Eating out, sharing food and social exclusion: Young people in low-income families in the UK and Norway

The chapter draws on a cross-national, mixed-methods study, Families and Food in Hard Times, that was funded by the European Research Council from 2014 to 2019. The study examined the extent and experience of food poverty among low-income families in the UK, Portugal and Norway, three countries selected to provide a contrast of contexts in relation to conditions of austerity. In each country, qualitative interviews were carried out with young people aged 11–16 years and their parents or carers in two contrasting areas of social deprivation. Analysing the qualitative research with young people in the UK and Norway, the chapter examines how social exclusion, both in the local environment and at school, is central to young people’s negotiation of food and eating on a low income and considers the difference social context makes to their experiences.