FACTORS AFFECTING MALE STUDENT ENROLLMENT IN THE CONSUMER AND HOMEMAKING PROGRAM AT WILLIAMSPORT HIGH SCHOOL

Abstract

"Historically, the participation of female, male, and minority students in consumer and homemaking programs.. .has fallen into more segregated patterns than in other curricular areas. Sometimes, inadvertently, educational systems have tracked certain students into, or away from, these courses and programs. Often, scheduling and counseling practices have tended to segregate consumer and homemaking programs by sex" (Anderson and Barta, 1981, p. 1). Consumer and homemaking programs encompass the field of knowledge and service primarily concerned with strengthening family life through educating the individual for family living, improving the services and goods used by families, conducting research to discover the changing needs of individuals and families and the means of satisfying these needs, and furthering community, national, and world conditions favorable to family living (Anderson and Barta, 1981). In this paper, the term home economics education will be used interchangeably with consumer and homemaking education