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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.

In Swedish Home Economics (HE), some students struggle to understand and apply instructions in their cooking. Based on Dewey’s theory of experiential learning, the aim of this study was to explore the conditions for developing cooking literacy in Swedish HE, focusing on teachers’ and students’ use of instructions and sensory reflections. Observations were conducted in 19 student groups across four schools. Five teachers and 57 students were recorded with Dictaphones. An additional 35 students were observed. Reflexive thematic analysis yielded five themes: (1) Shifting emphasis on different sources of instruction, (2) Vague instructions required ability to make sensory-reflective decisions, (3) Shifting emphasis on different types of sensory reflection, (4) Sporadic connection between sensory reflections and the cooking process, and (5) Need for quick problem-solving favoured instructions over reflection. To increase opportunities for experiential learning, I suggest using systematic and continuous sensory reflections based on repetition, variation, and comparison.

This paper explores the challenges of filming as a qualitative research method in practical school subjects. We exemplify with an observation study using video data collected from lessons in Home Economics, but the issues we discuss are also relevant for other subjects with practical elements, such as Arts, Crafts, Music, Physical Education, and Natural Science. Based on a reflexive thematic analysis of sixteen videotaped Home Economics lessons, we discuss how potential limitations arise due to group work, obstructive furnishings, unpredictable movement, and the use of artefacts. The paper concludes with a discussion about the need to balance intrusiveness and visibility, the struggle to capture everything, the potentially problematic emphasis on visual data, and a section with recommendations for successful use of video as a research tool.

This study examined the obstacles faced by students during cooking lessons in Swedish Homeeconomics. Observations and qualitative interviews with teachers and students were analyzed usingreflexive thematic analysis. Three areas of concern emerged when lessons were centred on cooking awhole meal:

1. Understanding the Cooking Process: Students sometimes failed to grasp the intricacies of foodchemistry due to task fragmentation. Experienced peers took charge, limiting opportunities forhands-on learning.

2. Impatience and Lack of Focus: Some students disregarded instructions, wishing to emulateimprovisational cooking on social media rather than following structured recipes.

3. Timing Issues: Students struggled to coordinate cooking tasks effectively.These challenges stemmed from a lack of fundamental culinary knowledge, including the inability tointerpret cooking terminology and execute methods accurately. To address these issues, methodpractice lessons were implemented. These focused on connecting sensory experiences to time useand choice of method to encourage patience and a deeper understanding of the cooking process.Students largely enjoyed the new lesson format, spending more time than usual discussing theconnections between cooking process and results.

In conclusion, this research highlights the multifaceted challenges of cooking education and offersinsights into the advantages of an alternative lesson format.

Home Economics is a mandatory school subject for students in grade 1-9 in Swedish compulsory school. Students often work in groups when completing practical tasks. The aim of this study was to examine how students aged 14-16 experience such group work. How was the group work organized? What did the students think was most important when working in groups? A total of 22 individual interviews were conducted and then analyzed using thematic analysis. The results indicated that students preferred working with someone they knew well because it impacted communication, efficiency, a sense of fun and how much support they received from each other. Students expressed that the teachers organized the groups, but they organized the division of tasks in the group themselves. A limitation for the study is that it only includes students from three different schools. Nevertheless, it shows the importance of clarifying the purpose of group work in Home Economics.

This study examines challenges faced by Swedish Home Economics (HE) and Physical Education andHealth (PEH) teachers when teaching health, lifestyle, and sustainability. Data from a smallqualitative survey was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, leading to the construction of fourkey themes.1. "Lack of Resources": Teachers encountered difficulties due to inadequate materials, lack ofcolleague support, economic constraints, and poorly equipped classrooms. More time for teachingand preparation was crucial.2. "Low Student Performance": Teachers grappled with students lacking prior knowledge andmotivation. Projects spanning several weeks suffered when students missed steps, impacting theirunderstanding.3. "Student Resistance": In HE, they challenged health and sustainability concepts. In PEH, theyresisted physical activities and theoretical discussions.4. "Sensitive Issues and Ethical Dilemmas": Teachers navigated sensitive topics like health, allergies,mental health, and socio-economic disparities. To handle this, they adapted their language andencouraged critical thinking.Based on these findings, we recommend allocating more resources to HE and PEH, and providing in-service training to help teachers keep up with the latest research and innovative teaching methods.We also encourage scholarly debate around how to interpret and navigate the sensitive topicsincluded in the syllabi.

Background: In health education, there is a risk of giving overly prescriptive recommendations, potentially activating conflicting in-group norms that reduce message receptiveness. For example, the notion of ‘unhealthy youth’ is a stereotype which suggests that young people are expected to make unhealthy choices. If such in-group norms are activated as part of health education, the will to emulate healthy out-group behaviour may decrease.

Objective: The objective of this study was to explore how young people construct different types of eaters in relation to health recommendations.

Method: Group interviews were conducted with 31 students aged 10–16 years (from school grades 5 and 8) in northern Sweden and data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results: The analysis yielded eight ideal eater types: healthy-but-not-too-healthy; obsessively healthy; devil-may-care; destabilised; contextual; powerless; intuitive; and discontented eaters. Participants’ preferred types did not overly regulate their eating, bute intuitively ate what they liked and/or needed in a balanced way. They were also receptive to social and contextual cues without being completely guided by them.

Conclusion: Even in the current era of individualism, food retains its social meanings, and young people’s views of healthy eating are shaped by valued social groups. We therefore recommend the promotion of shared individualism as part of health education, where the expression of individual taste is encouraged alongside adherence to group norms. It is also crucial to highlight how healthy and unhealthy foods can coexist as part of a balanced diet.

The school subject home economics (HE) provides education on food, meals, and sustainability. Drawing on observations and interviews with eight Swedish HE teachers during 2018, this paper conceptualizes HE as an ambiguous perceived space between the conceived space of state-controlled learning goals and the lived space of a traditional Swedish, feminine, middle-class home. The subject’s focus on cooking and housework lowered its status and marginalized it from the rest of the school. It seemed in constant threat of neglect and dissipation, which together with the chaotic nature of student cooking gave rise to a need for order and control. This extended to norms surrounding food, cooking, and eating that blurred the line between knowledge content and value judgments. Based on these findings, I suggest that HE is permeated not only by the social, ecological, and economic sustainability perspectives of the syllabus but also a fourth–cultural sustainability–which is not explicitly defined but rather underpins the subject in the form of a hidden curriculum.

The Swedish school subject Home Economics (HE) covers complex content to do with cooking and sustainable development, but is allocated relatively few hours. I draw on observations of HE lessons and interviews with teachers to show how experiences of time poverty can be conceptualized as arrhythmia in relation to the requirements of the curriculum, scheduling, cultural expectations, and the unpredictable nature of student cooking. By viewing cooking and learning to cook as sets of rhythms, I illuminate the disjoint between the mathematical rhythms of scheduling and recipes on the one hand and the visceral rhythms of students and food on the other. As teachers struggle to translate the vague knowledge goals and linear progression of the syllabus into the cyclical rhythms of meal-centered lessons where cooking is organized as a group activity, they prioritize time-consuming recipes and cleaning over reasoning around sustainability, which may contribute to a feeling of not keeping up with the contents of the syllabus.