Episode Summary
I have two co-hosts with me for today’s episode, first is the President of the International Federation of Home Economics, Gwendolyn Hustvedt, and the Vice-President co-chair for the Region of Americas, Janine Duncan. Professor Gwendolyn Hustvedt, who teaches textiles and product development at Texas State University, started her four-year term as President of the International Federation for Home Economics in 2020. Our other co-host is Dr. Janine Duncan who has served as a teacher educator of Family & Consumer Sciences for 16 years at multiple universities. She currently serves as the International Federation for Home Economics (IFHE) Vice President for the Region of Americas, represents IFHE as a representative to the United Nations, and is co-chairing the IFHE World Congress 2022. You will love learning about IFHE and why it’s important for FCS professionals to be part of a global network and society with IFHE.
Episode Notes:
• International Federation For Home Economics was founded more than 100 years ago in 1908, it was founded to basically help have a conversation about home economics as a discipline on a global stage across global hat forms. And so I got involved because it’s just a chance to meet people who share many of our same perspectives, but maybe not all of our exact same concerns or issues, so depending on what country they’re in, they’re structured a little differently, they have support coming from different places, or they have a different position or status within their society, it can be easy sometimes for us to get a little bit defensive, we sometimes feel like we have to always explain, yes, we still exist, or this is what we do, or…It’s a lot of things, but we’re all together, and so it’s really great to meet people who receive different kinds of support or have a different perspective on what should be included or how things should work. So just to put it simply, the International Federation For Home Economics is the only international organization that’s designed to promote home economics across the world, that’s what the organization is in a nutshell.(4:13)
• I was a second-year middle school teacher when I went to my first congress. It was something that was part of the culture where I went to school at the University of Illinois, and we had a group of people who were going. And I thought, Well, you know, I had to make choices, and I attended that year, and it was a remarkable experience. I remember having someone ask me when I was there, “why would a middle school teacher come to the Internation Federation of Home Economics Congress? I was stunned by the question ’cause I thought, Well, why wouldn’t we… And really what’s to be gained, there’s everything that we do as teachers of home economics, family consumer sciences, now that we refer to it, is about trying to connect people, and that if we’re really trying to connect people and build Understandings cross-culturally, then the best way to do that is by working cross-culturally with our peers, and so the Congress gives us a great opportunity to do that (7:22)
• As Family & Consumer Sciences professionals and Home Economists, we’re empowered to actually think through how we can manage those situations. Were in a really lucky position. I read a book about the first Earth day and talked about how he called them housewives, but I’d like to imagine that quite a lot of these quote housewives were actually home economics trained women who were really concerned about litter and water pollution and air pollution in the 1970s. The original Earth Day was actually focused on removing waste from our environment, and one of the kinds of sad things as I read that book, I realized that there was definitely this idea that we should solve our problems around ways of using market forces. If we will buy recycled products, then that will stimulate a market for recyclables and then the problem will be solved. And of course, one of the things I’d like to remember is that industries who are making money off of us want us to have conversations that are on their terms about how we can use them to solve the problem, just buy something recycled or recycled here, and that solves the problem, but the whole point of home economics is that what happens in our homes is our business, right, we have the power within our homes, and so we should be empowered through education and through options to actually have our home a place that reflects our values. (16:13)
• I love using the Sustainable Development Goals as a teaching frame within my courses, just laying out all 17 of the goals and then explaining how Home Economics aligns with all of the goals, and then also asking my students through the course of the semester, which of the topics that we’re talking about today fits with which development goal, so that they can really understand that things like seeking justice or gender equality, or improving health and wellness are the things we’re talking about aligning with this global conversation. (27:43)
CONNECT WITH DR. GWENDOLYN HUSTVEDT
•Email: president@ifhe.org
•Website: https://www.ifhe.org/service-1/join-us
•World 2022 Congress Website: https://web.cvent.com/event/ec0dcde7-3a47-494c-ba86-269439400fa3/summary
•Twitter: @ifheUs
•Twitter: @ifhe_HomeEc
CONNECT WITH DR. JANINE DUNCAN
•Email: duncanjm@ksu.edu
•Website: https://www.ifhe.org/service-1/join-us
•World 2022 Congress Website: https://web.cvent.com/event/ec0dcde7-3a47-494c-ba86-269439400fa3/summary
•Twitter: @JanineDuncan64
• Instagram: kstatecte
CONNECT WITH BARBARA:
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WHEN DOES IT AIR…
MARCH 30th, 2022