Nutrition and Consumer Education as a Constituent Part of Global Education in the Light of the New Education Framework in State Schools in Southern Germany: The Case of Baden-Württemberg

Overview & Synopsis

Nutrition and consumer education may be regarded as a constituent part of global education. It is, however, necessary to explore the connections between the specific subject didactics of nutrition and consumer education, and global education more closely within current academic discourse if we are to understand it better. Currently, there is virtually no research or academic writing about these connections in the field of global education and global learning, apart from a few considerations addressing fair trade issues. This article follows an initial, exploratory approach to explore the relationship between nutrition and consumer education, and global education. In this, the role of the state in formal education must be considered insofar as its educational policies on nutrition and consumer education curricula also exert an influence on the syllabus content of nutrition and consumer education. In the new nutrition and consumer education curricula in southern Germany (specifically in Baden-Württemberg in 2016), global aspects of the syllabus are to some extent explicit, as the curriculum analysis will show. Nevertheless, a critical view of the new curricula is necessary to understand how, and how far, it includes global learning concepts. In future, along with an exploratory approach to the relationship between nutrition and consumer education, and global education, as offered by this article, there will also be a need for empirical subject-didactic research to clarify whether and where there are tangencies between nutrition and consumer education, and global learning in everyday teaching praxis. Empirical subject-didactic research in this field has hitherto been lacking, and thus offers a research desideratum.