From financial skills to creative minds: A systematic review of teaching approaches in youth financial literacy

This systematic review examines pedagogical approaches in global youth financial education. Eligibility followed five criteria: population (youth in formal education), intervention (explicit pedagogical methods or teaching activities), design (empirical research or case studies), language (French/English), and source (peer-reviewed articles, proceedings, or reports). Data were sourced from Web of Science, Scopus, and ERIC (last consulted in August 2025). Quality was assessed by two reviewers, with thematic synthesis presented in a summary table. Cohen's Kappa Coefficient (0.71) was applied to ensure inter-rater reliability. The selection process, illustrated in a PRISMA flowchart, yielded 44 studies. Each is characterized by author(s), year, country, population (kindergarten through university), sample size, program name, and intervention duration (15 min–3 years). Experiential learning appears to be the most common pedagogical approach. A key limitation is insufficient reporting of pedagogies, often requiring deduction from activity descriptions and limiting effectiveness analysis. This review calls for embedding metacognitive strategies and creative collaboration into financial education,and for future research to operationalize and assess creative competencies within specific pedagogical frameworks.