Abstract The purpose of this research was to investigate home economics teachers’ instructional activities of multicultural education in Canada. With findings from the investigation of the first purpose, the other purpose was to extract tips for practicing multicultural education in junior high school home economics. The research participants were six Canadian secondary school home economics teachers in the province of British Columbia. The observation and semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the following implications were compiled, based on the findings, for tips for practicing multicultural education in home economics. Tips for home economics food class: i. Focusing on locally grown foods or each student’s family food as fundamental foods. ii. Comparing commonly existing foods in the world and explore the similarities and differences, and discuss what make the differences. iii. Inviting new comer students to speak in class and share their knowledge and experience. iv. Setting opportunities to share an appreciation of cultural diversity. v. Cultivating open mindedness toward diversity for the future. Tips for new comer students: i. Making the class environment accessible and inclusive for new comer students from different cultures. ii. Pairing newcomer students with helpful students. iii. Preparing learning materials with assisted visuals or/and translation. iv. Implementing various activities to engage those students in class. v. Collaborating with language assisting teachers.

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The aim of this study is to consider lessons on creating and preserving a culture of fish consumption, through an analysis of learner performance in classes on this subject held for students at a chef training college. Six hours of lessons on creating and preserving a culture of fish consumption were developed in the following three stages: 1) “knowing what the culture of fish consumption is”; 2) “considering how fish should be utilized nowadays”; and 3) “contemplating the succession and creation of a fish food culture in the future.” The course was offered to 51 first-year students at a chef training college in June 2016. The students analyzed were the 37 who attended all the classes and submitted a worksheet. This worksheet provided the data for analysis, which examined students’ performance at each stage based on their written answers. The results revealed that the culture of fish consumption was examined from various perspectives, enabling us to comprehensively ascertain the state of modern fish dishes. The course is therefore believed to have fostered an attitude of independent engagement with the issue and reflection on how to create and preserve a culture of fish consumption.

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This paper evaluates home economics and how it is taught. Results from teachers showed; ① although credit number for home economics is decreasing, food lifestyle was still prioritized, ② whereas teaching nutrition fundamentals was common, menu making was not covered in some schools, ③ besides cooking, few schools provided practical lessons (experiments, debates, presentations and research projects). Results from students showed favorability for cooking lessons, and that as cooking lesson frequency increased, understanding rose and students cooked at home more. The importance of teaching nutritional basics, cooking lessons’ high evaluation and the positive effects of experiments and practical lessons, were recognized.

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