Teaching Traditional vs. Emerging Concepts in Family Life Education

Abstract

This study examines whether US family life teachers consider it as important to teach about the evolutionary nature of the family as about traditional concepts. It also examines whether family life teachers consider themselves qualified to teach the emerging concepts of the family. Respondents included 436 randomly selected Home Economics Family Life teachers who responded to a mailed questionnaire. Overall traditional concepts were reported to be significantly more important to teach than were merging concepts. Older and more experienced teachers respectively reported the emerging concepts to be more important to teach than did the younger teachers and those with less teaching experience. The amount of teaching experience was not a significant variable in predicting teachers perceptions of the importance of teaching traditional concepts. The reported importance of teaching traditional concepts was related to teachers educational backgrounds. Age and teaching experience accounted for a significant amount of the variance in teachers perceptions of the importance of teaching emerging concepts. Perceived qualifications to teach emerging concepts was also related to age and amount of teaching experience. The older teachers reported emerging concepts to be significantly more important to teach than did the younger teachers. The more experienced teachers perceived themselves to be more qualified to teach emerging concepts than did their less experienced counterparts. Teachers with masters degrees were significantly more likely to report emerging concepts to be important to teach than were those having bachelors degrees as their highest degree.