Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal

Home Economics Education as Needed in the 21st Century

2021-12-23T10:00:21+01:00

The Role of Home Economics Education in the 21st Century: The Covid-19 Pandemic as a Disruptor, Accelerator, and Future Shaper

2021-12-23T10:00:31+01:00

This paper explores the role of home economics education in the 21^st century. It commences with an explanation of the disruption to the five predicted future global megatrends – globalisation, urbanisation, digitisation, cybersecurity, sustainability – as a consequence of the global Covid-19 pandemic. The place of megatrends framing home economics is explored by presenting a textual analysis of a literacy publication created as an acceleration point for framing the next one hundred years of home economics and underpinned by global megatrends, published prior to the pandemic. Using the Voyant Tool, visualisations of the book Creating Home Economics Futures: The Next 100 Years are presented and compared to other key literary documents informing the field. The paper then turns to the ways in which education and learning have led to the repositioning of home economics as a field and home economics literacy as the key strategy for ensuring the field continues to remain relevant into the future. Priority areas for education include food literacy; individual, family and community well-being; and the reconstitution of the place of the home.

Modern Aspects of Home Economics Education and Slovenia

2021-12-23T10:01:26+01:00

Home economics operates in the academic, curriculum and social realms, as well as in everyday life. Due to its multidisciplinarity, it includes and interconnects the contents of different disciplines (e.g., healthy lifestyle, nutrition, dietetics, textiles, home, family, consumption, personal and family economics, design and technology), which are considered in terms of meeting the needs of the individual, family, and society. Home economics education and literacy play an important role in acquiring knowledge and skills that help raise the quality of life of the individual, family, and society. With the development of society, the needs of both the individual and the family are changing; therefore, changes are also needed in home economics education, which is reflected in the updating of the subject curricula. The goals and contents in the curriculum must reflect and meet the needs of the current society and take into account the cultural dependence and social determinism of the home economics field. To a certain extent, the current curriculum of the subject home economics in Slovene elementary schools already includes some content areas that have been recognised as important for meeting the needs of society. These relate to healthy lifestyle, nutrition, health, textiles, consumption, economics, family, environment and sustainable development. Given the perceived needs of society, the use of household appliances, home contents, and first aid should be additionally included in home economics education in Slovenia, and students should be encouraged to develop social and communication skills. It is also necessary to consider the appropriate placement of the subject in the curriculum, as it is necessary to implement home economics education in the entire elementary school education. Doing so will enable the acquisition of knowledge and skills needed in society and, therefore, the appropriate level of home economics literacy of the individual.

Project LifeLab Food and Health – Innovative Teaching for the Future: Development of Student Active Learning Tasks for Home Economics Education in the 21st Century

2021-12-23T10:01:28+01:00

Food and Health, previously referred to as Home Economics, is a mandatory school subject in Norway. It has the unique advantage of giving all students, regardless of their social background, practical skills and knowledge, life skills that are important for their future health. In the LifeLab Food and Health project, we have developed a research-based and innovative teaching programme and evaluated how it is perceived in a school setting in Norway. This teaching programme is for use in Food and Health teacher education, but also in the education of primary and lower secondary school students in the same subject. LifeLab Food and Health consists of learning tasks in which students in the sixth and ninth grades in school gain first-hand knowledge and an understanding of life skills that are important to manage everyday life. In this paper, we present the learning activities developed and how the students experienced them. Examples of such learning tasks are tasks revealing the science behind dietary guidelines and the promotion of a healthy diet through student active tasks. Our aim is to establish LifeLab Food and Health as a “best practice” within master’s education in Home Economics at the University of Agder in Norway.

Evaluation of the Implemented and Adopted Curriculum in Health Education in the Czech Republic with an Emphasis on the Drinking Regimen

