Conceptualizing Economic Principles, Social Entrepreneurship, and DEI in the Classroom With the Movie CODA
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April 5, 2024The Academy Award-winning film CODA (2021) provides a unique framework through which to explore and develop key economic principles and entrepreneurship topics using diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) themes. By following the lead character’s “coming of age,” viewers see her struggle with crucial life and business choices as the only hearing member of a deaf family. The family struggles to keep their third-generation family business, a fishing trawler based out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, viable. This article outlines an immersive curriculum suitable for upper-division elective economics courses and introductory applied masters-level economics courses to explore the relationships between markets, business, entrepreneurship and other topics through the lens of “social entrepreneurship”—business enterprises designed to serve marginalized populations. Learning objectives are discussed as well as exercises that bridge rational choice, firm profit maximization, social welfare optimization, regulation and industrial organization, social entrepreneurship, and other concepts. In addition, these core economic concepts provide a mechanism for using an entrepreneurial framework for addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues within an economics curriculum.
by Samuel R. Staley
Staley, S. (2024). Conceptualizing Economic Principles, Social Entrepreneurship, and DEI in the Classroom With the Movie CODA. Journal of Economics Teaching, 9(3), 148-169. DOI: 10.58311/jeconteach/8ed3dad1cc163ad19120c97b8590cdcf40ed539c
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