Teaching and Learning the Embedded Economy

As a part of a research project funded by the Swedish Research Council upper secondary teachers in Belgium and Sweden have used the Embedded Economy model and the lesson series “Meet the Economy” to develop new teaching materials to be used in subjects such as Social studies (in Sweden) and Economics (in Belgium). The development of new teaching materials was organised in the form of a series of Lesson Design Workshops. The format of Lesson design workshops employs transdisciplinary co-production (integrating research-based and practice-based expertise) as a deliberate strategy to bridge the gap between theory and practice In the first workshop the lesson series ‘Meet the Economy’ was introduced. This lesson series involves teaching about four economic spheres (household, market, state and commons) and how they could collaborate with the goal of coming within the limits of the doughnut, i.e., meet all needs within the boundaries of the planet.  In the first workshop, we used the ‘hand-method’ to identify what to keep and things that needed to be changed to fit Belgian and Swedish local contexts, which for instance involved: amount of time, students’ previous knowledge and requirements in relation to the formal curricula. 

In the following workshops teachers and researchers collaborated to make necessary adaptations, for instance by identifying local examples to illustrate different economic spheres. This process also included sessions with short lectures about the foundations of ecological economics in comparison with neoclassical economics and contributions in the form of additional ideas by Carolina Escobar-Tello, education lead at DEAL. Subsequently, the teachers tested the educational materials in their own classrooms. Here are some examples from these lessons:

In a preparatory assignment, students were asked to keep a diary of the various needs and wants they had experienced in the past week. For each need they indicated how it was met and who or what that had contributed to fulfilling it. In the first lesson the needs (and wants) were then written on post-it-notes. The needs and wants were then discussed in groups and then ranked by placing the notes on a line from most to least necessary.

The examples of needs from the students’ diaries were then used to learn about the Embedded Economy model, or more specifically, how this model can be used to learn/study or analyse the economy in which they live. 

 

In another lesson students learned about historical shifts between different economic spheres, i.e. when the way for provisioning for a specific need has changed or moved from one economic sphere to another. As a preparation for this lesson the students were asked to interview an older person about how their needs were met when they were at the same age as the students. They were also invited to reflect on how these changes has had an impact on the society and the earth. 

In the end of the lesson series, students were introduced to how the Doughnut model and the Embedded Economy model can be used together to reflect on how ways of provisioning for needs can be organised to meet all needs within the boundaries of the planet (move into the doughnut). Hardly surprising, this kind of reflection was found to be very difficult. Still, the two different models in combination were found very useful as a starter. 

 

All lessons were documented with video- and audio recordings, and students’ assignments during lessons were also collected and analysed. Based on results from this analysis, lesson series have been implemented again in spring 2026. Results in the form of revised teaching tools from this second round of workshops will be presented here later this year.

Principal Investigator: Pernilla Andersson, associate professor, Uppsala University; 
Researchers: Lina Isacs, postdoctoral researcher, Uppsala University; Lise Janssens, postdoctoral researcher, Hasselt University; Tom Kuppens, associate professor, Hasselt University; Johan Öhman, professor, Örebro University; Leif Östman, professor, Uppsala University.
Collaborators: Carolina Escobar-Tello, educational lead, Doughnut Economics Action Lab.