ERIC Number: EJ1454521
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1468-1366
EISSN: EISSN-1747-5104
"Can We Add a Little Sugar?" The Contradictory Discourses around Sweet Foods in Swedish Home Economics
Ingela Bohm; Gun Åbacka; Agneta Hörnell; Carita Bengs
Pedagogy, Culture and Society, v33 n1 p105-121 2025
Sweet foods occupy an ambiguous position in many people's diets, perhaps especially for children and adolescents. The twin expectation that they both covet and limit their intake can create a dilemma not only in the home, but also in the school subject Home Economics (HE), which among other themes has a focus on food and health. In this study, we explored how Discourses on sweet foods were formed, reproduced, and challenged during 26 lessons in northern Sweden. Overall, sweet foods were constructed as desirable but also as unhealthy, disgusting, and unnecessary. They were used as a form of capital where ownership, distribution, and fairness were important, and students could mark friendships by sharing and gifting. Conversely, they could also use sweet foods to police, ridicule, question, or punish each other. Conflicts could arise around less-than-perfect results and students could withhold sweet foods from each other as a form of social rejection. Vague limits to intake placed responsibility for intake on the students themselves. We suggest that a contextualisation of the social, cultural, and health aspects of sweet foods in HE might help students acquire a more holistic Discourse of sweet foods and mitigate their social weaponisation.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Family and Consumer Sciences, Discourse Analysis, Food, Nutrition, Eating Habits, Friendship, Social Capital, Conflict, College Students, Social Control
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Sweden
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A