ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the discursive power of the family meal within the school setting. It explores how the family meal was talked about by staff at the schools in such a way as to construct this meal as an intrinsically good event, a morally good way of eating. It examines how this connection between family meals and moral goodness has implications for those people who do not participate in this eating ritual, not least because family meals are automatically assumed to lead to the consumption of 'proper food'. The chapter discusses how lunchtime is part of a wider form of pastoral care and contemplates the need for a moral education in schools, examining how food and meals form part of this care. Finally, the chapter discusses the issue of packed lunches, and the complexity they add to the school foodscape.
