The Economic and Financial Literacy of Future Teachers: A Cluster Analysis

he paper analyses the results of the survey on the economic and financial literacy of students enrolled in the Degree Course in Primary Education, conducted between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 following the OECD/INFE methodology that assesses the economic and financial knowledge of individuals through a synthetic indicator obtained from the sum of the correct answers provided to a test. The survey reveals the low level of literacy among students. Moreover, literacy differs according to age, level of education, prior knowledge of economic and financial issues and economic and financial behavior of the participants. Using cluster analysis and following the approach of D’Alessio et al. (2020; Bank of Italy), students can be divided into four groups characterized by increasing levels of economic and financial knowledge: the excluded, the incompetent, the competent and the expert. Our estimates may be useful in setting more informed and targeted policy on economic and financial education of future teachers.