By Tom White (Head of Economics, Business & Politics; Norwich School)
I am a schoolteacher responsible for ‘A’ level teaching in Economics, Business and Politics and was very fortunate to have the opportunity to spend a month on sabbatical at UEA in the summer of 2023. My goals were to understand ECO and NBS in terms of the undergraduate experience, the nature of postgraduate study research work, and how academic career tracks work. Having left university in 1991 I was keen to pose the question ‘What is Economics?’ to working academics and investigate why (in the England) the subject has a male bias. I had a rare opportunity for deeper reflection and reading to answer my own questions about the social purpose of academic enquiry and its relevance to contemporary problems. From a practical perspective I also wanted to come away with contacts and lesson ideas.
The last ten or fifteen years had undermined some of my confidence in the social value of Economics. I had some concerns that economics might just be a mathematical abstraction with no real-world relevance. If so, should I be advising pupils to study a subject that was so detached from reality? Should I take seriously the suggestion of one parent that I was wasting my time, and that pupils should be steered into the maths classroom rather than mine? I came to ECO with some doubts about the insights offered by macroeconomics, and I was also despondent thinking that studying psychology might offer better insights than those in microeconomics.
All my conversations at UEA were characterised by warmth, generosity, curiosity and intellectual excitement and it was a real privilege to share an office with the legendary Bob Sugden. Before lunch on my first day, I had watched PhD discussions about research being prepared for publication and held conversations that ranged from Henry George to Philippe Van Parijs to Amartya Sen. I really enjoyed the sensation of being the learner and trying to remind myself of concepts while processing new ideas. Some of the experience was a bit intimidating (l think it’s fair to say I’ll need some help with Critical Realism and aspects of econometrics), but I also spent afternoons bouncing between the book stacks in the library feeling reassured that this is an intellectual domain that I do understand, enjoy and am privileged to teach. I am very grateful to the many people who have shown me the way. My stay in ECO was encouraged by Professor Emiliya Lazarova and my long-time collaboration with the department is largely thanks to Dr Mike Brock.
I have been trying to improve on my approach to recruitment and pupil progression in Economics. As a male non-mathematician, I haven’t been as effective as I would like to be in encouraging young women into the subject. Additionally, I haven’t really understood the quantitative skills needed to conduct effective research. My working hypothesis was that young women aren’t just deterred from economics by visions of City trading rooms, but by the view that the subject is ‘too mathematical’. I changed my mind by learning that there is strong recruitment by women on to STEM subjects at undergraduate level. Although I am numerate, I was advantaged by undergraduate study on a BA economics programme and so I appreciate the benefits to ECO of admitting pupils without Maths at ‘A’ level to increase the range of their intake. I can see that this presents a differentiation challenge (which is typical of all teaching situations) and it presents an extra burden on teaching staff. I know that my econometric skills are almost non-existent, and any further postgraduate work I might do would require me to address this shortcoming as a priority. I would love to do that as I can see how technical and mathematical rigour makes economics more powerful and differentiates economics from other social sciences.
An advantage of the diverse international backgrounds of ECO is the realisation that the ‘women in economics problem’ is culturally specific to England (and I do mean England, not the UK). A lack of role models was cited several times as a key issue. My conversations on this topic often connected to my ‘what is economics?’ questions. Perhaps part of the gender gap might be explained by the perception of the subject as s route into the finance industry, where the nature of employment may discourage some women. I was advised to stress that the subject is about decision making and emphasise that hard work is the key determinant of success rather than ‘talent’. I was interested to see that NBS use the same undergraduate recruitment model as ECO and find it easier to recruit onto their BA than BSc degrees because of the lack of confidence applicants have with numeracy. It’s a cultural hangup that we could do without.
I hadn’t given much attention to academic careers before my stay at ECO, so I learned a lot as several of my conversations covered the challenges of managing research and teaching career tracks. I often think about the tensions and contradictions bound up in meritocracy and status, so it was interesting to explore that for a university academic’s perspective. I learned about a hierarchy of journals, the need to be on a cutting edge of research and for ‘name power’ in getting fair consideration for acceptance in the most prestigious journals. It’s a far harder career path than I imagined. I was able to get a much clearer picture of a what a career as a professional economist looks like, from the choice of public facing or finance roles to the split between academia versus government and central banks. I was very impressed by the intellectual diversity in ECO and the bewildering range of research across a huge variety of topics, alongside its specialisms in experimental economics and competition policy. I can sense some of the difficulties of operating in a very competitive recruitment environment and some of the problems that creates for people working in the sector.
It was important to include a practical element in my sabbatical so that I could return to school with ideas for new classroom resources. During my stay at UEA I invited the Norwich School Year 12 Business and Economics pupils to the NEWSCI to experience experimental economics by playing through several activities including versions of the Dictator Game. I look forward to new collaborations with several academics from ECO. I am very grateful to NBS and The Enterprise Centre (TEC) who gave me lots of inspiration and classroom ideas. My own reading in Business focusses heavily on ESG and Finance (the impact of business behaviour on society and how commercial activity can be repurposed to achieve social and environment value in addition to profit). It is my belief that accountants will play a big role in saving the world and this was reinforced by the conversations I had in TEC with Dr Ellington and his Triple Bottom Line accountancy business. I got lots of advice on teaching entrepreneurship and have come away with some terrific new tools to help pupils cultivate creativity. For several years my work on entrepreneurship has been encouraged by Dr Dousios and I was further inspired at NBS with the ambition of his research using AI to interpret the impact of entrepreneurial personality types on success in fundraising.
I wasn’t looking to draw conclusions at ECO and NBS, but happy to leave with fresh insights and new questions. I remain very happy as an Economics and Business teacher and feel very comfortable with the differences in methodology (and culture) between the two Schools. I have a new appreciation of the demands on academics and the problems in cutting through from research to public acceptance, policy and implementation. I was impressed by the interdisciplinary role of contemporary economics (e.g., working with medical schools and the crossover with NBS through the Centre for Competition Policy which draws in academics from across Schools at UEA). In much the same way, NBS links to the Law School and much of their work has an interdisciplinary nature. Now that I am back in the classroom, many of these reflections have already been very helpful, and I am grateful that my UEA sabbatical far exceeded my expectations.
Special thanks at UEA to
Andrea Finegan, Associate Professor Farasat Bokhari, Associate Professor Franco Mariuzzo, Dr Bahar Ghezelayagh, Dr Christa Brunnschweiler, Dr Dimitrios Dousios, Dr Georgios Papadopoulos, Dr James Watson, Dr Laura Harvey, Dr Lili Harding, Dr Lucill Curtis, Dr Mike Brock, Dr Oana Borcan, Dr Pete Ellington, Dr Stefania Sitzia, Finbarr Carter (TEC), Fran Ellington (TBLA at TEC), Professor Corrado Di Maria, Professor Emiliya Lazarova, Professor Kevan Williams, Professor Robert Sudgen.