Dr. Kerry Renwick
Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy
Abstract: When professionals engage in and with their professional practice they assert a claim of extraordinary knowledge. Within Home Economics such a claim is a challenge when everyday lived experiences are in and of themselves ordinary, of which everyone apparently has knowledge of. Professional application of knowledge has an explicit focus on the wellbeing of others and therefore is what constitutes professional practice. Home Economics educators engage in professional practice when we connect with students and their families to build capacity for a life well lived.
This paper considers the professional practice of Home Economics education using Aristotle’s consideration of human action through the dispositions of techn , episteme and phronesis. Each provides unique understandings about the relationship between ideology and action, and therefore professional practice. Using these three dispositions to understanding professional practice is a positioning that is different to current market ideology that pervades every social and cultural institution, especially schools. Using McGregor’s (2010) eight unique contributions of Home Economics enables discussion about the professional practice of Home Economics in a market-orientated era. The paper concludes with a discussion about what the three dispositions for human action offers Home Economics educators as they focus on what they do with their students in classrooms that also has meaning outside the school gates and beyond the school years.
