ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with the task of developing a robust meta-theoretical conceptualisation of pluralism and pluralist teaching, given the vague and undetermined nature of the concept of pluralism at first sight. It offers an insight into teaching economics in Brazil, where pluralism in economics is no abstract demand, but has in parts become reality. The book analyses mainstream textbooks and characterises them as simplistic, ideology-laden and often purely rhetorical free-market propaganda. It provides the Beutelsbacher consensus which contains several criteria that any published teaching material – and in particular, textbooks – for school education in Germany must respect. The book addresses crucial issues regarding the relation between mainstream and non-mainstream approaches in teaching economics and elaborates "how presentation of the mainstream can be the critical starting point for both exposing its deficiencies and opening the way for alternatives".
