Policy-makers and educationalists working in the multi-ethnic environment of inner city London schools met with University of Cambridge academics as part of a study of “identity through food”.

A year ago Dr Manpreet Janeja, a social anthropologist at Jesus College and Rausing Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, began a long-term research project in a multi-ethnic secondary state school in the London Borough of Newham.

Dr Janeja’s research focuses on students’ food preferences as a way of looking at their sense of identity, with a particular emphasis on students from South Asian immigrant groups.

“What we eat, how we cook, what we feel about different foods, and how they trigger and form memories are aspects of everyday life inextricably bound up with our identities – in terms of ethnicity, family, cultural and religious practices and perceptions,” she said.

Dr Janeja organised the experimental workshop “to start a conversation and engage in a collaborative exchange of ideas” stemming from the contrasting settings of the University of Cambridge and secondary schools in Newham.

Held at Jesus College last month, the workshop was attended by Sue Henderson, Head of Ethnic Minority Achievement at Newham, two members of her team, and Amy Samuels, Director of Inclusions and Enrichment and Assistant Head Teacher of the Newham secondary state school being studied by Dr Janeja.

Ms Henderson stressed the huge diversity within the borough’s school population: 83 per cent of pupils are from ethnic minorities and more than 100 languages are spoken by students. Around half are eligible for free school meals.

In her presentation Dr. Janeja used two “snapshots” of food-related interactions between pupils to illustrate the complexity of their relationships with different foods, including the ways in which they are prepared and consumed.

In the first, she observed how girls from ethnically and religiously diverse immigrant families engaged with each other and the food (onion and spinach bhajis) they were learning to cook in an after-school club.

In the second, she described the high level of awareness of year-7 pupils to each other’s religious codes when it came to food. She highlighted this through some year-7 lessons that she conducted in the school at the interface of Religious Education, History, Geography, and Food Hygiene.

“Young adults from such immigrant groups are acutely aware of ethnically and religiously calibrated food choices. Perhaps in multi-cultural Britain the complex interactions of geo-political and socio-economic factors are being manifested in newer forms in the everyday realm of food,” said Dr Janeja.

“The school is an important site of such identity-forming processes, and there is much that can be done through the domain of school food.”

Other University speakers at the workshop included Sabina Tahir, Ethnic Minority Recruitment Officer at the Faculty of Education, who talked about initiatives to increase the numbers of ethnic minority teachers.

Lesley Gannon, Head of Widening Participation at Cambridge Admissions Office, spoke about the University’s admissions process and schemes, such as GEEMA (Group for Encouraging Ethnic Minority Applications), to increase applicants from under-represented ethnic groups. Dr. Shailaja Fennell, Lecturer in Development Studies added a comparative dimension by outlining her research into the educational lives of the poor in South Asia and Africa.

Dr Janeja is keen to “put something back” into the school while conducting her fieldwork there. During her observational study at the school she has worked as a volunteer teaching assistant with special needs pupils.

In March this year, she organised an Open Day at Cambridge for 30 year-10 and -11 pupils from the school. They took part in discussions, held a mock University Challenge, had a tour of the Colleges and Departments, and were given a taster lecture on computer chips. One pupil was subsequently successful in gaining a place on the GEEMA Summer School.

Dr Janeja, who is joining Girton College as the Eugénie Strong Fellow in Social Anthropology, said: “I hope that my work will contribute to an understanding of how food, as lived everyday experience, can be used as an effective tool in helping us navigate the complex web of issues of religion and ethnicity confronting contemporary Britain, indeed Europe and the wider world.”


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