The papers in this publication are the result of a symposium assessing the role of home economics in women's education. In her paper entitled "The Human Sciences and Home Economics: An Emerging Conversation," Francine H. Hultgren questions the possibilities for home economics within the human sciences. "Hestian Hermeneutics: A Lens of Analysis for Home Economics," by Patricia J. Thompson, is a paper that claims the image of Hestia, goddess of the hearth, to be a re-orienting lens of analysis in response to the question of the invisibility and devaluation of home economics. Maureen E. Kelley, in "The Female Researcher: Choice, Chance, or Coincidence?," examines the feasibility of alternate modes of research through questioning the character of the research conducted by home economists. The last two papers, "Isabel Bevier: A Different Voice for Women's Education in the Mid-West" by Linda Peterat and "Marjorie Brown: Initiating a Dialectic for Education and Everyday Life" by Gloria M. Williams, Sharon M. Strom, and Jane Plihal, examine the ideas of and visions for home economics education of the two home economics educators named in the papers' titles. Responses to the papers by Jane Roland Martin, Ted T. Aoki, and Donald A. Herrin are also included. The final chapter, which is entitled "Continuing the Conversation," is a question-and-answer section that permitted the authors of the five papers to re-open and continue discussion of the symposium topics beyond the point permitted in the original symposium. (MN)