editorial

© 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

International Journal of Consumer Studies,

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, 4, July 2005, pp295–297

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Blackwell Science, LtdOxford, UKIJCInternational Journal of Consumer Studies1470-6423Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 200529

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Editorial

EditorialEditorial

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This Special Issue of the

International Journal of Con-sumer Studies

focuses on the research introduced andpresented during the 20th World Congress of the Inter-national Federation for Home Economics (IFHE) inAugust 2004 in Kyoto, Japan. The IFHE, founded in1908, aims to improve the quality of everyday life forindividuals, families and households worldwide by pro-moting a global network for professionals in home eco-nomics, family and consumer sciences or related fields(http://www.ifhe.org)

The IFHE organizes a world congress every fourthyear. The 20th Congress on the theme of ‘Cooperationand Interdependence – Fostering Leadership in HomeEconomics for Healthy Communities’ was held inKyoto, Japan in August 2004. The local organizer wasthe Science Council of Japan and the Japan Society ofHome Economics. The Calls for Research Abstracts andPractitioners’ Papers were published in 2002, and about450 abstracts were sent for the screening process orga-nized by the Research Committee of IFHE, chaired byAns Groot-Marcus from the Netherlands. The totalnumber of accepted research abstracts was nearly 350,with a clear majority of contributions from Asia.

The local organizers in Japan provided excellent facil-ities to hold research sessions both in oral and posterforms. The Abstract Book including all researchabstracts and abstracts from practitioners’ articles wasprinted for the participants. Many interesting presenta-tions were introduced and new possibilities for network-ing were launched. This is the first time that the IFHEhas sought to publish a collection of full research arti-cles in an international journal. The

International Jour-nal of Consumer Studies

was a pioneer in expressing itsinterest in taking up this challenge.

A call for research articles for the

International Jour-nal of Consumer Studies

was announced during the

Congress in August 2004, and researchers were asked tosubmit their full articles in a very tight deadline. Allarticles were peer reviewed by at least two referees.Besides the basic criteria for acceptance the articleswere required to be based on the presentations madeduring the Kyoto Congress.

The selected articles reflect the scope of the Congress.They come from three regions of IFHE: Asia, Americaand Europe, and six countries. Besides these regions thereferees represent two more regions, those of Africaand the Pacific. The topics deal with consumer and mul-ticultural issues, sustainable development, health, gen-der and citizenship perspectives and focus on newpractices in teaching and learning.

The first article,

Interdependence between consump-tion in the North and sustainable communities in theSouth,

is a good example of an international topic andthe need for global discussion on everyday activities andconsumerism. In their research Helena Shanahan andAnnika Carlson-Kanyama from Sweden take a holisticlook at consumption and its influences on different lev-els of the ecosystem and the potential global linkages.They introduce some examples of this interdependenceand raise questions about how impacts of productionand consumption can be communicated to consumersin terms of labelling schemes as well as to professionalpurchasers at the wholesale level.

Gerda Casimir and Hester Moerbeek from the Neth-erlands continue the discussion on consumer knowledgeand information. They take a look at new technologyand focus their research on gender differences and inconsumers’ acceptance of genetically modified foods.Using the data from Eurobarometer they found thatthere are differences in the acceptance of geneticallymodified foods between women and men. Somehypotheses were launched concerning the relationship

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between the knowledge and the acceptance as well.However, this relationship proved to be very compli-cated, and far more research is needed to reveal thislinkage. Some conclusions concerning conceptualisingand measuring of knowledge and information were putforward as well.

Tahira Hira and Cäzilia Loibl from the US also con-sider knowledge in their research. They focus onemployers and their supply of different health insurancefor workers. They discuss how far consumers can relyon employers’ decisions for health care coverage. Theaim of the research is to understand how acquiredknowledge of financial matters influences consumptionof supplementary health care plans. Their findings indi-cate that the learning process plays an important partin understanding the scope and monetary value of thesupplementary health care benefits. Health care deci-sions were dominated especially by gender, age and jobclassification.

Minna Autio from Finland assesses the morality ofspending from the perspective of young consumers.Data were collected from secondary school pupils byusing the narrative research approach. Stories writtenby young Finnish people were interpreted in the histor-ical context of consumer culture. Interesting connec-tions starting from the Protestant traditions up tomodern media culture could be found behind pupils’statements. According to Autio’s research the moralityof spending is a part of the process of growing up as aconsumer and constructing a consumer identity.

We are pleased to include two Asian contributions,representing the huge number of research presentationsfrom Asian countries during the congress. Both of themfocus on school settings and reflect the discussion thatis going on in renewing the education system in manyAsian countries. There was a special focus on theseissues at one of the post-congress events of the KyotoCongress. Professor Noriko Arai was the person respon-sible for that event held in Kanasawa in August 2004. Inher article

Lesson practice and teachers’ views on citi-zenship and gender

Noriko Arai reports the results ofcomparisons between two school subjects in Japan,those of home economics and civics. She notices manydifferences in the teaching practices and learning con-tents but also many similarities on setting the goals ofempowering students to solve and change social prob-

lems. However, according to Arai’s research there is stilla long way to go in cross-disciplinary collaboration overthe curriculum and classroom learning to empower stu-dents to be democratically minded citizens in a societywith less gender discrimination.

Jeou-Shyan Horng from Taiwan takes a look at cre-ative instructions as an innovative teaching and learningapproach that has been emphasized in establishing newcurricula for teacher education. She focuses on thelearning area of integrative activities that has an impor-tant role in the national curriculum in Taiwan. The datahave been collected by interviewing and observing threeteachers who have won awards for creative teaching.Analysing the results enables many factors of successfulcreative instruction to be pointed and some recommen-dations for developing teacher education to be raised.

Hille Janhonen-Abruquah has examined 10 integra-tion projects in order to find key elements in successfulmulticultural integration work. Attention was mainlypaid to collaborative learning and practical activities.Even though her examples are taken from Finnish soci-ety, similar experiences can be found around the world.Sharing good practice in multicultural understandingmay foster healthy communities; this was a theme of theKyoto Congress. Collaborative learning in peer groupscan work as a useful framework for enhancing toleranceof diversity. Having a practical nature, home economicsand consumer education offer a fruitful setting for thiskind of collaborative teaching of tolerance

We wish to thank all the authors and reviewers whocontributed to this Special Issue. International network-ing and modern technology has enabled an effectiveexchange of ideas between researchers and scholarsaround the world.

Katherine Hughes, the Editor of the Journal, hasbeen an active member of the team and provided uswith valuable information and support during the wholeprocess. Katherine has been responsible for most corre-spondence with the authors and referees. We expressour warm thanks to her.

On behalf of the Research Committee of IFHE weare most grateful to the

International Journal of Con-sumer Studies

for enabling us to publish these researcharticles. We hope this effort will have a positive effecton the scope of readership of the Journal, and encour-age new researchers and scholars to submit their latest



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research for future issues. The Journal can function asan important discussion forum for researchers and pro-fessionals in the fields of consumer studies and homeeconomics worldwide.

Jette Benn

Associate Professor, PhDThe Danish University of EducationDepartment of Curriculum Research

Emdrupvej 101DK-2400 Copenhagen NV

DenmarkE-mail: [email protected]

Kaija Turkki

Professor, PhDUniversity of Helsinki

Department of Home Economics and Craft ScienceP.O. Box 8, 00014 University of Helsinki,

FinlandE-mail: [email protected]

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