Abstract
The project investigates the understudied topic of sustainable food consumption practices among teenagers in the Italian context. TASF explores this field as a networked process, which includes stakeholders, moral entrepreneurs of food sustainability, institutional actors, and high school teenagers. The research focuses on the educational institution both as the main node of the network and as the empirical context in which sustainable development takes form, is enacted and is promoted by teenagers. In compliance with the UN 2030 agenda, the Ministry of Education has elevated education for sustainability to a strategic goal for schools; starting from the year 2020/2021, civic education has become a curriculum component, with "sustainable development" being one of its guidelines. TASF investigates the projects launched by this curriculum as a phenomenon involving a chain of actors and contributes to generating the aforementioned network. The research focuses on three particularly relevant moral entrepreneurs in the educational supply chain with schools, who already collaborate with the research unit of Milano and Bologna: 1) public promoters of sustainable consumption practices (Legambiente), 2) stakeholders close to the field of production (Fondazione Barilla) and 3) of distribution/logistics (COOP). TASF analyzes the master-frame of sustainable food in the activities carried out by moral entrepreneurs in schools and the reframing processes of students. It aims to assess whether this cycle generates a new model of citizen-consumer, its impact on social reproduction of inequalities, the social organization of events on the topic and its influence on students. TASF deepens our understanding of this phenomenon by: 1) mapping the schools and the actors most involved in the discourse on education for sustainable food consumption; 2) empirically analyzing (by discourse analysis) documents, private and public projects, and proposals for training courses on this topic; 3) conducting in-depth interviews to students and teachers, moral entrepreneurs, experts and professionals engaged in the activity of the network; 4) carrying out participant observation of training courses in schools, and of public initiatives and events; 5) reconstructing connections, influences, the circulation of best practices, ideas and programming in the field. At the same time, the project will empower or extend the network under investigation. TASF is consistent with PNRR Guidelines both in the "Climate, energy, sustainable mobility" and in the "Humanistic culture, creativity, social transformations, society of inclusion", and contributes to the achievement of many of the 17 SDGs - UN Millennium Goals. TASF disseminates its outcomes, along the two years of research, through workshops, conference, outreach activities with students, old and new stakeholders and citizenry; special issues and articles in journals and volumes are implied.
Project details
Unibo Team Leader: Roberta Paltrinieri
Unibo involved Department/s:
Dipartimento delle Arti
Coordinator:
Università degli Studi di MILANO-BICOCCA(Italy)
Total Unibo Contribution: Euro (EUR) 87.000,00
Project Duration in months: 24
Start Date:
15/10/2023
End Date:
28/02/2026
