Learning how to cook in Home Economics Education: the role of recipes as learning tools

Introduction

The school subject Home Economics is a potential context for children to learn how to cook and to master artefacts in the cooking practice. Recipes, used as leaning tools, are part of the Swedish syllabus of Home Economics and an integral part of today’s cooking culture. Despite being a central artefact during cooking lessons, it is known that children have various difficulties using recipes.

Aim

The aim of this study is to investigate what kind of barriers that occur when children with mild intellectual disabilities (ID) use recipes in order to learn how to cook in Home Economics.

Methods

With an ethnographic inspired design, sixteen accompanying observations were used at lessons in Home Economics. The observations were carried out in kitchen classroom settings where teaching and learning about cooking took place. The field notes were thematically analyzed. 

Result

The findings reveal that there were many barriers in the children´s use of recipes. Foremost, attention was drawn to the complex set of knowledge needed to be able to use and understand a recipe in order to learn how to cook. The design and the purport of the recipe has to be comprehended, and in addition, it´s interpretation requires arithmetical knowledge. We therefore suggest that the knowledge needed to make use of a recipe can be conceptualized in the novel concept of recipe literacy.

Conclusion

Recipes turned out to be difficult for the children to use and this must be taken in consideration by the teachers. The concept of recipe literacy can be useable when discussing the use of recipes as learning tools in cooking in Home Economics.