Promoting 11 – 13 year old children’s food literacy through a community of practice; case studies from an experiential sensory-based theme course on fish in a school setting

The Danish mandatory school course Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) is a unique setting for promoting children’s food literacy. This study explored the construction of community of practice in a school cooking class setting (FCS) as a way of promoting 11-13 year old children’s food literacy. The study is a quasi-experiment with a main group (MG, n = 185) and a control group (CG, n = 198), based on mixed methods research strategy (applied methods: Participant observations (n = 58) at baseline and follow up, teacher interviews (n = 5), and baseline and follow up questionnaires). Observations and interviews indicated that community of practice only appeared over time. The following themes were identified: Mutual engagement as fish exploration, joint enterprise as team work and taking ownership of assignments, and shared repertoire as developed routines and skills; e.g. cooking, language, and giving and taking advice from each other (figure 1). In MG at follow up a significant increase in cooking skill was found (p < 0,001), but no significant difference was found in the ability to talk about sensory properties (table 1), but a significant difference between genders (p = 0,02;) (table 2) was detected in the ability to talk about food; girls rated themselves higher than boys (no difference at baseline). We found that participation in FCS increased food literacy through the construction of a community of practice even though not all development was quantifiably measurable but detected through observations and teachers’ statements. This underlines the importance of applying mixed methods strategy to research within the field of food literacy. Also, mixed methods strategy uncovered peer-to-peer learning situations in which it became clear that learning was not isolated in the individual but was also social, and thus demonstrated the formation of community of practice elements (Wenger, 2008).