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The purpose of this article is to introduce heterodox economics as a viable alternative to market‐fundamentalist economics and to outline the articles of the special issue.

This introductory article provides an overview and summary of the contributions in the special issue.

Market‐fundamentalist economics has failed to adequately explain the economy or to provide guidance to policymakers that lead to widely‐shared prosperity and human well‐being. By contrast, heterodox economics offers social and historical narratives of both market and non‐market activities.

The article helps general readers to get acquainted with visions and approaches that are alternative to market‐fundamentalist economics. This will allow them to imagine more concretely that a better world is possible.

The aim of this paper is to review Fred Lee's book A History of Heterodox Economics.

The paper provides a context for Lee's research within the current debates over the financial crisis, then reviews and evaluates his analysis.

Lee has provided valuable and almost overwhelmingly meticulous documentation of the struggle to maintain space for heterodox economics within the discipline of economics, beginning before the turn of the twentieth century and continuing into the present. He is most concerned to use this research to formulate strategies to build community among heterodox economists, to provide a strong alternative to mainstream economics.

The author was less than convinced by Lee's suggestion that heterodox economics should emulate a professional model based on publications and citations that bears a striking resemblance to the methods of mainstream economics. That said, the author shares his belief that heterodox economics has important insights to offer economic theory and policy. In all, Lee has provided an important service in his documentation of the rise of heterodox economics as well as the attempts of mainstream economics to marginalize other schools of thought.

The article seeks to identify and examine HPE concepts and ideas that help teach community economic development to college students.

The paper's discussion is situated within a descriptive account of the learning context, content and structure of a course on community economic development. Selected course readings are analyzed to identify heterodox concepts and to illustrate how they assist in helping students think critically about community economic development.

The course readings prove fruitful ground for the identification and examination of a range of heterodox concepts and ideas used to help students to think critically about community economic development issues.

Although successful in examining the contributing roles of heterodoxy in teaching community economic development, the study relied on only one course syllabus.

The article offers a practical way to gauge the use of heterodoxy in the classroom. It provides a case study example of how courses could be adopted to teach heterodox economic concepts and ideas.

The article presents a case study of the use of heterodoxy to help students think creatively and critically, and as such, provides an exemplar for other professors to adopt a similar approach.

This paper aims to describe how to teach economics to adult learners, many of whom are women, immigrants and do not hold college degrees, but who feel the effects of mainstream economics — and the brunt of economic policies and the ensuing lack of services that are provided — in their everyday lives.

The article reviews popular education pedagogy and discusses and illustrates these in teaching lay audiences economics. Because they are lower‐educated adult learners, different pedagogy and curriculum are needed, which involve participatory methods that clearly illustrate how different economic policies affect different economic players and how these have and can affect their lives. Many examples of these principles are discussed. Discussing alternative policies is key, and these are also illustrated. Because they discuss alternative policies, this pedagogy naturally encompasses heterodox approaches, which is also illustrated. Impediments to teaching popular economics and how this differs from traditional classroom teaching are also discussed.

When taught in the manner described, adult learners, even those with low levels of education, can learn about any economic issue or concept, including the intricacies of tax policy, the international economy, the recent financial crisis, and complex financial derivatives. With their new knowledge, participants feel empowered to take action in their communities and advocate for economic change.

This paper reflects on popular education pedagogy in applying and discussing issues and problems in teaching lay learners. The paper draws on the author's 20 years of experience in teaching economics to lay learners.

In this paper the aim is to show how the translation of a logical positivist epistemology into neoclassical economics has had profound methodological consequences which over‐determine an inability to predict cusps and their associated crises.

Based on a review of epistemological and methodological literature, it is argued that the financial crises of the past 20 years ought to initiate a questioning of the epistemological foundations of the discipline.

As an alternative, it is suggested that an economics methodology informed by critical realism would increase the probability of a timely prediction of crises.

The paper de‐emphasises falsification as a key criterion for assessing the quality of knowledge, provides more space for non‐quantified reflections on relationships, a thicker model of human agency, a well‐specified model of collective human economic behaviour as well as an endogenous possibility of dramatic change within the economic domain.

