Browsing by Author "Järvinen, Saraleena"

The aim of this study was to show how present master’s theses of home economics position themselves on four dimensions of home economics practice: societal, curriculum, academic discipline and everyday living. Another purpose was to categorize the master’s theses to different subfields of home economics. This study aimed to see if the master’s theses were able to be as diverse as the field of home economics science. Home economics as a diverse and integrated, yet holistic, system was defined by McGregor (2011) along with other home economists. The definition formed was used as a coding frame to generate and structure different subfields. The previous categorization of master’s theses has been made in 1990. The research material consisted of home economics master’s theses during 2010–2015 (n=173). The data was reduced focusing on master’s theses’ titles, keywords, purposes, research questions and results. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data. The master’s theses were categorized according to four dimensions of home economics practice and structured and generated to different subfields. Analyses of the results showed that nearly half of the theses studied the area of everyday living. Quarter was a part of the curriculum area and one third approached home economics form the societal area. Three theses represented the academic area of home economics. Main focus was on the subfields of everyday living, food culture, foods and nutrition. Clothing, textiles and cleaning were the least researched subfields. According to this study, all the theses were combined by the purpose to enhance the well-being of individuals and families. Subfields created from the data show the diverse field of home economics. According to this study, the master’s theses’ of home economics divide unevenly to the dimensions, as well as its subfields. This study can be used when improving the masters’ research of home economics. It can also work as a guide for students to study less researched subfields and find new approaches.