Abstract
In food education research, one of the major challenges is its ‘conceptual ambiguity’. This blurs the pedagogical identity of food education, complicates the understanding of its general educational impacts on children, and hinders cooperation among food education actors. This is largely due to the diversity of educational (from nutritional to agricultural) models and the concerned academic disciplines. To overcome these challenges, this study focused on taste education, one of the most systematic models promoted in France, Italy, and Japan. First, the processes of genesis and transmission of several taste education models in the three countries were analysed to elucidate their complex pedagogical interactions. Second, three of the most established models in these countries were selected, and these textbooks were analysed to identify the commonalities in their pedagogical nature. The findings included the following: 1) taste education was developed as a response to the ‘impoverishment of children’s taste’ due to the globalisation, industrialization, and medicalisation of food, with an educational goal of expanding the abilities to construct harmonious relations with ‘one’s body (the self)’ and ‘others and social environments’; 2) its educational content includes the learning of physiological theories of taste, five senses and related socio-cultural aspects of food, the tasting of actual food samples, and the verbalisation of its sensory perception and its socialisation with other peers; and 3) its teaching method follows the principles of ‘respect for one’s sensory subjectivity’, ‘non-normativity’, and ‘relativisation’. These identified commonalities could contribute to a better understanding of its educational nature and thus preventing its ‘conceptual ambiguity’. However, further challenges were also identified, particularly its unsuccessful distinction from nutrition education and the need to expand its theoretical foundations (such as sociology) beyond the current foundations of physiology and psychology.
