Aesthetic values in home and consumer studies – investigating the secret ingredient in food education

Food is a part of everyday life, and formal food education is included in compulsory education in many countries, for example through the subject Home and Consumer Studies (HCS). While food education is often underpinned by public health concerns such as preventing non-communicable diseases and promoting cooking skills, there has been little focus on aesthetic aspects of teaching and learning about food. This study therefore aims to gain understanding of aesthetic values as a part of HCS food educational practices. Aesthetic values are here regarded as socially and culturally shared, and related to notions of pleasure and taste. As this study uses a pragmatist approach, aesthetic values are seen as constituted in encounters, encompassing experiencing individual(s), artifacts, and context. By thematically analyzing empirical data from an exploratory case study, including classroom observations, student focus groups, and teacher interviews, we show how values are constituted as culinary, production, and bodily aesthetics. Culinary aesthetics involved cooking processes, cooking skills, and presentation of food and meals. Production aesthetics involved foods’ origin and degree of pre-processing, whereas bodily aesthetics related to bodily consequences of eating. Aesthetic values were vital features of the educational practices studied and played a key role in bringing the practices forward. They also indicated what counted as valid, or desired, outcomes and thereby steered events in certain directions. The study highlights the significance of aesthetic values and argues in favor of acknowledging aesthetics in planning, undertaking, and evaluating HCS food education

The Unempowered Meal : About food and meals in the elderly-care

In the Swedish elderly-care sector the institutions are of different character and the kind of care and food-supply they offer vary in scope and intensity. The aim of this study was to analyse how food and meals were handled and provided to the elderly living within those situations and in this context, how food was expressed as a substance or/and in symbols. This study focus on the social organisation that embraces the diet of the elderly and shapes the provisions of their meals, on the norms, values and behaviours of the different social identities in the organisation. The empirical work included in-depth interviews and participant observations in four different residential care homes, including various hierarchical levels, i.e. politicians and different personnel, in the organisation of food-supply to the elderly. In each care home different types of care and food-supply were studied, i.e. elderly having their meals in 24hour care, partime day care and those who ate in the restaurants. Generally, provision of meals was routine and meals were planned, prepared and served with little or no attention to what substanse and symbol it brought to the elderly. The elderly had limited possibilities to influence their own meals and those with the largest need of care, being the most fragile and sick had the least influence. The views of politicians and different personnel indicated that they considered themself powerless, which resulted in a "freedom of responsibility". It was obvious that there existed a clear discrepancy between how the informants considered the provision of food and meals should be organised and carried out, in comparison to reality. The current unsatisfactory provision of meals to the elderly is attributed to the marginalisation of specifically three areas: the symbolic value of food, the life and needs of the elderly and the traditional knowledge and experiences of women in their role as housewife and carer of the family

The recipe literacy concept : capturing important aspects of learning how to cook in school

Introduction In Sweden, the school subject Home Economics (HE) is a potential context for children to learn how to cook and to master artefacts in the cooking practice. The learning process entails a number of events that can be coupled to the children themselves, to the teachers and to various learning tools, like the recipes. Aim The aim of this study is to investigate various aspects of the process that occur when children with mild intellectual disabilities (ID) learn how to cook in the subject of Home Economics. Methods Data was collected using two different methods; firstly, using an ethnographic inspired design, sixteen accompanying observations were implemented at lessons in HE. The observations were carried out in kitchen classroom settings where teaching and learning about cooking took place. The field notes were thematically analyzed. Secondly, in total 22 qualitative interviews with HE teachers of students with mild ID were conducted. The transcripts were analyzed thematically using the sociocultural approach on learning and knowledge as a theoretical framework. Result The findings reveal both that recipes are central artefacts during the cooking lessons and that the students have various difficulties using the recipes. Regarding the teachers, it was found that the skills that they emphasized in relation to learning how to cook included mastering the language of cooking, measuring and following recipes. Conclusion The results provide an insight into cooking lessons in HE in schools, not only regarding the focus that teachers give to cooking skills, but also to how cooking skills can be understood on a theoretical level. Attention was drawn to the complex set of knowledge needed to be able to use and understand a recipe in order to learn how to cook. We therefore suggest that the knowledge needed to make use of a recipe can be conceptualized in the novel concept of recipe literacy.

The recipe literacy concept : capturing important aspects of learning how to cook in school

Introduction In Sweden, the school subject Home Economics (HE) is a potential context for children to learn how to cook and to master artefacts in the cooking practice. The learning process entails a number of events that can be coupled to the children themselves, to the teachers and to various learning tools, like the recipes. Aim The aim of this study is to investigate various aspects of the process that occur when children with mild intellectual disabilities (ID) learn how to cook in the subject of Home Economics. Methods Data was collected using two different methods; firstly, using an ethnographic inspired design, sixteen accompanying observations were implemented at lessons in HE. The observations were carried out in kitchen classroom settings where teaching and learning about cooking took place. The field notes were thematically analyzed. Secondly, in total 22 qualitative interviews with HE teachers of students with mild ID were conducted. The transcripts were analyzed thematically using the sociocultural approach on learning and knowledge as a theoretical framework. Result The findings reveal both that recipes are central artefacts during the cooking lessons and that the students have various difficulties using the recipes. Regarding the teachers, it was found that the skills that they emphasized in relation to learning how to cook included mastering the language of cooking, measuring and following recipes. Conclusion The results provide an insight into cooking lessons in HE in schools, not only regarding the focus that teachers give to cooking skills, but also to how cooking skills can be understood on a theoretical level. Attention was drawn to the complex set of knowledge needed to be able to use and understand a recipe in order to learn how to cook. We therefore suggest that the knowledge needed to make use of a recipe can be conceptualized in the novel concept of recipe literacy.

The recipe literacy concept : capturing important aspects of learning how to cook in school

Introduction: In Sweden, the school subject Home Economics (HE) is a potential context for children to learn how to cook and to master artefacts in the cooking practice. The learning process entails a number of events that can be coupled to the children themselves, to the teachers and to various learning tools, like the recipes. Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate various aspects of the process that occur when children with mild intellectual disabilities (ID) learn how to cook in the subject of Home Economics. Methods: Data was collected using two different methods; firstly, using an ethnographic inspired design, sixteen accompanying observations were implemented at lessons in HE. The observations were carried out in kitchen classroom settings where teaching and learning about cooking took place. The field notes were thematically analyzed. Secondly, in total 22 qualitative interviews with HE teachers of students with mild ID were conducted. The transcripts were analyzed thematically using the sociocultural approach on learning and knowledge as a theoretical framework. Result: The findings reveal both that recipes are central artefacts during the cooking lessons and that the students have various difficulties using the recipes. Regarding the teachers, it was found that the skills that they emphasized in relation to learning how to cook included mastering the language of cooking, measuring and following recipes. Conclusion: The results provide an insight into cooking lessons in HE in schools, not only regarding the focus that teachers give to cooking skills, but also to how cooking skills can be understood on a theoretical level. Attention was drawn to the complex set of knowledge needed to be able to use and understand a recipe in order to learn how to cook. We therefore suggest that the knowledge needed to make use of a recipe can be conceptualized in the novel concept of recipe literacy.