This paper aims to review the undergraduate curricular structure of 36 self‐identified heterodox economic programs in the USA, Australia, UK and Canada.

The author gathers, summarizes, compares and contrasts the structure of 36 undergraduate heterodox departments. Departments are classified into traditional, plausibly pluralistic, and demonstrably heterodox programs. Specific examples illustrate each classification.

With notable exceptions described here, most heterodox economics programs are structured as traditional mainstream departments with a few pluralist or political economy electives available. However, 20 departments exist that require at least one heterodox course; eight require two or more.

A few programs have created imitable curricular structures that one would expect to significantly influence the depth and breadth of heterodox perspectives presented in the undergraduate economics major.

This is the first published analysis of undergraduate heterodox economics curricula. It highlights the creative structures characterizing some of the English‐speaking world's best programs and demonstrates that the curricula in most programs lack required courses in heterodox economics. The paper also provides examples of intentionally heterodox programs that may serve as models for others to emulate.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how student‐written diaries and journals serve as a specifically feminist pedagogy for teaching feminist economics, thereby challenging the lecture‐based techniques used to teach and uphold the mainstream, market‐fundamentalist paradigm.

The approach involves the author's observations and experiences using student‐written diaries to teach a feminist economics course.

Student‐written diaries have the potential to dislodge both the market‐fundamentalist economics paradigm and the lecture‐based teaching method that dominate the undergraduate economics curriculum. Student‐written diaries are especially useful in teaching feminist economics courses which strive to elevate women's economic status and/or to reduce the androcentric bias in economics. The paper describes how student‐written diaries are used to achieve both of these goals and to create a more inclusive classroom culture, while simultaneously challenging market fundamentalism.

The paper offers a new pedagogical technique to be used for teaching feminist economics courses and for countering lecture‐based courses that focus on market fundamentalism.

What do economists talk about? This seemingly innocent interrogation conceals a broader and innovative research programme, with the potential to renew the reflection on heterodox economics in a post‐crisis scenario. The aim of this paper is to show that convergence between language for specific purposes and economics is possible, so as to single out the genesis and the emergence of critical economic discourse.

After underlining the necessary collaboration between language and subject‐matter specialists, the paper addresses the question of the problematic use of economics textbooks in English‐speaking countries. Then, it deals with the fascinating question of the multiplicity of specialized meanings in economics. After pointing out the shortcomings of orthodoxy characterized by hyper‐formalization and its inevitable corollary, the mathematical nature of the discipline, it investigates the genesis of critical economic discourse, which requires the acknowledgement of pluralism and the components of heterodoxy, in order to converge towards a process of disciplinary acculturation that goes hand in hand with the learning process of language for specific purposes.

A deep‐seated renewal of economics, consisting of a methodological shift towards the components of heterodoxy, has the potential to enhance the effectiveness of teaching English for economics, so that the latter effectively conveys specialized meaning.

Teaching and researching English for specific purposes necessitates enhanced collaboration between subject‐matter specialists and applied linguists. However, this type of collaboration can be hampered by institutional or socio‐professional obstacles.

Discursive analysis has become indispensable in order to surmount the collective failure of mainstream economics in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. With the help of textbooks of a new kind, one must go beyond the vision of students as mere consumers of knowledge.

Language for specific purposes has long shown interest in economics, but is the reciprocal true? This paper proposes an original association, by putting the two disciplinary fields on an equal footing, and by bringing new synergies forward.

This paper seeks to challenge the simplistic formulation of public ownership in terms of centralized planning and state bureaucracy. Instead, drawing on the works of Dewey and Veblen the paper aims to argue that public ownership is a critical aspect of forging progressive change through enhancing democratic participation in economic decision making.

The paper presents a conceptual analysis of public ownership types and employs case examples to further illuminate the argument.

The conceptual analysis challenges the supposition of market superiority in standard economic approaches and in neoliberalism. Drawing from the instrumental valuation principle a wide corpus of public ownership modes can offer the prospect of enhanced democratic participation that challenges existing power structures.

By emphasising the association between ownership and democracy the paper challenges the assumption that markets necessarily offer the only route to democratic participation. It also identifies and challenges the market fundamentalism of standard economic approaches.