School Food, Equity and Social Justice

Critical Reflections and Perspectives

Dorte Ruge, Irene Torres, Darren Powell, Dorte Ruge, Irene Torres, Darren Powell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367632489
• eBook ISBN: 9781000538564
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

School Food, Equity and Social Justice provides contemporary, critical examinations of policies and practices relating to food in schools across 25 countries from an equity and social justice perspective.

The book is divided into three sections: Food politics and policies; Sustainability and development; and, Teaching and learning about food. Bringing together an interdisciplinary group of academics with practitioner backgrounds, the chapters in this collection broaden discussions on school food to consider its educational and environmental implications, the ideals of food in schools, the emotional and ideological components of schooling food, and the relationships with home and everyday life.

Our aim is to provide enhanced insight into matters of social justice in diverse contexts, and visions of how greater equality and equity may be achieved through school food policy and in school food programs. We expect this book to become essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers in health education, health promotion, educational practice and policy, public health, nutrition and social justice education.

1 International perspectives on school food A matter of equity and social justice

Irene Torres, Darren Powell and Dorte Ruge

DOI: 10.4324/9781003112587-1

The starting point of this book is that providing nutritious food for children in school is a way to address social inequities and inequalities, not just for children who may be going hungry but by producing spaces that create commensality. Food in schools is a matter of social justice and involves a complex network of political actors and economic demands. However, in neoliberal times and contexts, school food provision has led to erring on the side of ‘efficient’ school meal programs that are not necessarily socially agreeable, palatable, pleasurable, nutritious, sustainable, or educational.

Food practices in schools may act as a means for social reproduction and normalization, inclusion and exclusion, alienation and discrimination, empowerment and oppression. School meals may be a space for (re)creating and maintaining (in)equities, and injustices. Concurrently, the planning and execution of school meals, including deciding on menus and procuring the food, may also become a site of social struggle and resistance. The contents and implementation of school meals are often points of contention among the different stakeholders (students, parents, teachers), not only related to the rights of children and youth (for example, regarding their use of what is viewed as free time or personal preferences) but also regarding ideas around education (whether school meals should be pedagogicized or remain a moment of freedom).

The publication of critical books a decade ago, such as School Food Politics (Robert & Weaver-Hightower, 2011) and School Food Revolution (Morgan & Sonnino, 2008), seemed to spark a new vigor for the field of school food studies – a push that could have marked the beginning of copious analyses and debates on the matter. From the place of food in schools, to the wellbeing of students in relation to school food, to the social, political, and educational implications of the subject of food in the school context, there is a vast field of knowledge for social scientists to research. However, the subject of school food has still not evolved to adopt the place that it rightly deserves: a crucial matter of interest in educational studies (see also Rice & Rud, 2018). As Weaver-Hightower (2011, p. 17) argued, food is not exclusively what is served on the plate but an ‘integral component of the ecology of education’.

While school food programs had been historically related to the (official) interests of governments in addressing inequalities, in the past years, we have witnessed (including in our own research) an increasing preoccupation with children’s nutritional status, often at the expense of other important elements of their wellbeing, such as social, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Schools and education systems continue to focus on standardized objectives related to learning achievements, and health and wellbeing are viewed instrumentally as an influence on learning, rather than a consequence of school environments, written and hidden norms, and the (in)ability of educational institutions to address inequities and search for greater social justice.

In this context, we are also witnessing an increasing, and sometimes overpowering, role of the food industry in people’s lives, not only in what they consume but also in shaping their perspectives on food, health, and wellbeing. Alongside, there continues to be persistent malnutrition in low- and middle-income countries, and nutrition-related health conditions across the income spectrum, including the rich countries. However, a widespread preoccupation with ‘fighting obesity’ often works to silence or ignore matters of social injustice and inequity at the root of children’s health, and school food becomes yet another instrument to discipline individual behavior and bodies (Powell, 2020). In many countries, the neoliberal paradigm still seems to dominate public governance, and inequality is understood as a ‘dynamic factor’ in society that should be maintained and not reduced by provision of public, free school meals for all children and youth. As a consequence, attention is diverted away from structural social and health inequities, including forms of food production and circulation that are a consequence of cycles of social disparity, and toward notions of individualism, responsibility, choice, consumerism, and healthism (see Crawford, 1980).