2021-12-23T10:01:24+01:00

According to the Framework Education Programme for Elementary Education in the Czech Republic, part of Health Education is nutrition and food intake, including the drinking regimen. This paper’s objective is to analyse that using the results of two extensive curricular studies performed at the Faculty of Education, Palacký University Olomouc. Both studies used data from representative samples of pupils in grade nine from elementary schools in the Czech Republic. The research instruments were designed according to applicable documents of the state-level implemented curriculum and showed good reliability. The results of the subjective evaluation of the implemented curriculum in health education suggest that in the area ‘healthy lifestyle and health care’, the subtopic ‘nutrition and health – healthy diet principles, drinking regimen, eating disorders’ was most dominant. The testing of the level of the adopted curriculum regarding fluid intake revealed a problematic level of pupils’ knowledge (the average percentage of task achievement was around 46%). Conclusions and recommendations for practice: nutrition and food intake (including the drinking regimen) is a very important topic in health education in elementary education in the Czech Republic, which is consistent with other research studies. However, the cognitive dimension of the pupils’ curriculum is inadequate. Qualitatively and quantitatively, the recommended drinking regimen may support natural health determinants, while an inappropriate or insufficient regimen may result in medical complications. The issue of adequate nutrition and diet and drinking regime must be taught by professionally and didactically competent teachers. Students should not only be taught cognitively, but their affective and behavioural abilities should also be formed.

Education in the Area of Human Protection in Emergency and Crisis Situations in the Context of Health Education in the Czech Republic

2021-12-23T10:01:31+01:00

The present time brings a number of emergency and crisis situations, including floods, fires or Covid-19, the management of which requires the active involvement of citizens. Lower secondary education in the Czech Republic includes the subject of Health Education, in which this topic is addressed. Education of students in the area of lifestyle and health is included in Health Education and Home Economics, the latter being delivered in Slovenia. In terms of content, both courses are similar and can enrich each other by sharing valuable experience both in teaching students and in preparing future elementary school teachers. The objective of this paper is to present the concept of elementary education in human protection in emergency and crisis situations in the Czech Republic and the related concept of undergraduate teacher training. The research methods used were document review (of curricular documents and study plans) and questionnaire survey. The paper presents the results of an analysis of the curricular document governing elementary education in the Czech Republic (Framework Education Programme for Elementary Education), as well as the results of an analysis of a health education textbook focusing on the area of safety issues. The paper also presents the results of an analysis of the study plans of selected faculties of education in terms of human protection in emergency and crisis situations, as well as the results of a questionnaire survey focusing on the awareness of future teachers in the area of human protection in emergency situations. The results and main findings of the analysis of the curricular document suggest that the topics of the human protection in emergency situations should be strengthened in the context of Health Education (and throughout elementary education). The studies on teachers’ and future teachers’ awareness of human protection in emergency situations (including first aid) point to some shortcomings in undergraduate teacher training (for example, the optional course in first aid and human protection in emergency situations at the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University). Conclusions and recommendations for practice: the current revision of the Framework Education Programme for Elementary Education should allow the strengthening of emergency issues in Health Education. Based on the inquiry, the following is recommended: due attention should be paid to all emergency issues in the course of education; further teacher training in all emergency issues should be promoted; emergency issues in undergraduate teacher training should be integrated in the form of compulsory common base courses.

I Do, We Do, You Do Home Economics: Explicit Instruction Connecting Content with Ideology

2021-12-23T09:59:49+01:00

Explicit instruction is a teaching model that demonstrates to students what to do and how to do it. One purpose of ideology is to focus the who, what, when, where, and why of a disciplinary field. Trained home economists make a sustained commitment to the core ideology of home economics. Mechanisms for identifying locally relevant challenges faced by individuals, families, and communities are embedded in the home economics knowledge base. To identify challenges and locate solutions (who, what, when, where, and how), home economics education programmes must actively teach or provide explicit instruction about the ideology that underpins the home economics disciplinary field. Neglecting ideology results in teaching unrelated subjects or compartmentalised content that may dilute connection to the core aims of the home economics’ ‘big picture’. This paper outlines how explicit instruction and embedded home economics ideology have positively impacted perceptions of the discipline amongst professionals who are new to the field. In teaching and learning environments, making home economics ideology visible and reinforced continuously across all content specialisation areas, the author observed that students acquired the words and concepts to explain the importance of home economics to others. Professionals who are new to the field became more confident and passionate advocates for home economics, because they had learnt and appreciated, through explicit instruction techniques, the what, the how to, and the why of home economics. Equipped with the discipline’s core ideology, professionals who make visible the home economics ‘big picture’ (i.e., the why) to others are better equipped to enact real-world applications of home economics that can adapt continuously to meet ever-changing and complex societal needs.

