Overview of undergraduate degree programs related to human development and family science

• Published date: 01 February 2024
• Author: Kathleen Dyer,Sara Black,Gwyneth Quitorio,Emma Linneman,Maichong Vang
• Date: 01 February 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12946

RESEARCH

Overview of undergraduate degree programs related

to human development and family science

KathleenDyer| SaraBlack | GwynethQuitorio |

Emma Linneman|Maichong Vang

Child and Family Science, California State

University Fresno, Fresno, CA

Correspondence

Kathleen Dyer, Child and Family Science,

5300 N. Campus Drive, M/S FF12, California

State University Fresno, Fresno,

CA 93740, USA.

Email: kdyer@mail.fresnostate.edu

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this overview of academic

programs related to Human Development and Family

Science (HDFS) is to describe the current status of HDFS

in the academy.

Background: HDFS is an interdisciplinary nexus of family

science, developmental science, and early childhood educa-

tion (ECE), often coexisting in academic units.

Method: Universities were identified using Classification

of Instructional Programs (CIP) codes in Integrated Post-

secondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data. Program

information was identified by review of university websites

and online catalogs.

Results: Six hundred thirty-six programs granted 28,000

HDFS-related degrees in the United States in 2019.

Universities are evenly split between public and private

and are geographically diverse. Approximately half of

programs self-identify as HDFS, 30% ECE, 15% develop-

mental science, and 5% family science. The largest num-

ber of programs (53%) were in colleges of education, but

they were widely dispersed across campuses, with self-

identified HDFS programs likely to be in colleges that

reflect a home economics heritage. The most common

department name was Human Development and Family

Studies/Science, but these were only 25% of programs.

Department names and degree names reflect an interdis-

ciplinary collaboration of developmental science with

family science but were less likely to reflect early educa-

tion. There was little correspondence between the name

of degrees offered and the CIP codes attached to them.

Conclusion: HDFS has a large and interdisciplinary pres-

ence on university campuses but an unclear identity.

Received: 29 March 2022Revised: 29 May 2023Accepted: 4 July 2023

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12946

© 2023 National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2024;73:399–423. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 399

Implications: HDFS needs to clarify its relationship with

ECE and to decide whether to standardize its complex and

interdisciplinary identity.

KEYWORDS

developmental science, early childhood education, family science, higher

education, interdisciplinarity

Disciplinary identity is important within science and within academia. The work of science, and

the body of knowledge generated by it, is simply too big and too diverse for scholars to master

the whole of it. Instead, they must establish solid grounding in a particular disciplinary home

and produce scientific knowledge as part of a collective process that occurs within that particu-

lar community of scholars. The community of scholars and the body of scientific evidence from

which they work constitute an academic discipline. Disciplines have defining characteristics,

including curricula and departmental identities within academia, scholarship controlled by

journals and professional organizations, criteria for hiring and promotions, shared theory and

methods, and a shared sense of identity (Burr & Leigh, 1983; Repko et al., 2019).

However, the very concept of “disciplinarity”has been criticized within academia for produc-

ing silos that isolate scholars and prevent the development ofinterdisciplinary knowledge required

to solve complicated problems. Too much focus on establishing and protecting disciplinary

boundaries can interfere with creative and progressive scholarship (Kolowich, 2010). Yet the fact

that collaboration between disciplines is essential for scientific evidence to converge may not

diminish the need for some degree of disciplinary identity in the first place (Jacobs, 2014).

Perhaps as a result of this tension between the need for disciplinary identity and the need for

interdisciplinary work, academic disciplines are dynamic (Jacobs, 2014). It frequently happens

that two or more combine to make up a single academic department or that a department

divides into two to reflect growing disciplinary differences. Departments sometimes change

their names to better reflect their changing disciplinary identity. Clusters of related disciplines

typically make up colleges within a university, and it is not uncommon for a department to

move from one college to another. Sometimes, whole colleges are dismantled or are assembled

anew. Thus, disciplinary identity on college campuses is far from static. Human Development

and Family Science (HDFS) provides an illustrative example of the fluidity of disciplines and

academic units.

HDFS has roots in home economics, which was fundamentally interdisciplinary in nature

itself (Horn & Nickols, 1982) as well as being focused on applied, practical issues of everyday

life (Vincenti, 2009). Home economics developed in conjunction with developmental psychol-

ogy, family sociology, and education, especially the subfields in those disciplines that are

applied to practical issues of the everyday lives of ordinary people. As home economics depart-

ments began to dissolve in the latter 20th century, they morphed into interdisciplinary academic

units where developmental science, family science, and early education intentionally fostered

collaborative training and research (Endsley et al., 1988,1989); today, these units are most

commonly called HDFS (Hans, 2014). Nonetheless, faculty in these interdisciplinary HDFS

departments sometimes lack a clear and coherent shared understanding of the interdisciplinary

nature of their work (Vincenti, 2009).

According to Benson et al. (2006), the name “Human Development and Family Science”is

used to describe academic programs based on the common premise of “the importance of con-

text in understanding the influences and constraints in which people parent, partner, and create

community”(p. 45). Similarly, Kamp Dush (2014,2017) described HDFS programs as ones

that involve “the study of human development in context”(p. 1). HDFS appears to be a natu-

rally occurring interdisciplinary coexistence and collaboration within the academy of three

400 FAMILY RELATIONS