Children's conceptions of economics - The constitution of a cognitive domain

The understanding of economics of 89 Israeli children, aged 7-17, was probed by means of interviews and questionnaires. Questions asked covered a broad range, including: commerce, production, strikes, capital investment, and the causes of inflation. The answers are analyzed in a cognitive framework. It is argued that economic understanding is initially based on "conceptions", small but growing interpretative vignettes which provide a meaningful account of economic actions. Macro-economic phenomena which lie outside the explanatory scope of single conceptions are understood later than the behavior of individual actors.