Abstract
The feeding of children has long been a gendered project and women have historically led the charge in most US school food activism. I center the pivotal role of women volunteers in the initiation, equitable distribution, and quality monitoring of school food, showing how this work continues today through a case study of women school food activists. This paper is based on an ethnographic case study of a small and dedicated group of mothers who labored for nearly a decade to improve school food in a school district of a small city in the Pacific Northwest. My analysis highlights some ways the mothers’ efforts to improve school food were discounted. I consider factors that contributed to their sidelining, noting that even deeply knowledgeable, active, and involved parents may be unable to impact major and/or immediate changes in school food, and that mothers can be discounted because of their positionality as mothers. I share how, through long-term persistence, the women created a path for progress that ultimately led to major change in the district’s school food, yet their key role in laying groundwork for the change remained largely unrecognized.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call