In response to what can be considered an absence of in-depth discussion on the subject of food in schools, this book offers a unique transnational view into socio-geographically and historically diverse educational systems, and their consideration for the needs of children and youth. The authors in this book analyze data from 25 countries, focusing on the experiences and understandings of social (in)equity and social (in)justice in school food, and examining school food policy, programs, and interventions from critical socio-ecological perspectives. The contributors question some of the motives behind, and effects of, school meal programs, and illuminate diverse understandings of ‘school foodscapes’ (Brembeck et al., 2013). In their different critiques of school food interventions and programs from the perspective of equity and social justice, the authors in this book analyze how policy may focus on or purposely ignore issues of equity and social justice in school meal systems. Some authors emphasize more clearly critical approaches to issues of power and inequality, and the implications for education systems, schooling, and children. And others pose questions that make us wonder whether equity and social justice are adequate signifiers, or rather a part of a privileged discourse in high-income countries that takes certain ideologies of welfare liberalism or neoliberalism for granted.

Depending on the school of thought, some approaches to school food concentrate on notions of power, food (in)security, hunger, and poverty. In compiling works from academics of different backgrounds and perspectives, we aim at broadening discussions on school food to consider, for example, its educational and environmental implications, the ideals of food in schools (as opposed to a focus on current circumstances), the emotional and ideological components of schooling food, and the relationships with ‘home food and life’. This group of authors represent some of the key contrasts and alignments between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries.

We hope that this publication will become a source of consultation for enhanced insight into matters of social justice in school in diverse contexts, and visions of how greater equality and equity may be achieved through school food policy and in school food programs. This book is divided into three sections: Food politics and policies; Sustainability and development; and Teaching and learning about food. Each chapter is introduced by a brief synthesis of national context, frequently with consideration for the influence of global trends and private and public, governmental, transnational interests in school food policy and programs in a particular country or region. By highlighting rarely explained mechanisms of corporate-style school meal design and effects on education, pupil learning, and health, the book analyses the risks this poses to national school food programs that aim to provide not only food but a sense of comfort and commensality.

In the first section of the book, Food politics and policies, authors examine the construction, production, and enactment of school food policies in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Denmark, Greenland, New Zealand, Poland, Ireland, and Brazil. Irene Torres and Daniel López-Cevallos ( Chapter 2) begin by comparing the ‘intentions, illusions and uncertainties’ interwoven in school food policy in the Andean region. The Peruvian policy intends to set limits to processed foods, while industry is expected to have a ‘cooperating’ role in the education system, including in the management of the school food program. In Colombia, there are provisions for indigenous participation, but it appears that it is expected to remain symbolic and conditioned by prior acceptance of the policy design. While these two countries do not formally include students in consultations or deliberations, Ecuador at least has a provision which allows them to be represented in national-level discussions. Crucially, Torres and López-Cevallos highlight how the policy documents fail to acknowledge the origins of the inequalities they are purportedly addressing, including through partial localization of food purchases that also aim at helping to preserve or develop traditional practices.

Dorte Ruge and Mitdlarak Lennert ( Chapter 3) apply the theoretical concept of foodscapes to describe how school food programs in Greenland and Denmark are interrelated via discursive and social practice. The authors document how public, free school food programs in Greenland are challenged by current health reforms, based on neoliberal governance and privatization of school food. This resembles developments in Denmark since 2010, where neoliberal policies have led to a reduction of the welfare state and increased inequality in health and education among children and youth. During this period, the possibility of a national school food program has moved further away, paving the way for corporate marketing of dairy products and snacks to students. Students’ packed lunch ‘from home’ appears to function as an important vehicle for increased supermarket shopping for most families in Denmark. The collaboration across the corporate value chain and in power networks has been disguised via public-private partnerships in Denmark and this method seems to have been expanded to Greenland, which may be at the expense of public school food programs.

Darren Powell ( Chapter 4) illuminates how child hunger and poverty in New Zealand has captured the interests of a variety of public, private, and voluntary sector players. These organizations – a messy mix of corporations, charities, and government agencies – employ notions of philanthropy and charity to shape the free provision of food to schools in low socio-economic communities. This ‘philanthropic’ provision of food in schools is positioned as a form of socially just altruism that reduces inequitable health and education outcomes for children in New Zealand. However, Powell argues it is also ‘dangerous’, as it works to maintain, mask, and even exploit inequalities and inequities in public health and public education.

