Dr. Junaid Jahangir uses Disney clips to tackle concepts like the Top 1% and policies to address economic inequality. With help from The Princess and The Frog, Snow White and Winnie the Pooh, he’s shining a spotlight on humanistic economics – a topic usually tucked into the final chapters of textbooks.
The associate professor of economics spoke with MacEwan’s Research Recast(ed) podcast during its 2022/23 season (the new season kicked off a few weeks ago with an episode from Dr. Craig Kuziensky – check it out on Pinecast) about the importance of teaching from different perspectives. Rather than taking the mainstream approach to the Ten Principles of Economics in his ECON 101 course, Dr. Jahangir is leaning on Walt Disney and encouraging students to think critically about those same principles.
For example, the song “Whistle While You Work” offers a way for Dr. Jahangir to introduce economics Principle 8 – that a person’s living standard is based on their productivity.
“There is something fundamentally wrong with this,” he says. He uses the example of the contributions of front-line workers during the Covid-19 pandemic versus those of corporate CEOs, connecting it to the song of the seven dwarfs digging in the mines for gems. “What did they have to show for themselves?” he asks. “A dingy little cottage, and they all share a room.”
He says that finding a way to engage students meaningfully in microeconomics discussions matters because students in introductory economics courses come from programs and disciplines across the university.
“I often wonder what it is they take home with them,” he says. Are they able to contribute to political debates? Are they responsible citizens? Responsible voters? Can they participate democratically to exercise their rights as citizens?
Answering those questions, says Dr. Jahangir, inspired him to reorient his teaching to focus on more than math, graphs and equations.
The three things he hopes will come from the approach?
“Number one, economics is for everyone. Every citizen, every person – whether they have a PhD or not – is equally capable of participating in economic issues,” he says. He also hopes to reach a broader audience and for his students to know there are different ways of looking at things.
Listen to Dr. Junaid’s Research Recast(ed) episodes:
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