• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.81-96
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• 2022

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which the contents of elementary and secondary curricula are connected and overlapped in the 'family life' area of Practical Arts(Technology & Home Economics) subjects. The procedure and results are as were like below. First, the types of criteria for analyzing curriculum contents are developed. The connectivity are classified as 'discontinuous hierarchy' and 'spiral hierarchy' and duplication are classified as 'repetition (high level of overlapping)', 'reproducing', 'deepening (intermediate level of overlapping)', 'substitution', and 'omission (low level of overlapping)'. Second, as a result of analyzing the contents of elementary and secondary curricula, the 'Human Development' area showed higher connectivity with a deepening type of duplication. The 'Safety' and the 'Lifelong Planning' concepts showed lower connectivity. Third, as a result of analyzing the achievement standards of the 2015 Curriculum, the secondary Home Economics curriculum showed a considerable increase in the level of difficulty and the volume compared to the elementary curriculum. There was low connectivity between the contents of elementary and secondary curricula in the core concepts 'Safety' and 'Lifelong Planning', an intermediate level of connectivity in 'Life Culture' and 'Management', and high connectivity in 'Development' and 'Relationship'. Also, there was a high level of duplication in the core concepts 'Safety' and 'Lifelong Planning', being classified as 'reproducing', 'substitution', and 'omission', analyzed to have low connectivity. When structuring the curriculum contents with a spiral hierarchy, one should connect the elementary and secondary school contents organically: the hierarchy with core concepts considering the different characters of constructuring knowledge in each school level, with a moderate volume, with a moderate difficulty level, with a moderate level of duplication of the contents, and with the minimum level of repetition of the same topics within the same school level.