Comparing Teacher Education and Finance Majors' Agreement with Financial Morality Topics

Abstract

This article describes findings from a research survey that measured agreement with items that concerned financial morality. The authors analyzed the responses of 382 teacher education majors and finance majors at a Midwestern institution of higher learning in the USA. The study found highest agreement with items measuring business responsibilities, and lowest agreement with items related to wealth distribution. It noted significant differences and varying effect sizes among education and finance majors' interpretation of items concerning business responsibility and wealth distribution. The authors recommend additional research to interpret the concept of financial morality and provide suggestions for related study.Financial literacy represents a topic of interest to the social studies education community, however, recent literature (e.g. Arthur, 2012;Lucey, 2012;Pinto, 2012) suggests that existent approaches to financial literacy education lack moral impetus and reinforce antidemocratic principles. If financial literacy contains moral elements, then one's social perspective may relate to his or her interpretation of them. Among college students, this view may relate to the patterns of thinking espoused within their professional preparations. In a twenty-first century climate of diminishing global resources and increasing capitalist tendencies, how young adults interpret their financial 'moralness' greatly relates to the human outcomes associated with long-term acquisition and distribution of goods and services.Interpreting patterns of agreement with elements of financial morality and how they may differ among college-aged young adults may prompt dialogues about the influences on agreement patterns with appropriate education responses to the concept. This article offers a conceptualization of financial morality, describing the results of a related research study, and providing direction for future moral education and research. It provides a basis for scholarly dialogue about reconceptualizing financial morality and its ties to social education. Conceptual FrameworkIn previous work (Lucey & Bates, 2010), we have interpreted the influences on teacher candidates' perceptions of financial morality. Our conceptual framework for the present article provides a deeper consideration about the morality and its association with personal finance, as well as a vision for its conceptualization. What is Morality?Philosophers and researchers have considered and debated the concept of morality for some time. While a comprehensive presentation of moral and ethical history is beyond the scope of this article, previous works have found various interpretations of moral thought to exist. For example, MacIntyre (1988) traced the history of moral thought through three conflicting moral traditions:

Examining a measure of spiritual capital: Perceptions of business and education majors

“…The significantly higher degree of some dimensions of spiritual capital among education majors is consistent with findings of literature that compared education and finance majors' perceptions of financial morality (Lucey and Bates, 2014). Specifically, this study found that education majors were significantly more likely to report motivators for social action when compared with business education majors.…”