Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore the identity of home economics(HE) education by assessing perceptions of HE teacher, students, and general adults regarding the images and characteristics of HE education. Respondents in this study were 234 HE teachers, 505 students, and 264 general adults. Questionnaires were collected through both online and offline. The image and the characteristics of HE education were the factors of the identity that were also the byproducts of HE education operation of the past and present, and had the characteristics in changing in accordance with the change of time. The current image of HE education was shown to positive recognition as the curriculum helpful to the actual living and future living for the HE teacher, students, and the general adults. For the HE teacher, it had strong emotionally warm image similar to the image of 'home', and it was connected to the curriculum image to be acknowledged as good problem solving teachers in terms of competence and conservative image. However, on the images of the HE curriculum and HE teacher, the HE teachers had the most positive recognition, and on the image of the HE curriculum, the students had the most negative recognition while the image of the HE teacher, the general adults had the most negative recognition. The general adults among the three groups recognized the HE curriculum as the most technical oriented curriculum while the students recognized as interesting curriculum, curriculum contributing on society. In the meantime, for the characteristic of the HE education, the HE teachers recognized that it had weak female curriculum characteristics and strong living functional curriculum characteristics, and the practical curriculum characteristics would be important in the future. Accordingly, the identity of the HE education formulated might be considered as the practical curriculum that was helpful to problem solving in actual living of the family and family members with the connection to the concept of 'home'. However, depending on the definition on implication of practice and issue of actual living, the characteristics and appearance of the HE education had been changed and might interpret as changing according to the above.for the fertility policy and the methods for the estimation of the child cost were suggested based on the results.
