The Return of Home Economics
The Los Angeles Times food section ran an interesting article this week about the return of home economics this week: “The evolution of home economics programs.”
The author wrote: “Home ec has not disappeared, it’s changed, evolving into classes focusing on child development, nutrition, family health, food service and hospitality. It hasn’t been lost as much as translated. In 1994, the name of the course in most of the country was officially changed from Home Economics to Family and Consumer Sciences, or FCS, in an effort to dispel the impression that home ec was about teaching girls how to be housewives.
More than 5 million students were enrolled in secondary FCS education programs in the 2002-03 academic year, a study found, or about 25% of all students, almost the same percentage cited in a 1959 Department of Health, Education and Welfare study.
In fact, in California, home ec is still called home ec; it’s the only state in the nation that has kept the name. But whereas in the ’60s and ’70s, classes were composed entirely of girls and the curriculum focused on traditional homemaking, today they’ve evolved, says Patricia Scott, home economics teacher expert for the Los Angeles Unified School District, herself a longtime home ec teacher. “The name is still home economics; it’s still around. But they’re not the traditional programs; they’re more specialized.”
The thesis of the article is that home ec – or whatever term is popular – had value. Too often, concepts that centered on women in the home were thrown out as a statement of progress. The women’s pages would be a parallel example. The sections were also eliminated because they were deemed old fashioned. Yet, both home ec and the women’s pages had value.
Jeanne Voltz – the food editor at the Los Angeles Times in the 1960s – would have appreciated this article.
