Suchergebnisse

Research examining children's and young people's food and eating practices has become more common place in recent years. Qualitative methods can be useful in such sense-making research, where an individual's narrative is likely to involve complexity, contradiction and ambiguity. Speaking and writing about food and eating can offer participants of all ages and most abilities the opportunity to delve into their own world of practice. Commonly used methods, like the individual interview and focus group, whilst suitable for studies of this kind, are not without their drawbacks. There are important ethical issues concerning children's privacy and their right not to reveal 'too much' to the researcher or their family. Innovative methods which deserve greater consideration include audio diaries, memory work/books, email interviews and interviews 'on the move'. All offer the researcher the opportunity to build rapport with and collect narratives about food and eating from children and young people.

Understanding everyday social practices is challenging as many are mundane and taken for granted and therefore difficult to articulate or recall. This paper reflects on the challenges encountered in a qualitative study underpinned by current theories of practice that incorporated visual methods. Using this approach meant everyone in a sample of 20 household cases, from children through to adults in their 80s, could show and tell their own stories about domestic kitchen practices. Households co-produced visual data with the research team through kitchen tours, photography, diaries/scrapbooks, informal interviews and recording video footage. The visual data complemented and elaborated on the non-visual data and contradictions could be thoroughly interrogated. A significant challenge was handling the substantial insight revealed about a household through visual methods, in terms of household anonymity. The paper reflects on the challenges of a visual approach and the contribution it can make in an applied sociological study.

Not enough is known about the relationship between socio‐economic deprivation and places where young people purchase food at lunchtime on a school day. This paper draws on qualitative data from 600 + young people aged 13–15 years and illustrates that socioeconomic factors form boundaries that young people have a feeling for when buying food. This informs where they seek out lunch (at school or in local food outlets) and what products, service and prices they access and find acceptable. Such insights help to understand why inequalities in young people's health and eating practices prevail.