The Sustainability of Pre-Service Teachers’ Consumer Behaviour for the December Holidays

2021-12-23T10:01:33+01:00

The consumer behaviour of Slovenian pre-service teachers for the December holidays and their personal views about sustainable consumption were studied. A total of 130 students of the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Education took part in the study. The sample consisted of 11 male and 116 female students, while 3 students did not report their gender. The survey was conducted in January 2020. The results show that 95.4% of the respondents received gifts during their childhood on Saint Nicholas Day, 60.0% at Christmas and 23.1% when celebrating the New Year. Almost 13% of the respondents received gifts three times in December during their childhood. In December 2019, 54.6% of them gave gifts for Saint Nicholas Day, 65.2% at Christmas and 10.8% for the New Year. Christmas has therefore become the most common gift-giving time in December. Students most often give their loved ones sweets, clothes and shoes, and cosmetics. The majority of the respondents spend less than 50% of their monthly income on gifts for the December holidays. In terms of sustainability, the respondents described their consumer behaviour as follows: (1) giving or receiving things they really need, (2) giving or receiving gifts and wrappings made of recyclable material, (3) giving or receiving nonmaterial gifts, (4) reducing the number of gifts, (5) giving for charity, or (6) not giving gifts at all.

Personality Traits and Changes in Depression Symptoms in Female University Students

2021-12-23T09:59:11+01:00

The present study aimed to investigate the course of symptoms of depression in female university students over a four-year period, while also exploring the predictive value of four personality traits with regard to symptoms of depression. The sample comprised 74 female first-year university students. Symptoms of depression were assessed using the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale and were collected twice over a four-year interval, while the personality traits of extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism and lie tendencies were assessed by the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire only at the baseline. The results revealed that after a four-year period the depression symptoms increased in intensity/frequency on 10 out of 20 items as well as in the summary score, and decreased only in diurnal variations, which wasfavourable outcome. Multiple regression analysis indicated that out of the four personality traits only neuroticism was a significant predictor of the summary depression score four years later. This means that young female students with higher scores in neuroticism, although still in the normal or average range, would very probably have a more pronounced and less well-regulated emotional response to a stressful period of their university education.

The Role of Parental Self-Efficacy in Explaining Children’s Academic Outcomes

2021-12-23T09:59:11+01:00

Students’ educational outcomes are influenced by several factors that are not directly related to their personal characteristics, among which parental beliefs and behaviours are of special relevance. The present study was conducted on a sample of 301 primary school students and their parents, who completed a set of prepared questionnaires used for investigating the contribution of parental self-efficacy and the perception of parental involvement to students’ academic achievement, perceived academic control and achievement goals. The obtained results indicated parental self-efficacy as a predictor of perceived academic control and avoidance goals, whereas perception of parental involvement predicted perceived academic control, mastery approach and work avoidance goals. These findings confirm and extend previous knowledge regarding the relevance of parents’ engagement to children’s educational outcomes.

Self-Concept in Immigrant School Children and the Impact of Length of Residence: Evidence from PISA 2015 for Current Educational Practice

2021-12-23T09:59:11+01:00

Comparative analyses of the Programme for International Student Assessment between immigrant and native students place immigrant students in an unfavourable position in schools, with disadvantageous indicators regarding socioeconomic and professional paths. However, the Programme for International Student Assessment assesses a series of dimensions that involve constructs that have been little studied in the school immigrant population and that relate to self-concept and school adjustment. Based on the Programme for International Student Assessment’s most recent edition, Portugal’s database of 7,325 15-year-old students was analysed. We selected 438 immigrant cases with two objectives: (1) to evaluate the impact of the length of exposure in the host country on three dependent variables of school adjustment: sense of belonging, perceived loneliness and attitudes towards school (expectations of educational and professional opportunities); (2) to evaluate the differences in results for the same dependent variables, but considering the first and second generation of immigrants in Portugal. For the data analysis, sampling weights and plausible values were analysed with the International Database Analyzer. The results show that students who have been in the country for a year or less have greater difficulties and increased significant differences compared to other migrant groups in the referred indices of self-concept and inclusion. However, other groups, especially those with periods of long-term residence between four and five years, also face substantial levels of school maladjustment.

Danielle Dreilinger, The Secret History of Home Economics. How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live, W. W. Norton & Company: 2021; 348 pp.: ISBN 978-1-324-00449-3

2021-12-23T10:00:01+01:00

Anca Gheaus, Gideon Calder and Jurgen De Wispelaere, The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children, Routledge: 2019; 440 pp.: ISBN 9780367733889

2021-12-23T09:59:54+01:00