Pseudo-concreteness, Digital Technologies and the challenge of Financial Education in consumer culture

Abstract

This article analyzes the pseudo-concreteness that permeates contemporary financial reality, intensified by consumer culture and the ubiquity of digital technologies. Based on a theoretical essay on Historical-Cultural Theory and Financial Education in Mathematics Education, we argue that the superficial and fragmented perception of financial life results from the fetishization of commodities and the reification of social relations, which channel complex human decisions through supposed financial solutions. Digital technologies often reinforce this pseudo-concreteness through digital marketing, which encourages debt to acquire consumer goods, and through online betting platforms ("tigrinho" and "apostas" in general), which obscure risks and exploratory logic. The objective is to develop a theoretical discussion around the argument that overcoming pseudo-concreteness requires Financial Education grounded in critical thinking and the principles of Historical-Cultural Theory. This way of thinking, which seeks contradictions and the historicity of characteristics, allows us to denaturalize discourses such as "financing is the only option" or the "false generosity" of banks. We illustrate how Critical Financial Education, by integrating the pedagogical use of digital technologies—such as the Citizen Calculator—can demystify abstract concepts and promote a critical analysis of power relations in the financial system. We emphasize that this mediation prepares students to "read the world" of finance and to act consciously and transformatively in their lives and in the community.