Nordic Conference on Food, Meals and Learning in Schools
Fri
10
Oct
Friday 10 October, 2025at 09:00 - 15:00
Ljusgården, Teacher education building or Zoom
October 10th 2025 Umeå, Sweden or digitally through Zoom
The department of Food, Nutrition and Culinary Science at Umeå University welcome you to The Nordic Conference on Educational Research in Food, Nutrition, and Culinary Science! The theme of the conference is opportunities and challenges within the realm of food, meals, and learning in schools.
During the conference we delve into the latest research and engage in forward-thinking discussions about the future of the field. The conference will bring together people with interests in food, meals and learning in schools from across the Nordic countries, offering a great platform for networking and collaboration.
Location
Ljusgården, Lärarutbildningshuset, Umeå University, or digitally through Zoom (the link will be visible at this home page at the conference day).
Conference program
09.00-09.30 Coffee and registration
09.30-09.45 Welcome Carita Bengs, Head of Department Food, Nutrition and Culinary Science
Professor Päivi Palojoki, Avdelningen för Pedagogik, Helsinki University
Young people engage in various learning environments related to food. The role of the school varies as Home Economics (HE) is no longer taught as a subject in many countries. Interestingly, more voices are calling for this subject to be restored to school curricula. In the Nordic countries, HE has a proud past, but how to transform the proud past into a more promising future?
10.30-10.50 Students’ experiences of group work in Home Economics
Cecilia Lindblom, PhD, Senior lecturer, Home Economics teacher
In Home Economics, students almost exclusively work in groups during food work. However, their experiences with this approach have not been previously studied. This presentation will focus on how students aged 14-16 experience group work in Home Economics, how group work is organized and what students think is the most important when working in groups?
10.50-11.00 Paus
11.00-11.20 Assessment of practical exams in Home Economics
Linda Berggren, PhD, Senior lecturer, Home Economics teacher
Home economics should give students the opportunity to show their practical knowledge such as how to plan and prepare meals and handle other practical tasks that occur in a home, using well-functioning approaches. Consequently, it is also part of the teacher’s job to assess this practical knowledge. This presentation aims to give some insights from an ongoing research study based on student and teacher experiences.
11.20-11.40 Why Johnny can’t cook—and what you can do about it
Ingela Bohm, PhD, Senior lecturer, Home Economics teacher
This presentation illuminak—and what you can do about ittes the complex challenges of teaching cooking in Home Economics and suggests an alternative lesson format that addresses some of these challenges. Lack of kitchen experience can make both instruction-following and improvising difficult for students, and fragmentation of the cooking process through group work exacerbates this. To mitigate these problems, it might be fruitful to try a more experimental approach with a focus on sensory-reflective decisions in the cooking process.
11.40-12.00 Food and meals at Swedish Waldorf Kindergarten
Albina Granberg, PhD, Senior lecturer, Home Economics teacher
At Waldorf kindergartens, a bit different food- and meal culture is present. This presentation aims to describe how food and meals can be understood in a Waldorf setting and the benefits and disadvantages from a rhythmic, repetitive and recurring food culture.
12.00–13.30 Lunch
13.30-13.50 From silos to collaboration on meals in preschools and schools
Cecilia Olsson and Maria Waling, Associate professors in Food and Nutrition
A new contract education on meals in preschools and schools will be carried out in the school year 2025/2026 in a region in Sweden with 15 municipalities. The education is designed based on both operational needs and current research and is unique in that key actors participate together. This presentation describes the background, objectives, content and structure of this education.
13.50-14.10 "What on earth was that?" - Perspectives of school meals among pupils diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder or ADHD
The presentation highlights the experiences of school meals among pupils diagnosed with ASD or ADHD in Swedish compulsory schools. As physical and sensory challenges related to eating are common among pupils with these diagnoses, the presentation further explores the challenges and tensions that arise in their interaction with the Swedish school meal context.
14.10-14.30 The everyday food lives of Swedish elite sport pupils and the support the schools provide
Agneta Hörnell, Professor
Elite sport pupils need to manage the increased energy and nutritional needs caused by their high levels of physical activity combined with adolescent growth. How do they experience the support that elite sport schools and teachers provide through the subject Special sports, and how does it help them in their complex everyday food lives? This will be explored during this talk.
14.30-15 Panel discussion: Pupils as future consumers and decision-makers – opportunities and challenges
Registration
Register to the conference through this linklatest September 25th. Registration is mandatory regardless of whether you are attending the conference physically or through Zoom.
The conference is free of charge. Free fika and lunch are included when registered and attending Campus, Umeå University.
