More Than a Lunch Tray: The Emotional Dimensions of Feeding Pupils and Eating at School

In France, the school canteen is still tainted by stereotypes: noisy, bland, serving up industrially produced food. On closer inspection, however, this institution does more than fulfil the mechanical objective of providing children with the food they need to concentrate on their next lessons. Relationships are formed and interactions take place between the children, among the canteen staff and between these two groups. The children laugh, give each other food as a token of affection, sometimes some cry. The staff express their pride or disappointment at the daily behaviour of the children, some of whom they have known for years; they are happy or upset at the reception of the food they have prepared. The school canteen is a break, a hybrid space, not quite classroom time, but not quite separate from school either. It offers more freedom, while at the same time being part of the socialisation process that teaches children which emotions are acceptable and which should not be shown or felt in a group setting.

Since 2023, I have been conducting a qualitative study in two school canteens, one in a working-class district of Paris and the other in a rural school. In both contexts, the preparation and serving of food is emotionally charged for the staff, and the moment of eating can evoke feelings of affection and comfort, but also frustration or repulsion in the children. Based on repeated observations of the preparation and consumption of the school meals, I aim to show how even an eating context that is perceived as impersonal (as opposed to family meals in particular) is a setting for emotions and social interactions – some of which re-enact more general power dynamics (of boys over girls, of adults over children, etc.), while others are specific to the context of communal eating.