# Why wasn't I taught anything about economics in "home economics" class? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 24, 2022, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200 "2022-08-24T02:28:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/1 "2022-08-24T02:28:07Z")
I took “home ec” at least 3 times throughout my formal education experience. I learned how to sew, both by hand and with a sewing machine, and I learned how to cook a few basic dishes, but not once was I taught anything that I would describe as “economics.” The word was never even mentioned a single time. Did I have crappy teachers, or a bad curriculum? Or am I just misunderstanding the term? ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/2 "2022-08-24T02:39:20Z")
Data point: I’m in my early 40s, and had what I imagine was a “traditional” home-ec experience in middle school. I think I recall a small check book balancing section, but most of it was cooking, sewing, and other practical crafts of the home. ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/3 "2022-08-24T02:40:02Z")
I understood the term to refer to the “economy” of the home (and how to manage it). I can see how this might include some financial skills like balancing a checkbook, but like you I never learned anything like that in “home ec.” I _did_ learn that in my economics class, though. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/4 "2022-08-24T02:41:55Z")
I guess they mean economics as the management of resources and in the home specifically. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/5 "2022-08-24T02:55:29Z")
Semi-related: the high school I graduated from had a “personal finance” class. I think we spent a week or two on things like budgets, didn’t get anything on dealing with tax returns, spent most of the class on the stock market. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/6 "2022-08-24T02:59:54Z")
I recall my cousins talking about their early 1970’s Home Economics classses. I was taking Industrial Arts (shop) at the same time. Sewing repairs and cooking were certainly taught. I remember helping them with math that was needed for household budgeting and handling a checkbook. I remember the math problems got tricky. They had to break down the costs of meals by portions. There were weekly household budgets for food, clothing,entertainment, gas etc. Back then it was still common to have three or four kids. It took experience to budget meals around a single income. Mom’s casseroles and soups were ways to use up leftovers and stretch the food budget. There is always unexpected expenses Billy needs track shoes and Carolyn is on the basketball team. The youngest needs school supplies for a science project. I often wonder how my great aunts & grandmothers did it. They always found ways to make do with the money available. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/7 "2022-08-24T03:14:39Z")
Some teachers added in some “economic” sections in some old classes, like how to calculate cost per serving (mostly replaced by unit pricing at the stores), and how to maximize the number of pieces you could cut out of a given piece of cloth, but the major focus was how to cook, sew, etc. There was an episode of _Roseanne_ where she showed a home ec class how to stretch a food budget by pouring generic cereal into name-brand boxes. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/9enJS3ZgwWM/hqdefault.jpg "S3 Ep16 - Home-Ec") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9enJS3ZgwWM) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/8 "2022-08-24T04:23:32Z")
Short answer: the term “home economics”, like “economics” more broadly, originated in [Greek οἰκονόμος, from οἰκο- “house” and -νόμος “rule, law”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oikonomos)). The word literally means “management of the household”, which is pretty much in line with the content of Home Ec classes. Longer answer: The “home economics” concept seems to have spun off from earlier names like “household arts” and “domestic science” [under the influence of formal “disciplinization”:](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-history-of-economic-thought/article/ellen-richardss-home-economics-movement-and-the-birth-of-the-economics-of-consumption/59F5DF4FCB70A362734A8E9890CE2E28) > [@](#): > > The different terms used for it (household arts, domestic arts, domestic science, home economics, household economics, etc.) reflect the transformations and disputes within a domain of knowledge that in the United States goes back to at least the early nineteenth century. […] > > In the historiography of “domestic advice,” the turn of the twentieth century and its association with the founding of the home economics movement is often held to be the most significant milestone […] Until the 1880s, domestic advice had existed almost solely in the teaching of a few reference domestic manuals. Through the movement [MIT chemist Ellen] Richards founded, however, it became an organized nationwide network that would shift its attention towards consumption. […] > > The founding moment in the history of the home economics movement was the “Lake Placid Conferences on Home Economics” organized by Richards between 1899 […] and 1908 […] These conferences mainly attracted women from diverse professions (teachers, nutritionists, administrators, etc.) but who all shared the aim of making housework and the teaching of it more scientific and more efficient. By the 1920s, the movement had grown to maturity and became institutionalized, among other institutions, through the Bureau of Home Economics, which was created in 1923 in the US Department of Agriculture. The movement shifted its focus from the sanitary sciences to consumption, notably by conducting large-scale budget studies and product testing. […] Richards described the origin of the term in [a 1911 article:](http://reader.library.cornell.edu/docviewer/digital?id=hearth4732504_3_002#page/3/mode/1up) > [@](#): > > First, Home Economics means to the leaders economics in its original significance, household administration, domestic management. Political economists have usurped the word to mean production of wealth. In early times this was largely done within the domain of the household, but with the taking away of the producing interest through the rise of factory products, a gap was left in the carrying out of this theory, only now beginning to be filled by the new science, the economics of consumption […] > > In America this economic function of the homestead as a producer of goods was taken away first by the cotton factory, then the woolen mills, the shoe factory, the western flour mills, etc. The growth of cities and the concentration of business took away even the production of the finished article from the raw material, of the garment from the cloth, of the edible food from the farm product. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/9 "2022-08-24T04:29:42Z")
