Children's Food Practices in Families and Institutions

This book brings together recent UK studies into children's experiences and practices around food in a range of contexts, linking these to current policy and practice perspectives. It reveals that food works not only on a material level as sustenance but also on a symbolic level as something that can stand for thoughts, feelings, and relationships. The three broad contexts of schools, families and care (residential homes and foster care) are explored to show the ways in which both children and adults use food. Food is used as a means by which adults care for children and is also something through which adults manage their own feelings and relationships to each other which in turn impact on children's experiences. The book examines the power of food in our daily lives and the way in which it can be used as a medium by individuals to exert power and resistance, establish collective identities and notions of the self and to express moralities about notions of 'proper' family routines and 'good' and 'healthy' lifestyle choices. It identifies inter-generational and intra-generational differences and commonalities in regard to the uses of and experiences around food across a range of studies conducted with children and young people. This book was published as a special issue of Children's Geographies.

Samantha Punch is a senior lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Applied Social Science at Stirling University. Her research interests include rural livelihoods in China, Vietnam and India, youth transitions and migration in Bolivia, children's sibling relationships and birth order. Her recent publications include Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth: Young Rural Lives (2007), Get Set for Sociology (with McIntosh, Edinburgh University Press: 2005) and Sociology: Making Sense of Society (with Marsh, Keating, Harden, Pearson: 2009). Ian McIntosh is a senior lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Applied Social Science at Stirling University. His research interests include, attitudes to begging, national identities and belonging. Recent publications include Get Set for Sociology (with Punch, Edinburgh University Press: 2005) and English People in Scotland: an Invisisble Minority (with Robertson and Sim, Edwin Mellen Press: Lampeter: 2008). Ruth Emond is a part time senior lecturer in Social Work in the Department of Applied Social Science at the University of Stirling. She has conducted research in a range of areas relating to vulnerable children and young people,particularly those in institutional care. She works part time as a social worker and play therapist at The Family Change Project in Perth, Scotland where she supports children and young people who have experienced complex trauma.

1. Introduction: Children's food practices in families and institutions Samantha Punch, Ian McIntosh and Ruth Emond Children, Food and Institutions 2. Food and its meaning for asylum seeking children and young people in foster care Ravi K.S. Kohli, Helen Connolly and Andrea Warman 3. Children and food practices in residential care: ambivalence in the 'institutional' home Nika Dorrer, Ian McIntosh, Samantha Punch and Ruth Emond 4. Discussant piece: Linking, bridging and bonding: the importance of a psycho-social perspective for Children in Public Care Jonathan Stanley Children, Food and Schools 5. School lunches: children's services or children's spaces? Paul Daniel and Ulla Gustafsson 6. 'I don't have to listen to you! You're just a dinner lady!': power and resistance at lunchtimes in primary schools Jo Pike 7. Discussant piece: Food and schools Ian McIntosh, Ruth Emond and Samantha Punch Children, Food and Families 8. Children's snacking, children's food: food moralities and family life Penny Curtis, Allison James and Katie Ellis 9. Food and family practices: teenagers, eating and domestic life in differing socio-economic circumstances Kathryn Backett-Milburn, Wendy Wills, Mei-Li Roberts and Julia Lawton 10. Discussant piece: How parenting education and family learning can be set within a tiered intervention framework to aid the development of health eating practices Catriona Rioch