Internationalization of home economics education: Global education practices and perceptions of teacher educators

The purpose of the study was to investigate current practices and beliefs of home economics teacher educators regarding the infusion of a global perspective into the curriculum, by providing benchmark, descriptive data. Specifically, the study sought to (1) describe the practices used to integrate global education in methods course(s); (2) identify factors considered as incentives or barriers to the implementation of a global perspective; and (3) construct a profile of home economics teacher educators who are likely to infuse principles of global education into the curriculum.;The study surveyed 162 home economics teacher educators who were identified as teaching a methods course(s). They were identified by an earlier inquiry via the membership roster of the National Association of Vocational Home Economics Teacher Educators. Seventy-five percent (n = 121) returned usable instruments.;An instrument with three parts was developed to collect information related to current practices in the classroom, beliefs regarding global education, and selected characteristics of the individual and work environment. Each of the 72 items in the instrument was directly linked to a literature review of global education, higher education, and home economics education.;In spite of the range of concepts identified with global education in the literature, practices and beliefs of home economics teacher educators' preferences in a factor analysis clustered into eleven factors, five related to beliefs and six related to practices. Alpha reliability coefficients ranged from 0.53 to 0.84. The five factors were used in further analysis to predict the infusion of global education practices of teacher educators.;The factor focus included the aims of global education related to home economics education and references with a global focus. This factor was found to be a significant predictor of five out of six factor practices used by teacher educators. Exchanges of faculty, students, and staff can be a predictor variable in two of six practice factors.;While 71% of the respondents were tenured, only 28% indicated that their institutional tenure/reward system recognized international or global activities. Respondents indicated that involvement with global education was largely attributed to personal commitment, although administrative support was important. The teacher educators identified lack of time as a significant barrier to the infusion of global education.