favorite recipes of home economics teachers 1963

1 During this time, teaching must cover knowledge content related to three main areas: food, meals, and health consumption and personal finance and environment and lifestyle (NAE 2011a).Ĭurrent research on HE debates the possibilities and challenges of applying theoretical knowledge about sustainability in practical cooking (Beinert et al. It is taught to students between 11 and 16, and is grouped together with Art, Music, Crafts, and Physical education as “practical-aesthetic subjects.” Such subjects have fewer hours than more academically oriented ones, and HE is the smallest with a total of 118 hours at the time of the study. Over time, HE has evolved to include students of all genders, and its focus has broadened to cover how private consumption patterns relate to social, ecological, and economic sustainability (NAE (National Agency for Education) 2011a Gisslevik et al. Women from the higher classes had to manage a household with servants, and here the focus was on aesthetics, pleasing environments, artistic pursuits, and being a good wife. The state wanted young working-class women to become good housewives and contribute to improved living conditions, which meant they needed to learn frugality, discipline, and proper consumption habits. In Sweden, the first version of HE was introduced at the end of the nineteenth century as a response to social problems (Johansson 1987). Home economics (HE) is a school subject with a strong focus on food, meals, and cooking from the perspectives of social, economic, and ecological sustainability (NAE, 2011a). Based on these findings, I suggest that HE is permeated not only by the social, ecological, and economic sustainability perspectives of the syllabus but also a fourth – cultural sustainability – which is not explicitly defined but rather underpins the subject in the form of a hidden curriculum. This extended to norms surrounding food, cooking, and eating that blurred the line between knowledge content and value judgments. It seemed in constant threat of neglect and dissipation, which together with the chaotic nature of student cooking gave rise to a need for order and control.

The subject’s focus on cooking and housework lowered its status and marginalized it from the rest of the school. Drawing on observations and interviews with eight Swedish HE teachers during 2018, this paper conceptualizes HE as an ambiguous perceived space between the conceived space of state-controlled learning goals and the lived space of a traditional Swedish, feminine, middle-class home. The school subject home economics (HE) provides education on food, meals, and sustainability.

Favorite recipes of home economics teachers 1963