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The purpose of this paper is to look at the role played by home economists in providing information to consumers about household products. The work of home economist and educator Martha Van Rensselaer is reviewed, specifically her time as editor of the homemaking department of women's magazine Delineator from 1921‐1926.

The paper used qualitative analysis of the content of the homemaking department under Van Rensselaer as well as quantitative analysis of the advertising during those years. Documents from several manuscript collections were used as well.

Content analysis showed a shift over the years from 1921‐1926 from broader social themes to greater emphasis on specific homemaking tasks. Ads were regularly placed next to related editorial content, but under Van Rensselaer no brand names were mentioned editorially.

Since this research focused on one magazine, comparison with homemaking departments in other women's journals at this time would provide useful context.

The specific example provided illuminates the evolving relationship between advertisers, home economists, media and consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to study how reflection affects the teacher change with a focus on teaching practices under education reforms in Hong Kong.

This study adopted narratives as the research design to unveil the contents of teachers’ reflection and how the contents affect their change in teaching practices under education reforms.

The study finds that teachers’ reflection starts with completion of curriculum (“technical level”), then consideration of students’ learning needs (“practical level”) and finally, the social justice and equality (“critical level”). The levels of reflection teachers engage have significant influence on their change. The higher the level of reflection teachers have, the more motivated the teachers to explore new teaching practices not only for the learning needs of students in classroom but also for the society outside classroom.

This study underlines the value of reflection in the process of teacher change in their teaching practices.

Purpose and methodology – Focusing on the policy contexts of gender education in Taiwan, this chapter uses data from interviews with elite policymakers and policy documents to examine how feminist activists sought to legitimatize gender equity in education in the wake of the comprehensive social and educational reforms of the 1990s and early years of this decade.

Findings – The embedding of gender in education did not follow a smooth path in terms of policy formulation. Feminist activists drove the process of reform by retaining control over the naming of the legislation, and its wording, thus preserving the language and imperatives of gender equity.

Social implications – In this chapter, I examine the formation of the Gender Equity Education Law, detailing the struggles, contentions, and negotiations that underlay the eventual approval of gender reform in education.

Originality/value of chapter – The chapter contributes significantly by identifying the necessity to recognize the nature of the state and its relations with society in order to research gender in education in Taiwan.

In the years following the publication of A Theory of Consumption (1923), Hazel Kyrk’s book became the flagship of the field that would later be known as the economics of consumption. It stimulated theoretical and empirical work on consumption. Some of the existing literature on Kyrk (e.g., Kiss & Beller, 2000; Le Tollec, 2020; Tadajewski, 2013) depicted her theory as the starting point of the economics of consumption. Nevertheless, how and why it emerged the way it did remain largely unexplored. This chapter examines Kyrk’s intellectual background, which, we argue, can be traced back to two main movements in the United States: the home economics and the institutionalist. Both movements conveyed specific endeavors as responses to the US material and social transformations that occurred at the turn of the 20th century, notably the perceived changing role of consumption and that of women in US society. On the one hand, Kyrk pursued first-generation home economists’ efforts to make sense of and put into action the shifting of women’s role from domestic producer to consumer. On the other hand, she reinterpreted Veblen’s (1899) account of consumption in order to reveal its operational value for a normative agenda focused on “wise” and “rational” consumption. This chapter studies how Kyrk carried on first-generation home economists’ progressive agenda and how she adapted Veblen’s fin-de-siècle critical account of consumption to the context of the household goods developed in 1900–1920. Our account of Kyrk’s intellectual roots offers a novel narrative to better understand the role of gender and epistemological questions in her theory.

