Dialogos: economics education and pedagogy. An interview with Peter Söderbaum

from Maria Alejandra Madi

Malgorzata Dereniowska: Welcome to “Dialogos: Economics Education and Pedagogy,” Peter! In this interview we will focus on the questions of institutional change in economics education system, economic pedagogy and social responsibility of universities.

Could you tell me something about your background and your professional experience as a teacher of economics?

Peter Söderbaum: As a student at Uppsala University I became interested in political science, economics and business management (or business economics). My first teaching experiences were at Uppsala University and the department of economics (course in international economics) but I later moved to the department of business management where I was teaching marketing courses and also took my PhD on Positional Analysis. Later I moved back to economics now at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, to become associate professor and lecturer in environmental and natural resource economics. 1995-2005 I was responsible for ecological economics Bachelor and Master programs at Mälardalen University in Västerås.

At an early stage Uppsala University organized an interdisciplinary course in environmental science and I became the person responsible for the environmental economics part of the course. I am referring to the 1970s and this was a time when the borders between disciplines became less respected and interdisciplinary work and courses increasingly encouraged. If I as a lecturer in marketing can learn something about consumer behavior from social psychology – why should I refrain from such learning opportunities? read more