Whither Political Economy? Evaluating the CORE Project as a Response to Calls for Change in Economics Teaching

This article offers a critique of a major recent initiative in economics teaching: the CORE project. CORE emerged in the wake of the global financial crisis, which was also something of a crisis for economics. The article deploys four evaluative criteria to pose four questions of CORE that address the demands of the student movement. CORE claims to be innovative and responsive to criticism. However, the article concludes that its reforms are relatively minor and superficial. CORE, like curricula that preceded the global financial crisis, still exhibits limited pluralism, ignores power and politics, and ignores key educational goals. Despite its opportunity to do so, CORE has not opened up space within economics for the teaching of political economy.