Managing the Symbolic Power of Halal Meat in Swedish Preschools: Food for Thought in Discussions on Diversity

Abstract

Recently there has been much debate as to which foods Swedish preschools should serve. This text explores preschool teachers’ approaches to parents’ dietary requests. The empirical material consists of 14 focus group interviews with 41 preschool teachers from two areas of Stockholm. Results suggest that cultural and religious differences pertaining to food and diet requests lead to dilemmas and conflicts which are handled with instrumental multicultural or conscious multicultural approaches, whereas intercultural or transcultural approaches are rare. Among the preschool teachers in this study, this leads to avoidance strategies or efforts to change the parents’ views. Results show that the preschool curriculum provides little guidance and preschool teachers must develop their own strategies to deal with children’s and parents’ expectations and demands, often using the children as intermediaries.