The equation of unified knowledge says that S = f (A,P) which means that the practical solution to a given problem is a function of the existing, empirical, actual realities and the future, potential, best possible conditions of general stable equilibrium which both pure and practical reason, exhaustive in the Kantian sense, show as being within the realm of potential realities beyond any doubt. The first classical revolution in economic thinking, included in factor “P” of the equation, conceived the economic and financial problems in terms of a model of ideal conditions of stable equilibrium but neglected the full consideration of the existing, actual conditions. That is the main reason why, in the end, it failed. The second modern revolution, included in factor “A” of the equation, conceived the economic and financial problems in terms of the existing, actual conditions, usually in disequilibrium or unstable equilibrium (in case of stagnation) and neglected the sense of right direction expressed in factor “P” or the realization of general, stable equilibrium. That is the main reason why the modern revolution failed in the past and is failing in front of our eyes in the present. The equation of unified knowledge, perceived as a sui generis synthesis between classical and modern thinking has been applied rigorously and systematically in writing the enclosed American‐British economic, monetary, financial and social stabilization plans. In the final analysis, a new economic philosophy, based on a synthesis between classical and modern thinking, called here the new economics of unified knowledge, is applied to solve the malaise of the twentieth century which resulted from a confusion between thinking in terms of stable equilibrium on the one hand and disequilibrium or unstable equilibrium on the other.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Hazel Kyrk, one of the first women economists at the Economic Department of the University of Chicago and author of A Theory of Consumption (1923), conducted groundbreaking research for the Bureau of Home Economics of the US Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Kyrk made a considerable contribution to the development of standards for a “decent living,” the Consumer Price Index, and the conceptualization of what would later turn into the definition of the poverty line. This chapter evaluates Kyrk’s use of eugenic notions of gender and race that were widely used in Kyrk’s day. This chapter shows that eugenic reasoning impacts Kyrk’s theoretical work only superficially but does structure her research on consumption standards through her focus on the white middle-class family as the unit of analysis for consumer behavior. This chapter also makes clear that the American Institutionalist approach to consumer behavior, rather than marginalized and side-tracked due to a lack of theoretical progress, was relegated to the margins of economics science together with the research of women economists into Home Economics departments and policy research at government institutions.

This article examines the national and international connections made by women graduates of the School of Home Science in their efforts to develop the scholarly expertise and professional capacity that would enable them to pursue academic careers and to improve the position of women in universities. It argues that despite the obstacles, many women were able to pursue academic pathways and to establish their own authority. By undertaking a transnational analysis, this article examines webs of influence that linked women scholars in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States as well as those in the so called “centre” (Europe and the United Kingdom). It explores the networks formed by a select number of middle class women ‐ scholars such as Ann Gilchrist Strong, Elizabeth Gregory and Neige Todhunter ‐ as they attempted to expand the range of their scholarly work beyond national borders. It considers the influence of appointments of women academics from the United States and the United Kingdom on; the significance of post graduate study opportunities for home science graduates; and the role of scholarships and awards that enabled two way travel between the southern and northern hemispheres. A number of tensions are evident in the way women scholars located their work in new and emerging fields of academic knowledge within the university. This article explores interrelationships between women academics and graduates from the School of Home Science at the University of Otago and academic women in the United Kingdom and the United States. The final section of the paper examines the academic and scholarly life of Catherine Landreth who exemplifies the experience of a select group of women who gained personally, culturally and professionally from their international opportunities, experiences and networks. It considers Landreth’s transnational travels in search of scholarly expertise, the influence of her personal and professional networks, the significance of her pioneering work in the emerging field of early childhood education and the constraints experienced in a highly gendered academic enclave. To begin however it gives a brief overview of the introduction of Home Science at the University of New Zealand and the influence of initial international appointments on the expansion of women’s academic work at the University of Otago.

It was not until the late 1960s that housing attracted much attention from academic social scientists. Since that time the literature has expanded widely and diversified, establishing housing with a specialised status in economics, sociology, politics, and in related subjects. As we would expect, the new literature covers a technical, statistical, theoretical, ideological, and historical range. Housing studies have not been conceived and interpreted in a monolithic way, with generally accepted concepts and principles, or with uniformly fixed and precise methodological approaches. Instead, some studies have been derived selectively from diverse bases in conventional theories in economics or sociology, or politics. Others have their origins in less conventional social theory, including neo‐Marxist theory which has had a wider intellectual following in the modern democracies since the mid‐1970s. With all this diversity, and in a context where ideological positions compete, housing studies have consequently left in their wake some significant controversies and some gaps in evaluative perspective. In short, the new housing intellectuals have written from personal commitments to particular cognitive, theoretical, ideological, and national positions and experiences. This present piece of writing takes up the two main themes which have emerged in the recent literature. These themes are first, questions relating to building and developing housing theory, and, second, the issue of how we are to conceptualise housing and relate it to policy studies. We shall be arguing that the two themes are closely related: in order to create a useful housing theory we must have awareness and understanding of housing practice and the nature of housing.

Here Marx's philosophy is dissected from the angle of bourgeois capitalism which he, Marx, sought to overcome. His social, political and economic ideas are criticised. Although it is noted that Marx wanted to ameliorate human suffering, the result turned out to be Utopian, contrary to his own intentions. Contrary to Marx, it is individualism that makes the best sense and capitalism that holds out the best hope for coping with most of the problems he sought to solve. Marx's philosophy is alluring but flawed at a very basic level, namely, where it denies the individuality of each person and treats humanity as “an organic body”. Capitalism, while by no means out to guarantee a perfect society, is the best setting for the realisation of the diverse but often equally noble human goals of its membership.