Malta

Home Economics (HE) education is increasingly recognised as a vehicle for promoting wellbeing, sustainability, responsible citizenship and the practical competencies required for everyday life. This study explored Maltese HE educators’ perspectives on the relevance, employability preparation, status, curriculum content, pedagogical approaches and future direction of HE education within the context of contemporary societal challenges and the OECD’s Education for Human Flourishing framework. An online survey was conducted with 34 HE educators, including practising teachers and student teachers. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, while qualitative responses underwent thematic analysis. Findings revealed strong consensus regarding the relevance of HE education to both the current and future needs of learners, particularly in relation to health, nutrition, financial literacy, consumer education, sustainability and family wellbeing. Educators favoured active, experiential and inquiry-based pedagogies, but identified curriculum overload, limited resources and persistent misconceptions about the subject as significant challenges. Although respondents viewed HE as highly valuable, they perceived its status within schools and Maltese society as relatively low. They advocated for curriculum renewal through updated content addressing food literacy, mental wellbeing, digital literacy, sustainability and adult life skills, alongside increased opportunities for practical learning. The study proposes a teacher-informed roadmap for renewing HE education in Malta through curriculum innovation, structural support, policy advocacy, enhanced marketing and alignment with broader educational goals centred on human and planetary flourishing.

This paper examines the persistence of gender inequality and the motherhood penalty in higher education institutions (HEIs), focusing on Malta within an international comparative perspective. Drawing on feminist institutionalism and institutional ethnography, it explores how formal family-friendly policies interact with cultural expectations and institutional norms to shape career outcomes for both academic and support staff. Comparative evidence demonstrates that while Nordic countries have mitigated the motherhood penalty through supportive policies and more egalitarian cultural norms, Anglo-Saxon and Central and Eastern European systems continue to reproduce significant inequalities due to the gendered uptake of flexible work arrangements, limited childcare provision, and persistent expectations surrounding maternal caregiving. The Maltese case illustrates how small-state and Southern European contexts reproduce and intensify these dynamics. Although policies such as flexible working arrangements and parental leave formally exist, their uptake remains highly gendered: men rarely utilise them, while women who do often experience stalled career progression and reduced opportunities for advancement. At the same time, the entrenched ideal of the “ideal academic” or “ideal worker,” characterised by uninterrupted availability and productivity, continues to marginalise caregivers. By extending the analysis to both academic and support staff, the paper demonstrates how occupational segregation and the devaluation of feminised labour sustain systemic inequalities across institutional structures. Crucially, the paper argues that Malta should not be viewed merely as another national example, but rather as an intensified small-state case that exposes the structural limitations of policy-led equality models. The motherhood penalty is shown to emerge not only from policy gaps, but also from institutional valuation systems that privilege uninterrupted, research-intensive career trajectories over relational, administrative, and care-oriented labour. Conceptually, the paper advances a model in which the motherhood penalty emerges through the interaction of three mutually reinforcing systems: policy design, cultural norms, and institutional valuation structures. It concludes that genuine gender equity in higher education requires not only policy reform, but also deeper cultural and institutional transformation capable of redefining academic success and challenging gendered assumptions surrounding care and productivity.