Bringing the classroom to the real world: Field trips to marginalized neighborhoods

Abstract

The authors incorporate experiential learning into three courses: Urban Economics, Labor Economics, and the Economics of Inequality. Students visit neighborhoods that, while geographically proximate, remain outside most students’ day-to-day experiences, such as a legal red-light district that is also home to low-wage immigrant workers and a public rental housing estate whose residents were recently relocated. These location-oriented field trips raise a confluence of themes, such as poverty and crime, that relate to and beyond the authors’ courses. Students’ written reflections provide evidence that they are able to: (i) identify economic concepts within the lived realities of communities; (ii) recognize the assumptions and validity of economic models; and (iii) contextualize and reevaluate the costs and benefits to the economic agents whom they model in the classroom.

Keywords:

• Community engagement
• experiential learning
• field trips
• inequality
• poverty

JEL CODES:

• A2
• I3
• J0
• R0

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Katrina Babb, Emily Beam, Justin Jarvis, Lai Yoke Mun, Yang Zhang, William Bosshardt, and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. They also appreciate the comments from participants at the 2021 AEA Conference on Teaching and Research in Economics Education.

Notes

1 Source: World Bank. https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators

2 The Singapore Department of Statistics defines residents as citizens and permanent residents. Source: Singapore Census of Population 2020. https://www.singstat.gov.sg/publications/‌reference/cop2020/cop2020-sr1

3 Source: Singapore General Household Survey, 2015. https://www.singstat.gov.sg/publications/‌ghs/ghs2015content

4 According to the Singapore Department of Statistics, “a resident employed household refers to a household where the household reference person is a Singapore citizen or permanent resident, and with at least one working person.” Source: Singapore Census of Population 2020. https://www.singstat.gov.sg/publications/reference/cop2020/cop2020-sr2

5 Source: Singapore Ministry of Manpower. https://www.mom.gov.sg/documents-and-publications/foreign-workforce-numbers

6 Source: Singapore Ministry of National Development. https://www.mnd.gov.sg/newsroom/‌parliament-matters/q-as/view/written-answer-by-ministry-of-national-development-on-households-living-in-hdb-rental-flats

Additional information

Funding

Financial support from the Department of Economics at the National University of Singapore is greatly appreciated.