How has home economics in France and in others european countries became a school discipline? What are the founding and organizing principles of its contents and methods that value practical and scientific teaching, an active and experiential approach and an inductive method such as the type “process-driven curriculum” according to the distinction of Ross (2000) who opposes it to “content-driven” and “objectives-driven” curriculum? With the contrast of its publics, what are its evolutions in the different segments of the educational system, in secondary education and in primary, agricultural or technical education? What are the structure of these curricula for the education of young girls mainly from modest backgrounds (Skeggs, 2015)? These are the central questions of this research (Lebeaume, 2014) which is part of the theme of the history of school disciplines, widely developed since the project initiated by Chervel (1988). Among the typology suggested by Kahn & Michel (2016) the historical investigation presented belongs to the didactic history centered on the contents, their selection and their programmatic organization. It also has a curricular perspective, i.e. by considering the components (equipment, resources, administrative and pedagogical organization, also teachers’ education) proposed by de Landsheere (1979, p. 65). The differentiated approach of home economics aims to characterize its contrasting configurations and thus characterizing of the curricular forms.

The questions about curriculums and their structure or organization are proposed by sociology with the main difference proposed by Bernstein (1975) between “collection code” and “integrated code”. Mons & al. (2012) comment the last one and precise that it gives a more importance to practical tasks or professional activities than the first one mainly organised with school disciplines. These authors however note that this distinction mainly is studied with a sociological point of view, in order to document and to discuss the socialization process without specifically to take account about contents, thus without a didactical approach. The relationships between sociology and didactics are recently implemented (Losego, 2014) and Forquin (2008) discusses the concept of “curricular form” suggested by Martinand (2001). Forquin (p. 10) indicates that “typical form curricular” is relevant when there are both a systemic dimension (a multiplicity of clearly identified and more or less strongly articulated components) and a sequential dimension (the teaching of each of these components obeys programming and progression according to an explicitly planned temporal order) within a curriculum.

These two dimensions are present in all teachings, educational action or vocational education. They concern the organization of the curriculum both horizontally and vertically. With this perspective, the distinction made in the training references of paramedical professions, between "constitutives disciplines" and "contributory disciplines" but reformulated by nuancing "constitutive practices" and "contributory knowledge" is particularly interesting. It enables to represent the architecture of the curriculum by characterizing the purposes and therefore its vertical structure and the contents that are woven in a horizontal way on this structure.

For the home economics, the vertical structure can thus be given by the practices to be mastered (feeding, ironing, detaching, childcare...) for which scientific and technological knowledge are necessary and contribute to reasoned practices (physicochemistry of cooking, textile technology, physical mixtures and solutions, chemical reactions...). The vertical structure can also be provided by disciplinary lessons in the physics and natural sciences for activities organized into themes such as health education or, more generally, life skills. The choice between the two curricular forms, however, depends on the educational issues of the curriculum. At the time of this essentially feminine education associated with the social role of women, the first form was favored in order to allow the appropriation of the values associated with this role.

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