In recent years everyone from politicians to celebrity chefs has been proselytizing about how we should grow, buy, prepare, present, cook, taste, eat and dispose of food. In light of this, contributors to this book argue that food has become the target of intensified pedagogical activity across a range of domains, including schools, supermarkets, families, advertising and TV media. Illustrated with a range of empirical studies, this edited and interdisciplinary volume - the first book on food pedagogies - develops innovative and theoretical perspectives to problematize the practices of teaching and learning about food. While many different pedagogues - policy makers, churches, activists, health educators, schools, tourist agencies, chefs - think we do not know enough about food and what to do with it, the aims, effects and politics of these pedagogies has been much less studied. Drawing on a range of international studies, diverse contexts, genres and different methods, this book provides new sites of investigation and lines of inquiry. As a result of its broad ranging critical evaluation of ’food as classroom’ and ’food as teacher’, it provides theoretical resources for opening up the concept of pedagogy, and assessing the moralities and politics of teaching and learning about food in the classroom and beyond.
Biography
Rick Flowers is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia. Elaine Swan is Senior Lecturer in the School of Communication also at UTS, Australia.
’This book is a timely intervention into analyses of food cultures, food fashions and food security. Theoretically sophisticated yet accessibly written, it broadens meanings of pedagogy in imaginative ways to address the social, cultural and political significance of food. A dazzling range of perspectives prompts questions about how we think, teach, learn and eat.’ Jean Duruz, University of South Australia, Australia ’This masterpiece forever changes our understandings of how and where we learn about food. Edited by two of the most creative thinkers in contemporary food studies, these essays dramatically expose the formal and informal ways children and adults receive morally-charged ideas about food and cooking. Ranging from supermarkets to cooking shows to government campaigns, this book reshapes the very politics of teaching food.’ Daniel E. Bender, University of Toronto, Canada
