There needs to be one place in society where children feel that their needs come first—
not their future as consumers. In American society today, schools are the only option.
That’s why every aspect of school food matters so much and is worth every minute spent to promote and protect its integrity.
(Nestle 2011, p. 146)
Abstract
This paper empirically supports school food as a site of contested values, where corporate interests can come into direct conflict with those of communities. This is a story about the experience of a small group of activist parents going up against a major food service corporation contracted by their school district. The analysis considers their experiences as dedicated and knowledgeable parent activists who, after years of trying to work with employees of the global food service corporation, grow weary, aim to overthrow it, and finally, after a decade, succeed. In response to the parents’ struggles, I apply a food sovereignty lens to school food, introducing the concept of school food sovereignty. I propose that school food sovereignty requires community participation and consideration of the health and welfare of students, environmental sustainability, local economic benefits, cultural congruence, and attention to food-related justice.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alkon, A.H., and T.M. Mares. 2012. Food sovereignty in US food movements: Radical visions and neoliberal constraints. Agriculture and Human Values 29 (3): 347–359.
Allen, P., and J. Guthman. 2006. From ‘old school’ to ‘farm-to-school’: Neoliberalization from the ground up. Agriculture and Human Values 23: 401–415.
Declaration of Nyéléni. 2007. http://world-governance.org/en/declaration-of-nyeleni. Accessed 17 Sep 2018.
Gaddis, J. 2014. Mobilizing to re-value and re-skill foodservice labor in U.S. school lunchrooms: A pathway to community level food sovereignty? Radical Teacher 98: 15–21.
Gaddis, J., and A.K. Coplen. 2017. Reorganizing school lunch for a more just and sustainable food system in the US. Feminist Economics. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2017.138362.
Hamerschlag, K., and J. Kraus-Polk. 2017. Shrinking the carbon and water footprint of school food: A recipe for combating climate change. A pilot analysis of Oakland Unified School District’s food programs. https://foe.org/resources/shrinking-carbon-water-footprint-school-food/. Accessed 1 Mar 2019.
Komisar, L. 2011. How the food industry eats your kid's lunch. New York Times.
Ladson-Billings, G. 1995. Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Education Research Journal 32 (3): 465–491.
Levine, S. 2008. School lunch politics: The surprising history of America’s favorite welfare program. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lupinacci, J., and A. Happel-Parkins. 2018. Food for a common(s) curriculum: Learning to recognize and resist food enclosures. In School lunch: Critical educational perspectives, ed. S. Rice and A.G. Rud, 91–115. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nestle, M. 2002. Food politics: How the food industry influences nutrition and health. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Nestle, M. 2011. School food, public policy, and strategies for change. In School food politics, ed. S. Robert and M. Weaver-Hightower, 143–146. New York: Peter Lang.
Poppendieck, J. 2010. Free for all: Fixing school food in America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Powell, L.J., and H. Wittman. 2018. Farm to school in British Columbia: mobilizing food literacy for food sovereignty. Agriculture and Human Values. 35: 193–206.
Robert, S., and M. Weaver-Hightower. 2011. Coda: Healthier horizons. In School food politics, ed. S. Robert and M. Weaver-Hightower, 201–208. New York: Peter Lang.
Ruis, A.R. 2017. Eating to learn, learning to eat: The origins of school lunch in the United States. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Salvio, P. 2018. “Eating democracy”: School lunch and the social meaning of eating. In School lunch: Critical educational perspectives, ed. S. Rice and A.G. Rud, 75–89. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sandler, J. 2011. Reframing the politics of urban feeding in the U.S. public schools: Parents, programs, activists, and the state. In School food politics, ed. S. Robert and M. Weaver-Hightower, 25–45. New York: Peter Lang.
Stapleton, S.R. 2015. Food, identity, and environmental education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education 20: 12–24.
Stapleton, S.R., and P. Cole. 2018. School lunch and student food insecurity: A teacher’s observations and reflections. In School lunch: Critical educational perspectives, ed. S. Rice and A.G. Rud, 157–171. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Weaver-Hightower, M. 2011. Fixing up lunch ladies, dinner ladies, and canteen managers: Cases of school food reform in England, the United States, and Australia. In School food politics, ed. S. Robert and M. Weaver-Hightower, 46–70. New York: Peter Lang.
Weaver-Hightower, M., and S. Robert. 2011. Introduction. In School food politics, ed. S. Robert and M. Weaver-Hightower, 1–24. New York: Peter Lang.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Carrie Frazier and the other parents who have been part of Carrie’s organization, Kid Food Matters, for their hard work and dedication to improving school food for their community. The author also wishes to thank Toña Aguilar and Stacey Black for their inspiring example of a sovereign school kitchen at the Village School. These women have chosen to share their names so that others working to reform school food can reach out to them for more information and knowledge sharing.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
All names used in this publication are real, at the request of the participants.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stapleton, S.R. Parent activists versus the corporation: a fight for school food sovereignty. Agric Hum Values 36, 805–817 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-09955-w
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-09955-w