著者

猪瀬 武則 髙橋 桂子

出版者

実践女子大学

雑誌

実践女子大学生活科学部紀要 = Bulletin of Jissen Women's University Faculty of Human Life Sciences (ISSN:24336645)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.55, pp.43-52, 2018-03-09

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The study aimed to elucidate the understanding of concepts of economics and ethics through a survey conducted among senior high school students.Previous studies investigated economic literacy and financial morality; however, there have been limited surveys of economic literacy based on ethics. We surveyed senior high school students about their understanding of economic and ethical concepts. Simultaneously, we examined the scores of students who performed well on the survey in order to determine what moral foundations and ideological tendencies their scores implied. The moral foundations are based on Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory.The research questions were as follows:Question 1: Is there a correlation between students' understanding of economic and ethical concepts and their moral foundations?Question 2: Do students who scored well in tests on economics and ethics indicate concerns with liberty and fairness? In other words, are they libertarians?The data was derived from a 2016 survey of students at high schools. The respondents included 313 males and 383 females. To answer the two research questions, we employed a one-way analysis of variance to predict scores for each category based on the moral foundation variables for Research Question 2.Test instruments containing 23 items were classified into eight dependent valuables: competitive labor market, market effectiveness, demand & supply, rational self-interest, welfare & preference, corporate social responsibility, fairness & justice, and reciprocal altruism. Independent valuables are Jonathan Haidt's five moral foundations: care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity.Three results emerged. First, there is a correlation between Haidt's five moral foundations and students' understanding of economic and ethical concepts. Second, higher-scoring students expressed concerns relevant to all five of Haidt's foundations. Thus, they are generally considered as conservatives. Third, the significant difference was found among men and women in regard to their comprehension and moral foundations.Further studies are needed to determine the precision of our survey.