Home economics has a long history in Hong Kong schools. Although it is still in the secondary school curriculum, its value is always being challenged. This is particularly so when it is amongst the educational changes and reforms that are currently undertaken in Hong Kong. In order to understand its present situation in school and to inform the future development of the subject, a survey has been conducted to collect teachers' views. It is believed that the data collected will help put contemporary Hong Economics teaching in schools in context as well as identifying factors that might have affected its development in schools. Most importantly, the results help to provide a basis for practitioners in the field to rethink the relevance of Home Economics in the school curriculum in the new century.

Home economics has been a school subject in Hong Kong for over fifty years. It stayed mainly as a female subject until 1999 when a survey on Equal Opportunity in Education was carried out by the Hong Kong Equal Opportunities Commission. The report of that survey revealed that boys were generally deprived of the opportunity in learning home economics in the curriculum. Schools were alert to the situation and home economics has subsequently been offered to both boys and girls in a co-educational environment in most schools in recent years. However, the participation of boys in home economics has caused some concerns in the field. Teachers are particularly anxious of their interaction with boys in a once female-dominated learning environment. Despite they understand that gender bias can be a serious detriment to learning, many are aware that they lack the ability to foster a more equitable teacher-student interaction in the classroom in order to meet the learning needs of both genders. Studies which looked at teacher interactions with boys and girls in different subject areas are abundant, such as Mathematics and Science. However, published studies on interaction in home economics classes are rare particularly in Hong Kong context. This may due to the fact that its history in co-educational learning environment is still short in Hong Kong. This study is a pioneer work which aims to find out whether home economics in Hong Kong co-educational classes supports patriarchal patterns of domination by males as researched in many studies. It also examines whether classroom processes in home economics lessons sustain or break down barriers between the sexes. It is hoped that useful strategies can be generated from this study to help all students participate equally in the classrooms in general, and within home economics lessons in particular.