Family studies curriculum changes : matching societal needs?

This paper examines the Family Studies curriculum documents from 1979 to 2016 in British Columbia to determine whether the curriculum in relevant in terms of the social, political, and economic conditions of the times. It seeks to determine to what extent the governmentimplemented changes in the curriculum reflect the needs of students and the society in which they live. This paper extends previous work done analyzing the Home Economics government mandated curriculum. Five Family Studies mandated curriculum documents - 1979; 1986; 1998; 2007 and 2016 (draft) – are included in the studies. Findings indicate that the mandatory learning outcomes are vague enough that a teacher could adapt them to the context of the time; however, the content is not explicitly linked to the context, hence the creation of broad learning outcomes.Education, Faculty ofCurriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department ofUnreviewedGraduat