OECD has called on countries around the world to develop national financial education strategies. The previous German government made this issue a prominent part of its coalition agreement: “But the financial education program should not remain a paper tiger; it should be accompanied by a major research program,” explains Prof. Dr. Harald Hantke, junior professor of social science education. Leuphana is part of a large joint project in this program together with the universities of Bielefeld, Cologne, and Münster, as well as the University of Education in Schwäbisch Gmünd. The project, with the acronym “SoFi,” aims to develop quality-assured teaching and learning arrangements for socially inclusive financial education. These are to be used both in the core subjects of social science education—such as politics, economics, social studies, or work studies—as well as in mathematics and full-time vocational schools. The researchers' priority target group is learners who have had little exposure to financial education to date.
Key focus of the research project: Common teaching and learning arrangements in the field of finance are often designed for individual action. How do I keep a household budget book? How do I provide for my old age? How do I handle money in the digital space? The teaching and learning arrangements of the SoFi project are designed to ensure that students are no longer merely informed, but understand the financial system to such an extent that they can use their knowledge for political judgments and political action: "To this end, we are conducting research at the interface between social sciences and educational sciences. This is not only about behavior, but also about circumstances. Financial issues are, after all, also political issues," says Harald Hantke.
The teaching materials are being tested and evaluated at partner schools using a pre-post design. “We are conducting inductive research and are first looking at the students' living environments. What are the issues we need to address?” explains project team member Lorenz Tille. Based on the research results, training courses for teachers aimed at school practice will ultimately be developed and offered nationwide. The aim is to disseminate this new type of financial education in cooperation with multipliers in the field.
The “Socially Inclusive Financial Education” project is funded by the former BMBF with a total of 1.5 million euros. Leuphana receives around 275,000 euros of this.