Proposal

Since the beginning of public education in Canada, there has been a difference in the curriculum for boys and girls. I plan to explore these differences, with an emphasis on the homemaking classes that were geared towards girls. These classes eventually turned into “home economics” classes that were offered in secondary schools in Canada until relatively recently.

To gain knowledge about these early classes, I will use a number of sources. One primary source, a cookbook from the 1890s, illustrates the mentality during that time that a woman’s primary job is to keep her husband happy. With “homemaking” classes for girls, schools were essentially teaching female students how to effectively run a household.

I have also discovered a number of books that relate to this topic, including It’s Up To You: Women at UBC in the Early Years and Education for Everyday Life: Curriculum and Pedagogy in Home Economics, which outline the history of home economics as a subject, and its move from college classrooms to secondary school classrooms. There are also a number of journal articles that discuss the origins of “home economics” as well. These sources will be used to gain a better understanding of why and how these classes came into existence.

Finally, articles such as “Is cooking dead? The state of Home Economics Food and Nutrition education in a Canadian province” and “What happens to the girls? Gender, Work and Learning and Canada’s ‘new economy’” will provide information about how our public schooling system has changed over the years.  Overall, the books, articles and primary sources I have collected so far will allow me to examine the topic of “home economics” and classes made specifically for girls, from its conception to its modern equivalent.