Introducing HESSS: Home Economics at Swiss Secondary Schools

Political science research into the determinants and consequences of who was taught what, when, and how in public schools is rare. One challenge encountered by researchers is that structured and detailed (historical) comparative data about curricula is limited, also in Switzerland. We contribute to closing this gap by introducing HESSS, a novel dataset on the provision of home economics education (“Hauswirtschaftsunterricht”) in Switzerland in ten German‐speaking cantons for vocational‐ and university‐track secondary schools since 1980 and 1991, respectively. Our dataset can help scholars explore variation in home economics education over time and across cantons, and facilitate research on the Swiss educational system. In this research note, we outline the main features of the data and illustrate how they can be used in two applications: (i) tracking the switch from gender‐segregated to co‐educated home economics classes across cantons; and (ii) describing the impact of budget cuts on home economics in the canton of Zurich.