Zofia Boni ( Chapter 5) provides an in-depth analysis of post-socialist, rapid neoliberal reforms that transformed school food policies in Poland. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in primary schools in Warsaw, and situated at a time when the ‘sweet bun law’ was introduced to create ‘healthier school environments, Boni demonstrates how school food policies are not only a political issue, but become political tools based on rhetoric of caring for ‘the common good’, ‘fighting obesity’, and ‘the wellbeing of the future generations’. This, the author argues, has resulted in forms of governance that are less about inequity and inequality, and more about creating children as individualistic, responsible, ‘healthy’ citizen-consumers.

Eluska Fernández, Karl Kitching, and Deirdre Horgan ( Chapter 6) reflect on their critical research on children’s experiences of school food policies and practices in Ireland. Here, the authors draw on the perspectives of eleven-year-old girls’ experiences of school food pedagogies and school food policies in an Irish working class school community to illuminate the relationships between school food norms and children’s food consumption and desires. This chapter provides an important discussion on some of the key tensions with providing or promoting ‘healthy’ school food, including how students understood food as connected to notions of desire, belonging, and pleasure, yet the ways food was positioned within and beyond the school gates was more strongly oriented to Westernized, biomedical notions of ‘health’.

Rosana Maria Nogueira and Bruna Barone ( Chapter 7) examine the understandings and perceptions of secretaries of education and nutritionists in the Brazilian state of Campinas of what is described as the largest, most comprehensive, and long-lasting school feeding program in the world. Although the educational and pedagogical values of the school meal are emphasized, including in its importance for cognition, it is still conceptualized as an incentive, a perception that is accentuated by the understanding of the program as a service that benefits children who are lacking food at home. Importantly, there appears to be a consensus that the policy is ‘difficult to implement’ because it over-reaches the limits of resources actually available.

The second section of this book, Sustainability and development, includes four chapters that examine school food from a range of different perspectives and contexts, including Norway; Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru in Latin America and the Caribbean; and South Africa and Ghana. Frøydis Nordgård Vik ( Chapter 8) begins by discussing how there is no national school meal arrangement in Norway and students bring a packed lunch from home. The author argues that even though this school food policy and associated practices ‘work’ for students from higher socio-economic status groups, the status quo contributes to greater social and health inequities for those students from lower-income families. This chapter also points out how a push for free school meal provision for disadvantaged students may come at a price: further health inequities and social stigmatization.

Flavia Schwartzman and Najla Veloso ( Chapter 9) examine the ‘Sustainable Schools’ methodology being used in Latin America and the Caribbean region to argue in favor of school food programs aimed at contributing to achieving global sustainable development. Among the characteristics that they view as valuable are school meals that offer local and culturally appropriate foods, procuring food directly from local family farmers/producers, and include food and nutrition education, linking it to school gardens.

Marc Wegerif, Thabang N. Msimango, and Nokuthula Vilakazi ( Chapter 10) capture the sustainability and equity challenges faced by South Africa’s school food program, in a country marked by extreme concentration of wealth and power, favoring white-owned commercial farms over millions of struggling black farmers. Although food procurement bidders are required to buy locally, locations and quantities are not formally defined and stipulated, which makes progress slow to arrive. Furthermore, despite the existence of a national nutrition program for schools, lack of clean water in thousands of schools resulting in poor food safety standards will continue to perpetuate inequality.

Following this, Michael Addaney, Patrick Brandful Cobbinah, and Gertrude Gwenzi ( Chapter 11) examine how the governments of Ghana and South Africa implemented school food programs that focused on increasing school enrollment, attendance, and retention, as well as reducing hunger and malnutrition. The authors discuss some of the key constraints and enablers of school food provision in both countries, revealing how school food – as a social protection intervention – forms an essential part in realizing children’s rights, ensuring their wellbeing, breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and vulnerability, and supporting all children to realize their full potential.

The third section of the book, Teaching and learning about food, features authors who critically examine the connections between teaching and learning about food in schools, in Japan, India, Canada, and beyond. Yukako Waida and Miho Kawamura ( Chapter 12) begin this section by outlining the 130-year history of school lunches in Japan, which the authors categorize into four periods: relief (from poverty and war), generalization (available to almost all children), quality improvement (spurned by concerns about junk food), and food education. Waida and Kawamura go on to interrogate the current provision of school lunches in Japan, including an analysis of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustration
• List of Contributors
• 1 International perspectives on school food: A matter of equity and social justice
• Section I Food politics and policies
• Section II Sustainability and development
• Section III Teaching and learning about food
• Index