Contextualising "Financial Literacy" - Singapore as an Exploratory Case Study

Abstract

Efforts to educate individuals in prudent personal financial management have gained traction in many developed countries in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. The emerging scholarly response has broadly diverged into two camps: a practical literature revolving around the design and evaluation of financial education programmes, and a critical reaction among social scientists against the disproportionate responsibilisation of individuals. Neither approach provides a theoretically satisfactory account of the financial literacy movement. This thesis uses Singapore as a case study to show that financial literacy is not an abstract set of criteria but a historically contingent and institutionally embodied priority scheme that orders the market into a meaningfully navigable space of action. Mass financial education also equips people with the subjectivities required to participate in the market. Investors internalise and engage with dominant values and discursive resources. More often than not, this leads them to perpetuate existing patterns of demand, which in turn contributes to sustaining the contours of personal finance market.