Introduction to Home Economics

Back to: HOME ECONOMICS JSS1

 

Welcome to class!

In today’s class, we will be talking about the introduction to home economics. Enjoy the class!

Introduction to Home Economics

 

Home Economics is a field of study that helps to develop knowledge, skill, and attitudes in the learners in the following areas. It is the study of everything that helps to improve the home and the family within the areas of home management, food and nutrition, and family living.

Areas of home economics

There are seven areas of home economics. They are:

• Cooking:

Since food preparation was central to homemaking, cooking is one of the earliest disciplines in home economics. Early programs taught women how to cook a balanced meal, and included food safety and preservation.

Additionally, they studied how to properly set a table and learned how to host meals, not only for their immediate families but for larger groups as well. This element of traditional economics still exists today for both men and women in culinary schools, culinary programs for family and consumer sciences students, and in nutrition degrees.

• Child Development:

Home economics students are taught how to rear children in addition to cooking and nutrition. This included learning about the stages of child development and how to correctly respond to children at each stage.

Today, students who study family and consumer sciences still learn child development, which has become so significant that it is, in many places a major thing too.

• Education and Community Awareness:

Since women were the first educators for their children, teaching them basic reading and math skills before they entered school, it was significant for them to understand how best to teach these skills.

Although education and community awareness, which included moral and ethical lessons, were originally a part of the home economics education, it has become so significant today that elementary education has branched into its field of study – but one that is still dominated by women.

• Home Management and Design:

Early women who studied home economics learned the elements of design to better decorate and care for their homes. This area of study also included cleaning and organization, which was significant because homemakers were expected to keep the house clean and organized.

Today, individuals who study family and consumer sciences use these skills to enter design fields where they thrive as designers, decorators, organization gurus, and real estate staging experts.

• Sewing and Textiles:

Another of the earliest skills taught to home economics students, sewing was significant to the lesson plans because many women sewed not only their clothes but clothes for their children.

Additionally, this skill came in handy when the clothing needed mending. Because patterns require certain types of materials, an understanding of textiles was useful. This element of the traditional areas is still relevant today as family and consumer science majors enter and thrive in fashion design and merchandising fields.

• Budgeting and Economics:

In addition to cooking, child-rearing, home planning, and sewing, home economics students learned how to budget. Women did all or most of the family shopping so they were expected to understand how to spend wisely and make the most judicious use of available funds.

Today, this traditional element of home economics is still relevant in family and consumer science programs as students learn to properly budget, balance and invest income.

• Health and Hygiene:

In addition to caring for the home, students who studied home economics learned how to properly care for sick family members. This included sanitation, keeping the sick family member fed and quarantined from the healthy, and at-home treatments for common illnesses.

Today, some family and consumer science programs offer this information to students, though it is not commonly its area of study any longer.

 

In our next class, we will be talking about Myself as An Individual: The Hair.  We hope you enjoyed the class.

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