This book is about the scientific study of human development and family relationships. These are topics that can be considered through the lens of art, literature, philosophy, or religion. But here, they are considered through the lens of science. I wish that it was not necessary to start with a clear statement that HDFS is a scientific discipline, but Iām afraid that it is.
Before we delve into those specific topics, however, let us consider the long history of the scientific study of human development and family relationships, as well as the types of scientific questions that we pursue in HDFS.
History of HDFS as a Scientific Discipline
HDFS emerged piecemeal in three different scientific disciplines (home economics, developmental psychology, and family sociology), all of which use scientific methods to study the everyday lives of ordinary people. They have, over time, merged into HDFS.
Home economics emerged in the United States in the late 1800s during the Industrial Revolution in response to the astounding effectiveness of science at improving things like manufacturing and medicine. Could science be applied to everyday life as well, to make people's lives better? Obviously, cooking, sewing, and child-rearing had been done adequately for millennia, as evidenced by the expansion of the human species across the globe. But the early home economists believed that science could be used to improve these areas of life, such that persistent problems related to the health and happiness of the general population could be addressed through science (Elias, 2010). Home economists focused on how to use the methods of science to make food production and preparation in the family home safer and more nutritious, how to make textiles and clothing construction in the family home more efficient and cost effective, and how to make child care and family relationships more successful. They were scholars intent on applying the methods of science to everyday life. The early home economists were frequently women, and were excluded by gender discrimination from working as academic scientists in male-dominated scientific disciplines. Thus, they founded academic departments of home economics, and set to work studying the application of science to the everyday lives of ordinary people.
At the same time that home economics emerged in academia, the study of the family as an important social unit was emerging within sociology, which historically had studied larger social groups. Frederick LePlay, considered by some to be the first social scientist (LaRossa & Wolf, 1985), believed that the family unit produced social stability. He studied how families managed the economic uncertainties of the Industrial Revolution, and he did so using methods of study that were obviously scientific (LePlay, 1871). Decades later, sociologists Thomas and Znaniecki published The Polish Peasant (1918ā20), a study of immigration and assimilation through the unit of the family, a book that helped to create the sub-discipline of family sociology. In 1917, a family sociologist (Ernest Burgess) offered the first family science course at the University of Chicago, and the first college textbook about family science appeared a decade later in 1927 (Hamon & Smith, 2017). These early sociologists were using the methods of science to study the everyday lives of ordinary families. Family sociology remains a vibrant sub-discipline within sociology, but much family science occurs outside of the professional identity of sociology. Family science is the scientific study of families and close, interpersonal relationships (NCFR, n.d.).
Meanwhile, in the 1880s, G. Stanley Hall, the American psychologist who founded the American Psychological Association, was one of the founders of the child study movement. He was instrumental in the development of the scientific study of children, and of psychology more generally. He promoted the idea that we should empirically test our ideas about children and how they develop and that we should use the methods of science to study how ordinary people change and grow over time. He published one of the very first studies of child development in the psychological literature, entitled āChildren's Liesā (Hall, 1890). This impetus grew into the modern field we recognize as child development, and its founding is part of the origin story of developmental psychology more generally. Like home economics and family sociology, it was fundamentally a scientific endeavor. Within psychology, the sub-discipline of developmental psychology remains vibrant, and is sometimes referred to even more generally as developmental science to recognize the contributions of sciences other than psychology to the study of human development. Developmental science is the study of systemic and successive change over time in human beings (Lerner et al., 2011). Developmental science is mostly situated as a sub-discipline of psychology, although developmental science has a multidisciplinary nature (Kretschmer, 2007), and developmental science is conducted outside of psychology.
There was a natural overlap in the interests and research methods of home economists, developmental scientists, and family scientists in that all were studying the everyday lives of ordinary people. Through the years, that affinity led to a great deal of multi-disciplinary work involving scholars in these related areas, and others. In fact, some argue that this work is not just multi-disciplinary, representing the contributions of multiple disciplines. Instead, it is inter-disciplinary, a merger of those original disciplines into one that is distinct from what came before.
Home economics as a self-standing discipline survived for about a century. Several components of home economics developed enough to branch off and become their own disciplines (e.g., food science and nutrition, personal finance, and fashion merchandising). The child and family components did not disappear, but instead blended with developmental psychology to become developmental science, and with family sociology to become family science. When home economics began to disappear from universities, the academic departments that had been called āhome economicsā gradually adopted the HDFS identity. Currently, HDFS exists in the form of interdisciplinary departments that contain both developmental scientists and family scientists collaborating to study development and relationships. Human Development and Family Science (HDFS) is, therefore, an interdisciplinary field of scientific study and applied practice that encompasses the related disciplines of developmental science and family science, and draws on the scholarship of several other disciplines as well.
The interdisciplinary nature of HDFS includes scientific work grounded in anthropology, communication, women's studies, criminology, and other social sciences. It also includes scientific work grounded in counseling, child care, education, social work, and other health and human service disciplines. HDFS is therefore an interdisciplinary social science.
In addition, HDFS is an applied science; meaning scientific research focused on solving practical problems that are directly relevant to the everyday lives of ordinary people. HDFS works toward the scientific understanding of development and relationships, and toward professionalizing these areas of expertise. It is a discipline that has clear, direct applications to everyday life and to human service providers in many related fields. The scientific study of development and relationships allows for professional applied practice in multiple areas.
Make sure you can answer the following questions:
- Name the three disciplines from which HDFS emerged.
- Why have these three disciplines merged into HDFS? What do they have in common?
