Journalartikel

Jahr der Veröffentlichung: 2021

Seiten: 595-604

Zeitschrift: Critical Public Health

Bandnummer: 31

Heftnummer: 5

ISSN: 0958-1596

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2020.1713301

Verlag: Taylor and Francis Group

Abstract: 
Many public health interventions encourage healthy behaviours by strengthening health norms within schools or workplaces. Such health norms and health-normative contexts can also produce social hierarchies and forms of othering, including unhealthy 'deviant' behaviours. This article aims to better articulate how deviance is produced in a health normative school context. We approach the interplay between a health-oriented environment and deviance from a practice theoretical perspective, emphasising four different facets of this perspective. This paper is based on a case study in a school that has a strong orientation towards healthy eating, drawing on observations, focus group discussions with children, interviews and a survey (forty students, aged 10-11). We analyse how strong norms on healthy behaviour depend on the meticulous guarding of boundaries with deviant behaviours as well as, in some cases, associated 'others'. The article thereby promotes a practice theoretical approach on deviance emphasising the mundane character of healthy eating in school. We contribute to the debate on deviance and norms as to better understand healthy eating practices by distinguishing four different facets of a practice theoretical approach: 1) practice as distinct entity 2) the performance of practice 3) practices in a nexus of multiple practices and 4) individuals as nodal points of practices. The results assist in critically reflecting on assumptions upon which many public health interventions are built as well as contributing to an understanding of normativity and deviance in mundane practices such as snacking in school.

Harvard-Zitierstil: van der Horst, H., Wahlen, S. and Reimerink, M. (2021) Snacking practices in school: othering and deviance in a health-normative context, Critical Public Health, 31(5), pp. 595-604. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2020.1713301

APA-Zitierstil: van der Horst, H., Wahlen, S., & Reimerink, M. (2021). Snacking practices in school: othering and deviance in a health-normative context. Critical Public Health. 31(5), 595-604. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2020.1713301