Conference Agenda

This paper explores the relationship between schooling and food policies during the first Peronism in Argentina (1946-1955). It is well known that the History of Education has dealt with the issue through the study of religious and philanthropic initiatives and national state programmes as the configuration of educational systems advanced. In terms of policies, studies have shown a shift from an assistance-based conception to one centred on a rights-based perspective, particularly during the post-war period and the consolidation of welfare states (Andresen & Elvbakken, 2007; Durbach, 2020; Geist Rutledge, 2015; Serrano, 2017; Vernon, 2005 among others). The development of school meal policies during the first Peronism in Argentina tended to follow this trajectory, although with its particularities. Indeed, the care of the child population occupied a central place during this period. The economic boom of the early post-war years and the growth of state services and infrastructure led to a change in the population's quality of life, an increase in consumption and the extension of social rights. For some authors, it was an Argentinian-style welfare state (Golbert, 1988) as the model would soon find its limits due to international economic changes and internal resistance. In particular, the impact of the Second World War and international declarations regarding the protection of children were combined, at the national level, with social demands for food, health, and increased access to schooling (Carli, 2002). As in other countries, these demands were met based on existing practices. As early as the end of the 19th century, there was concern about underfed children attending school. In 1906, in the context of the consolidation of the hygienist medical school discourse, the "Copa de leche" (milk cup) service was introduced in Buenos Aires, followed two years later by the "miga de pan" (breadcrumbs), a bread roll to accompany milk. Since 1914, the national budget for education included an annual allocation for school meals for the schools under its jurisdiction. In 1932, Law 11.597 was passed, providing funds for maintaining school canteens under the National Council of Education and the National Institute of Nutrition. In 1938, the School Aid Commission was created, which provided clothing, food, and medicine for vulnerable students. At the same time, school canteens were set up throughout the country. These practices became more systematic and widespread over time. Of particular interest then is the enquiry into the changes introduced during the period under study concerning i) the extension of food services at schools; ii) their articulation with schooling policies and other social policies of the Welfare States; iii) the changes in the forms of service provision, accounting for the tension between assistentialism and the guarantee of rights. The paper examines these developments using a range of primary and secondary sources.

Historiographical inquiry has focused relatively little on the history of school meals, both in Italy and internationally. Nevertheless, this is an area that offers valuable insights into other topics, including the history of educational and school institutions, the history of welfare for the more vulnerable segments of society, national and international policy, food culture, etc. Although the first school canteens in Italian primary schools were set up in the late nineteenth century, primarily with the aim of encouraging student attendance, significant investment in the provision of school meals only began in the wake of World War II. In a political climate conditioned by the emergence of the Cold War, the Italian government entered into a series of international agreements with a view to securing adequate material support for school canteens and facilitating their numerical expansion. Beginning in the mid-1950s, the signing of agreements with the United States government – which allocated substantial quantities of foodstuffs to Italy for needy children receiving welfare through schools – reflected a new political and cultural approach to the issue of school meals. In addition to investing in managing its school meals plan and publicizing it, especially with a view to giving credit to the United States for its contribution, the Italian government committed to implementing rigorous food programs. These programs included projects aimed at educating children, and by extension their families, about proper nutrition. Hence, school meals were no longer merely a question of finding resources and providing welfare but also the object of pedagogical reflection. In this paper, I set out to shed light on food programs and their implementation in Italian schools between the late 1950s and early 1960s. To this end, I examine the specific objectives, operational methods, and educational tools adopted. A leading focus of my inquiry is the inclusive meaning of school canteens, which became places where the most vulnerable segments of society could access a certain level of nutritional well-being and be educated – on a par with their wealthier peers – about the importance of proper nutrition. A further focus is the type of diet that children were being educated about and led to adopt in practice. The everyday reality in schools was that reconciling American foods with Italian dietary habits posed considerable challenges. My investigation draws on extensive bibliographical sources, both Italian and international, as well as on archival material.

