Feeding Education’s Future

Food is a largely invisible element of educational practice. It sustains cognition and wellbeing yet remains largely absent from educational theory and policy. At a time of heightened concern about student achievement, child health, and social inequalities, this book examines how food operates within the hidden curriculum of schooling. Using a critical sociological lens, it traces how everyday routines, policies, and foodway practices transmit tacit lessons about values, belonging, and compliance. In doing so, it explores the political and economic forces shaping school food practices and the tensions they generate between educational, health, and commercial priorities. By reframing food as part of the educational infrastructure itself, the book opens new ways of thinking about its pedagogical, social, and ethical significance.