Gender and Children’s Food Practices: A Qualitative Study of 12–14-Year-Old Children in A Danish School Setting

In this article, we will focus on gender and food among children in Danish home economics classes—more specifically, children aged 12–14 (6th and 7th graders in the Danish school). The aim of the study is to investigate whether the traditional gender representations found in studies of children’s food media are replicated in children’s food practices in a school setting. The article concludes that gender is not as manifest as other studies have indicated, notably those on media representations of children and food. This is not to say that gender distinctions were absent but that they were expressed in more subtle ways. Also, the article highlights the importance of paying attention to different kinds of food practices, and how they might be gendered differently by the same subjects. The article calls for more research in the field and more broadly on the complex relationship between gendered media representation and social practices in everyday life.