Students’ knowledge and expectations about sustainable food systems in higher education
International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education
ISSN: 1467-6370
Article publication date: 22 July 2020
Issue publication date: 5 September 2020
Abstract
Purpose
To clarify needs and requests of the young generation to the contemporary and future education on food systems, this paper aims to examine the following issues: students’ background knowledge, students’ behaviour as consumers and food citizenship, most interesting topics of SFS for students and students’ preferences and expectations in developing different skills, topics and preferences in teaching/learning methods.
Design/methodology/approach
This study was performed as an online-survey amongst eight European Universities in seven European Union (EU) countries to which 1,122 students responded. Data was analysed with descriptive and multivariate statistical analyses.
Findings
Taste and Health are the most important values and motives that influence students’ food buying and consumption decisions, but significant differences were found amongst students from different universities and countries. The most important topics for students for future teaching courses are “organic food”, “fair trade”, “organic agriculture” and most important skills to learn are “ability to make a judgement and justify decisions” and the “ability to create and innovate”. Excursions and field trips as teaching methods was given the highest ranks.
Research limitations/implications
Different study programmes and cultural backgrounds of the participating students in the different universities could be a limiting factor for the interpretation of some results.
Originality/value
These results provide a basis for improvement of higher education in the EU towards sustainable food systems based on experiential learning/teaching methods.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study has been carried out within the project SUSPLUS “Innovative Education towards SFS” (www.suplus.eu), no. 2016–1-PL01-KA203-026652, funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the EU. This publication reflects only the authors’ views. The European Commission and Erasmus+ National Agency are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. The authors further thank all participating students for their contributions to the survey.
Citation
Migliorini, P., Wezel, A., Veromann, E., Strassner, C., Średnicka-Tober, D., Kahl, J., Bügel, S., Briz, T., Kazimierczak, R., Brives, H., Ploeger, A., Gilles, U., Lüder, V., Schleicher-Deis, O., Rastorgueva, N., Tuccillo, F., Talgre, L., Kaart, T., Ismael, D. and Rembiałkowska, E. (2020), "Students’ knowledge and expectations about sustainable food systems in higher education", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 21 No. 6, pp. 1087-1110. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-12-2019-0356
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited