Before enforcing the current curriculum (which came into effect in 2002), we conducted a survey of students' view of home economics and their consciousness of studying the subject in junior high school. We adopted a questionnaire method and arranged questions into categories based on the course of study. The results showed the following: 1. Home Economics took the second place as the subject which junior high school students had a will to learn throughout their lives. 2. Students put a high value on home economics since they could get knowledge and skills which were useful in their real lives. 3. After studying the course, half of the students think that they have come to be able to act, taking their lives into consideration. 4. As for teaching hours, half of the students maintained the present condition and one-third of the students had desire to increase them. 5. As for the learning method, many students desire learning through paractice and experience.

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The objective of this study is to clarify the influences of school students' gender on mental and financial independence and to contribute to home economics education for establishing a gender equal society. A questionnaire was given to 650 high school students who live in Okinawa. Items surveyed were consciousness of independence concerning mental and financial independence and gender consciousness. The results were as follows: 1) Attitudes toward traditional gender roles, such as "Men should support women financially" still exist among high school students. Male students have more tendency to agree with the statement "If a husband's financial situation is enough, the wife should not work". 2) Male students who have high mental or financial independence scores agree with the opinion that a "Husband should support his wife and children financially". Regardless of mental or financial independence scores, female students also agreed with this opinion. 3) Female students who have low mental or financial dependence scores have the tendency to agree with the opinion "Since men have more ability, their salary is high" and "Men should pay for the cost of dates". And female students who have low financial dependence scores agree with "It is better for a child to be brought up by a mother than a father". Such opinions seem be the reason they would choose to be a housewife as their life course. 4) In home economics education, it is important for both male and female students to be conscious of traditional gender roles. Additionally, male students need to be taught that financial support is not just a man's responsibility and the importance of men's roll in child-care. Female students should be taught that women's abilities are not inferior to men's abilities.

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the change process in the housewife's work in Japanese modern ages, by using the magazine "Shufu-no-Tomo" in the Taisho Era The results were as follows: 1) After the Taisho middle with the rise in the reader's income standard the handicraft changed to the thing which makes home comfortable from the thing which is useful for the home economy, and emphasis began to be put on the part of the housewife that home is made comfortable by the magazine "Shufu-no-Tomo". 2) Housewives began to grapple with the handicrafts activities actively for the appeal of the magazine "Shufu-no-Tomo", too. 3) The magazine "Shufu-no-Tomo" could be thought to play an important part in the change process of the housewife work in modern Japan for the following reasons, (1) That the thing that it was given to the prize by an excellent work, (2) handicrafts were connected with the "home" ideal, (3) handicrafts were the most suitable for the housewife's leisure activities.

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A questionnaire was carried out for junior high school students to clarify the effect of learning about processed foods in homemaking education on their images of processed foods. The results were as follows: 1. No significant difference in the image related to sugar, salt and fat of processed foods was observed between the first and third grade students. 2. A significant difference in the image related to the safety of the food additives was revealed between the first and third grade students, with the latter tending to feel unsafe more than the former. 3. As to salt and fat in the processed foods, their images did not reflect the practical contents. 4. It was suggested that learning about processed foods in homemaking education was necessary to form the appropriate image of processed foods that may reflect the nutrition features of processed foods.

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In this third paper, the authors examined senior high school students' inclinations toward certain foods and their awareness about food and health. Analyzing the questionnaires' results as in the first and second papers, especially concerning the likes and dislikes about foods were examined in detail in this paper. As a result, it became possible to think about students' awareness about food and health in view of their likes and dislikes. These results will be useful for home economics classes. The results are as follows; (1) Students became aware of what foods are bad for health in their likes. (2) Half of the students who dislike seaweed and vegetables don't understand their nutritional values. (3) Students who had a lot of likes and dislikes about food are interested in health. (4) Students are aware of foods that are bad for them, even though they like these foods, but they have some troubles deciding what to eat.

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