Abstract
The purpose of this research is to analyze ‘consumer education system in middle school’, whether it is suitably organized to help students make the right decision in their daily life as a rational consumer in this fast changing “the Informational Society”. We divided the consumer education of “the Informational Society” into 4 fields of studies(consumer information technique, decision making on purchasing, consumer financial management, and consumerism) and made specific analysis for this research. The “Technology & Home Economics” textbook which follows ‘The 7th curriculum’ conducted by “Korean Educational Board” Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development for first and second grade in middle school were used for this analysis. The results founded are as follows: first, for the curriculum analysis according to the 4 fields of consumer education, both the first and the second grade students' textbook had consumer information technique as the major portion of the consumer education. Second, as a result of the comparison between the two grade levels showed that the second grade level has higher portion of consumer education in “Home economics & Technology” textbook than the first grade level. Third, the present status of consumer education showed that the first grade level's consumer education was only limited in consumer information technique, but the second grade level's consumer education was ranging evenly throughout the 3 fields of consumer education: consumer information technique, decision making on purchasing and consumerism. These results of this study contribute to the development of an efficient and desirable curriculum for the adolescent' consumer education, specially for school consumer education, in “the Informational Society”.
