School Banding Effects on Student Financial Literacy Acquisition in a Standardised Financial Literacy Curriculum

A standardised financial literacy curriculum ensures that all students in a school system receive financial knowledge, which offers them the necessary support to make informed decisions about money management and practise appropriate financial behaviour. In Hong Kong, all secondary schools supposed to teach financial literacy via a standardised curriculum. This study attempts to examine how this standardised financial literacy curriculum variably impacts students whose performance in academic-based examinations differ. We use an extended framework based on extensions of Hargreaves and Fullan (Professional capital: transforming teaching in every school. Teachers College Press, New York, 2012) theory of professional capital (human, social, decisional and emotional capital; Lee and Chiu 2017) to analyse the influence of school banding (academic differentiation by school) on student financial literacy. We surveyed 1306 students from 20 secondary schools. Structural equation modelling analysis demonstrated that exposure to the curriculum had only a weak positive effect on students’ financial literacy, and only for those from ‘band 3’ schools, which typically enrol students with the weakest academic performance. Based on examination of the results, we draw conclusions as to how students’ professional capital is differentiated by school banding.