Using Food as a Metaphor for Care: Middle-School Kids Talk about Family, School, and Class Relationships

This study is based on in-depth and focus group interviews with thirty middle schoolers from diverse racial/ethnic and class backgrounds. Drawing on the literature on care and the meaning of food, this study expands the dialogue about adolescents' worldviews by examining middle schoolers' assessments of cooking, sharing, and receiving food from others and how these food activities shape perceptions of family and school. The findings suggest that middle schoolers distinguish between food served in the private realm of the family where it is used to express solidarity and conflict and the public realm of the school where it is used as a signifier for school care. Overall, this study reveals a class ideology of care and how food as a metaphor plays a part in it. This article also addresses broader implications about adolescents' perceptions of their future selves and of work, family, and school issues and problems.