In post-war Greece, particularly in the aftermath of World War II and the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), the country faced significant economic challenges and food shortages. The aftermath of the conflicts left the Greek society in a state of devastation, with a struggling economy and a shortage of basic necessities, including food. Rationing of food and other essential items was implemented to manage shortages and to control the distribution of goods. This had a profound impact on the daily lives of the Greek population, including students (Kostis, 2019: 281-300). Students and their families had to rely on rationed supplies, and the variety and quantity of food were often limited. Many families struggled to provide adequate nutrition for their children, and this had long-term consequences for the health and the well-being of the population. To address the nutritional needs of the students, especially those from low-income families, the Greek governments, various charitable organizations, and international relief organizations initiated meal programs at schools (Skoura, 2015). Those programs aimed to provide at least one nutritious meal per day to students. The meals typically consisted of basic staples like grains, legumes, and whatever items were available through rationing (Stefanou, 1946). The availability of meat, dairy, and other protein sources was limited, making the goal of providing nutritious meals for students' overall health, well-being, and academic performance highly problematic. Gradually, international aid and economic stabilization of the country contributed to a slow and challenging recovery and the situation improved (Kostis, 2019: 307-356). The student meals, with short breaks, remained in place until the mid-1970s, being a key policy for tackling childhood malnutrition, and promoting social security and educational normality. Our proposal seeks to study the implementation of the student meals in the Greek post-war society. It investigates the relevant legislative initiatives regarding nutritional standards, food safety, access and equity, local sourcing, and different culinary identities. It also studies the organizational dimension of the student meals, aspects related to the planning, the management, and the organization of the meal programs for students within the educational context. We also pay particular attention to the teachers' involvement, the role of school doctors and of school boards, school infrastructures, community engagement, and integration in the school daily schedule. We aim to investigate educational and pedagogical aspects of the student meals, in close relation with the “grammar of schooling” during the post-war period in Greece. Our findings are discussed, emphasizing on commonalities and differences that emerged in the Greek case of the student meals compared to the post-war universal patterns for food safety and child nutrition. Taking up this analytical framework, we try: (a) to examine the student meals in the context of international aid and assistance, especially the relief and rehabilitation initiatives under the United Nations and the United States food aid programs, and (b) to examine them as a part of the Greek state welfare and school hygiene policies, but also in connection with national, social and political demands or imperatives in the post-war period.

The postwar period, from the Education Act of 1944 to that of 1980, might be viewed, rightly, as the high point in the history of the School Meals Service (SMS) in terms of its universal provision led by the State, allied with high educational and social goals (see e.g. Garner 1985; Finch 2019). However, in practice it did not always live up to these ideals, and indeed it struggled to cater for the increasingly diverse needs of a changing population. This paper, based on original research on national and local archives, sets out the challenges involved in reconciling a universal service with diverse provision. In particular, it analyses the tensions that ensued between traditional cultural norms in the provision of school meals such as the emphasis on ‘meat and two veg’, and the varied needs of different ethnic and cultural groups that developed especially in urban areas, as Commonwealth immigration grew in the 1950s and 1960s. The SMS depended on local education authorities around the country, and on individual schools with their own school kitchens and staffing. Local and national resistance to vegetarian options, kosher foods and newer ethnic tastes and preferences helped to fuel criticisms of the SMS on social justice grounds, and effectively lent weight to Treasury-led arguments for a marketised service. The paper also considers decolonial and diversification issues in the SMS in this period through the methodological lens of oral history. It explores individual and collective experiences of the SMS over this time, using the framework of decoloniality. It first considers our methodological approach to accessing lived experience through oral history, before discussing findings from new interviews conducted by the authors. Oral history can lend itself to a decolonial approach. By privileging subject-to-subject interactions and seeking to foster a non-extractive research environment (Raychaudhuri, 2021), our methodology allows us to amplify the voices of people of diverse cultures and lived experiences in school feeding spaces, while reflecting upon our own stance within the research. The paper examines how the processes of unlearning and relearning integral to decoloniality (Francis et al., 2021) have played out in our oral history interviews, as we have adapted our approach to support people whose voices are typically marginalised to contribute to the project. Drawing on the testimonies of former school pupils, the paper then highlights children’s agency in resisting some of the more universalising aspects of the UK SMS’s implementation. By refusing to eat certain foods; eating in a certain way; or bringing their own food to school, children negotiated the provision of school food in different ways.