An investigation of the home economics related curriculum requirements for the clothing, textiles and fashion merchandising baccalaureate program

The purpose of this nationwide survey was to investigate the home economics related curriculum requirements for the clothing, textiles and fashion merchandising baccalaureate program. The sample was the 203 coordinators of these programs which are housed in home economics units; 116 participants responded.;Two research questions were set forth for this survey. The first sought to determine the presence and contents of a home economics core in these programs and the contents of the clothing, textiles and fashion merchandising courses. The second was concerned with demographic information about program coordinators.;For the home economics core, the most frequently required courses were consumer economics/home management Introduction to Home Economics. All of the four subject matter courses/content areas yielded significant rank-biserial correlation between requiredness and importance; none of the three integrated courses/content areas obtained significant coefficients. Fifty-seven of the participants stated a strong commitment to the core while 50 indicated that the core was inappropriate.;For the 28 courses/content areas for the clothing, textiles and fashion merchandising program, the most frequently required course/content area was TEXTILE SCIENCE/Basics for Consumers. Nineteen of the 28 courses/content areas yielded significant rank-biserial correlation coefficients.;The demographic results indicated 53.2% of the coordinators held bachelor's degrees in home economics education while over half of the graduate degrees were in clothing, textiles and fashion merchandising. Nearly 50% of the respondents indicated that they had never worked in the apparel industry.;The major recommendation from this study is that members of the Association of College Professors of Textiles and Clothing initiate the procedures to establish guidelines for home economics related curriculum requirements for the clothing, textiles and fashion merchandising baccalaureate program.