There often isn’t agreement about all the sources, causes, and processes of any social problem. This diversity of perspectives leads to disagreement as to what are the best solutions and how to achieve them. I think it’s best to deal with this complexity (if only to point out to students that it is there) from the start. The dilemma is, of course, balancing simplicity with reality in the course, but at least it teaches students that there are multiple points of view to almost everything, and that rational inquiry should be based on a dialectic argument and not submission to authority.
For example, many mainstream economists argue away unequal pay for women with the theory of “compensating variations” which states that women are, on the average, more expensive to private employers because of family responsibilities and reproduction, and thus markets dictate they get paid less. Somewhat more enlightened (but not radical) economists point out that this is a “market failure” since these women DO provide lots of value to society as a whole even if perhaps not to their private employers directly. Finally radicals see this as another facet of exploitation in capitalist patriarchal societies. Each of these approaches has different assumptions, different values, and consequently different proposed solutions…
So I’m suggesting to tackle the diversity of knowledge from the start and throughout… not easy :)
Punkonomics (@DearBalak) 