The author categorized each significant change in Japanese special needs education into stages. The research data to date concerning home economics education for children with special needs was classified and an investigation was undertaken to explore the best education for every individual child, with the objective of striving for a new direction in home economics education. 1. The first stage was a period of special education in which students were separated depending on whether they had a disability. Since research on home economics subjects for children with special needs is insufficient, the author carried out the first nationwide survey on the ground realities, to examine home economics instruction methods in special education schools. The research showed that there was bias in course content, which created teaching related problems. Moreover, the research revealed circumstances under which facilities and equipment did not cater to the children’s needs. 2. The second stage was a period of exchange education in which “integration” was carried out through interaction between students divided into groups with and without disabilities. Home economics features a curriculum employing substantial interaction between disabled and non-disabled children. The results of an investigation into this system suggested that having competent home economics teachers; the provision of a learning environment; and mutual understanding between teachers, students, and guardians are all important in the promotion of interactive home economics learning. 3. In the third stage, students are not divided into groups but are required to learn inclusively by studying together, with individually targeted education. This is an exploratory stage where lesson development, teaching methods, and the development of teaching materials from this approach are yet to be established.

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Guidance is an important part of the learning experience for students who start studying home economics. This was introduced to elementary education in 2008 in the revised home economics course of study; it outlines what home economics education means to students who begin studying it, and how to conclude home economics learning, which is important for those who will finish it in elementary school. This study purpose was to propose a type of home economics guidance and analyze its challenges. Here, existing students made a commercial message to promote home economics education to commencing students. The commercial message video allowed students to articulate the positive contents of the course and to clarify their understanding of home economics learning. The content that supported students was that which the teachers emphasized in the classes. Through the creation of the commercial message video, students reconsidered their learning experience of home economics over the two years. The 4th grade students increased their motivation to learn the subject after watching the commercial messages that the senior students had created.

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The objective of this study is to investigate how learning of Home Economics affects women’s current life, especially work-style and life fulfillment, and to compare the difference of the two groups ; one group in which women learned Home Economics as female education and the other in which they learned coeducational Home Economics. Questionnaires were administered to 502 women living in metropolitan area who has the youngest child under the age of 15. One group consists of 447 women over 33 years old who learned Home economics as female education, and the other group consists of 55 women under 32 years old who learned coeducational Home Economics. It was found that the learning of Home Economics did not significantly influence women’s life fulfillment and work-style in both groups. This learning, however, influenced the prospect of the career which increased life fulfillment in both groups. These results indicate that the learning of Home Economics provides the opportunities to acquire human resources and career education both of which are important life skills for women.

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“Activities such as contacts with children” became a required content of home economics in the2008 revised Course of Study for Junior High Schools. This is a measure taken against the declining birth rates. However, it cannot be said that the course has been steadily adopted. The main reason for this is the short hours allocated for home economics lessons. It is, therefore, difficult to spend two hours of lesson time which is required for junior high school students to visit kindergartens and nurseries to conduct activities such as contacting with children. We planned a lesson for “child school visitation-type activities such as contacts with children.” to be implemented in one-hour of home economics lesson time. A kindergarten bus was used to transport approximately 100 pupils from the kindergartens to a nearby junior high schools, enabling students in four 3rd grade classes to engage in activities such as contacts with children in each class (30 students per class) during the home economics lesson time. Acurriculum for home economics with the content “A. Family, home and child growth” (21.5 hour timeallocation) was thus created centering on one-hour lessons for activities such as contacts with children. This paper clarifies the processes from lesson planning to implementation and the significance of this initiative.

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