Changes to the description of food and nutrition in home economics textbooks for elementary and junior high schools published in the period from 1947 to 2012 were analyzed. The description of nutrients and their functions changed with advances in the study of food and nutrition. The present textbooks for elementary and junior high schools consistently and systematically describe nutrients and their functions. The description of food groups and daily food guides changed according to the food intake, health and dietary problems of Japanese people. Further development of teaching material and methods is needed. The description of menu planning gradually changed to focus on a nutritionally balanced diet and to emphasize the combination of shushoku (cereals), shusai (protein-rich foods), fukusai (vegetables), milk and milk products, and fruits. Nutritional balance as well as multiple elements are desirable for learning future menu planning.

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  The British have long been ashamed of their sense of colour being significantly inferior to that of the French. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, however, British middle classes, whose economic powers increasingly impacted mainstream fashion, forged a series of new rules in order to overcome their inferior complex to the French. That is, instead of soiling the immorality of French fashion, British middle classes decided to use their self-avowedly superior intellectual power, diligence, enterprising as well as self-restraining dispositions in studying French taste and absorbing it. In addition, they applied their learned knowledge of colour into the branches of domestic industries such as the chemical dye industry. As the industries actually flourished toward the end of the nineteenth century, middle-class choice of colour in dress such as aniline dyed fabrics became associated with Englishness, presenting the most advanced industrial country in the world. By doing so, the middle classes became confident in their own sense of colour. To trace this process, the author uses popular fashion magazines, etiquette books, and theories of colour widely available on the market, all of whose core audience was the middle classes.

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  The increase in cloth temperature with moisture absorption was measured in an experiment in which humid air flowed through dry fabric placed in a glass column. The maximum increases in the fabric temperature when thermometer was placed 1 cm apart from the upstream end of the fabric packing were 18, 15, 12.5, 5 and 1 K for used wool, silk, cotton, nylon and polyester fabrics, respectively. The air humidity decreased as a result of moisture transfer into the fabric, and the air temperature and fabric temperature increased with moisture absorption. The air enthalpy decreased with moisture absorption into the fabric, i.e., the effect of the decrease in humidity on the enthalpy offset the effect of the increase in temperature. The increase in the wool fabric temperature with moisture absorption was also measured when the fabric was suspended within a humid air flow under the same condition as the one used for the measurement of the moisture absorption rate. The fabric temperature increased with the increase in air humidity, and the temperature increase in the initial period was larger for the larger flow rate of humid air, but it decreased as time went by. The amount of time required for the fabric temperature to increase with moisture absorption was calculated from the moisture absorption rate of the cloth, using a model in which the heat generated by moisture absorption was consumed by the increase in fabric temperature, and the heat transfer from the cloth into the air. The calculated time accurately reflected the time taken in the actual experiment.

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  This study aims to identify parenting especially, fathering support, as promoted by local governments covering the whole country. For the purpose of our research, we examined guidebooks for parenting and notebooks for fathering which local governments have published. Our results are as follows: most local governments published guidebooks for parenting between 2001 and 2010. These guidebooks were written for both fathers and mothers, but include more information for mothers than fathers. Regarding fathering support, only a few local governments have published notebooks for fathering since 2011. Notebooks for fathering display a specific method for fathering. They use illustrations and include blanks in which the father records the growth of their children. More than half of all local governments hold programs for fathers. Many programs have changed from learning activities or lecture meetings to activities for fathers and children, and the exchange of information among fathers.

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