Interesting. Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/10 "2022-08-24T15:20:18Z")
I highly recommend [The Secret History of Home Economics](https://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-Home-Economics-Trailblazing/dp/1324004495?ref_=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=29bb1e43-0795-4f6e-a2c4-5059512c0003). It’s a fascinating read and I learned alot about the subject. For example I never realized that there was such a thing as business home economists or that some women were able to sneak into corporate America through “the kitchen door”. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/11 "2022-08-24T15:25:52Z")
Arguably, the “home” in “home economics” is redundant. All that stuff about the home is the original definition. [Wikitionary economics](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/economics) > [@](#): > > From _[economy](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/economy#English)_, from [Latin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin) _[oeconomia](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oeconomia#Latin)_, from [Ancient Greek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek) _[οἰκονομία](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BF%E1%BC%B0%CE%BA%CE%BF%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%BC%CE%AF%CE%B1#Ancient_Greek)_ (oikonomía, “management of a household, administration”), from _[οἶκος](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BF%E1%BC%B6%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%82#Ancient_Greek)_ (oîkos, “house”) + _[νόμος](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BD%CF%8C%CE%BC%CE%BF%CF%82#Ancient_Greek)_ (nómos, “management”). ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/12 "2022-08-24T17:24:25Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > For example I never realized that there was such a thing as business home economists or that some women were able to sneak into corporate America through “the kitchen door”. I worked with a woman who was a manager in HR who started with the company doing cooking demonstrations with “all electric” appliances. Guess what kind of company. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/13 "2022-08-24T18:52:02Z")
That’s how Mary Berry (one of the judges on The Great British Bake-Off) got started. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2022, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/14 "2022-08-25T04:40:33Z")
In the mid-60s when I took it, Home Ec and Food shop were basically equivalent,. except Home Ec had a small living room type area near the kitchens. Both boys and girls took it. There was a separate Sewing shop (girls only) and Woodworking and Metalworking, boys only. I don’t remember anything taught except cooking. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2022, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/15 "2022-08-25T05:10:38Z")
We had Industrial Arts, and Home Economics, and boys and girls often took both. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2022, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/16 "2022-08-25T05:55:38Z")
When I was in grade nine, boys were not allowed to take home economics, and girls were not allowed to take auto shop. Sexist idiocy… don’t boys need to know how to cook & run a household, and don’t girls need to know how to change a tire etc? ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2022, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/17 "2022-08-25T06:14:23Z")
What @Sunspace said. When I was in middle school, boys took shop (wood and metal), and girls took home economics (according to my sister, it was sewing and cooking). Since then, I’ve never had to do oxy-acetylene welding, or shape a table leg on a lathe, or use the blacksmithing skills I learned in shop class. I do, however, have to cook for myself a lot, and sewing would have been a useful skill in a few situations. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2022, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/18 "2022-08-25T11:40:34Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > We had Industrial Arts, and Home Economics, and boys and girls often took both. Same here. Middle school in the mid 1980s, I took home ec and did a bit of sewing and cooking, and also took industrial arts. I think they were a semester each, meaning they were so brief that they couldn’t really teach you very much that was of use. Instead, I think it was more about just getting your feet wet, making these things seem not so alien/out of reach, and maybe seeing if it sparked your interest to learn more on your own. In line with the OP’s question, I don’t remember learning much in school about how to manage household finances. I learned the really important stuff from my parents. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2022, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/19 "2022-08-25T14:40:09Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > don’t boys need to know how to cook & run a household Of course not—that’s what they’ll have wives for. > [@Sunspace](#): > > and don’t girls need to know how to change a tire etc? Of course not—that’s what they’ll have husbands for. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2022, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200/20 "2022-08-25T17:40:13Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > When I was in grade nine, boys were not allowed to take home economics, and girls were not allowed to take auto shop. Sexist idiocy… don’t boys need to know how to cook & run a household, and don’t girls need to know how to change a tire etc? Yeah, I was in school in the Dark Ages, and this was the same segregation we had. But it was starting to change. My younger sister (two grades below me) had two boys in her cooking class, and she said it made the class a lot of fun. Both boys had absolutely no clue about how to cook anything and didn’t know things the girls felt they knew instinctively because they’d been helping mom for years. It’s not instinctive! But I wish I could have taken some of the boys’ shop classes – wood, metal, automotive – even if it just provided the basics, it’s better than nothing. When I was growing up, girls learned things from their moms, and boys learned things from their dads, and never the twain shall meet. Such a shame. Such a waste. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-i-taught-anything-about-economics-in-home-economics-class/970200.md?page=2)