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The teaching of cooking is an important aspect of school-based efforts to promote healthy diets among children, and is frequently done by external agencies. Within a limited evidence base relating to cooking interventions in schools, there are important questions about how interventions are integrated within school settings. The purpose of this paper is to examine how a mobile classroom (Cooking Bus) sought to strengthen connections between schools and cooking, and drawing on the concept of the sociotechnical network, theorise the interactions between the Bus and school contexts.

Methods comprised a postal questionnaire to 76 schools which had received a Bus visit, and case studies of the Bus’ work in five schools, including a range of school sizes and urban/rural locations. Case studies comprised observation of Cooking Bus sessions, and interviews with school staff.

The Cooking Bus forged connections with schools through aligning intervention and schools’ goals, focussing on pupils’ cooking skills, training teachers and contributing to schools’ existing cooking-related activities. The Bus expanded its sociotechnical network through post-visit integration of cooking activities within schools, particularly teachers’ use of intervention cooking kits.

The paper highlights the need for research on the long-term impacts of school cooking interventions, and better understanding of the interaction between interventions and school contexts.

This paper adds to the limited evidence base on school-based cooking interventions by theorising how cooking interventions relate to school settings, and how they may achieve integration.

Describes a two‐year project funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which commenced in October 1998. The aim of the project is to test whether the introduction of fruit tuck shops in primary schools in underprivileged areas can be associated with a change in the fruit consumption of pupils at those schools, when compared with pupils in comparison schools where fruit tuck shops are not in operation. A secondary aim is to identify the most effective ways of operating fruit tuck shops in primary schools. Overall, the research will provide guidance to schools, health and education authorities on the feasibility and potential nutritional benefit of setting up fruit tuck shops in primary schools.

This paper reports on the key lessons learned during the course of a randomised controlled trial of fruit tuck shops, in which 23 primary schools in the UK, in South Wales and the South‐West of England set up and operated a fruit tuck shop for one academic year. Fruit tuck shops were successfully introduced and sustained in over 80 per cent of the schools in the research project, and were generally found to be a manageable, low‐maintenance, sustainable enterprise that generated substantial benefits for the school community. The paper describes the experiences of schools in planning and running fruit tuck shops, and summarises the problems and benefits associated with them.

Involvement of parents/carers may increase effectiveness of primary school-based alcohol-misuse prevention projects through strengthening family-based protective factors, but rates of parental engagement are typically low. This paper reports findings from an exploratory trial of a school-based prevention intervention – Kids, Adults Together (KAT), based on the Social Development Model, which aimed to promote pro-social family communication in order to prevent alcohol misuse, and incorporated strategies to engage parents/carers. The purpose of this paper is to assess the feasibility and value of conducting an effectiveness trial of KAT.

The study was a parallel-group cluster randomised exploratory trial with an embedded process evaluation. The study took place in south Wales, UK, and involved nine primary schools, 367 pupils in Years 5/6 (aged 9-11 years) and their parents/carers and teachers. Questionnaires were completed by pupils at baseline and four month follow-up, and by parents at six month follow-up.

Overall KAT was delivered with good fidelity, but two of five intervention schools withdrew from the study without completing implementation. In total, 50 per cent of eligible parents participated in the intervention, and KAT had good acceptability among pupils, parents and teachers. However, a number of “progression to effectiveness trial” criteria were not met. Intermediate outcomes on family communication (hypothesised to prevent alcohol misuse) showed insufficient evidence of an intervention effect. Difficulties were encountered in identifying age appropriate outcome measures for primary school-age children, particularly in relation to family communication processes. The study was unable to find comprehensive methodological guidance on exploratory trials.

It would not be appropriate to conduct an effectiveness trial as key progression criteria relating to intervention and trial feasibility were not met. There is a need for new measures of family communication which are suitable for primary school-age children, and more guidance on the design and conduct of exploratory/feasibility trials.

KAT achieved high rates of parental involvement, and its theoretical framework and processes could be adapted by other interventions which experience difficulties with recruitment of parents/carers.

Primary-care referral to community-based exercise specialists (exercise referral) is common in the UK despite limited evidence of effectiveness. A recent pragmatic randomised trial of the Welsh National Exercise Referral Scheme (NERS), demonstrated promising impacts upon physical activity and mental health. This paper presents a mixed-method process evaluation exploring how outcomes were achieved.

Structured observation, implementer interviews and routine data assessed the extent to which NERS was implemented as intended. Baseline trial data were combined with routine monitoring data for the purposes of profiling uptake and adherence. Semi-structured patient interviews explored processes of change and the emergence of social patterning in responses to the scheme.

NERS offered patients a programme of supervised, group-based discounted exercise. However, motivational interviewing, goal-setting and patient follow-up protocols were delivered poorly. The high degree of professional support was perceived as helping patients to build confidence and assimilate into exercise environments. Patient-only classes provided social contacts, a supportive context and realistic models. Patterning in uptake emerged from access issues, with uptake lower among non-car owners. Adherence was poorer among mental health patients, younger patients and those who were least active prior to referral to NERS.

In practice, although the NERS RCT demonstrated positive impacts on physical activity and mental health, process evaluation data indicate that the intervention was not entirely delivered as intended. Mixed-method process evaluation served crucial functions in understanding implementation and functioning, offering insights into the roles of professional support and exercise classes in promoting activity and mental health, and the emergence of social patterning in responses to an ERS.

The purpose of this paper is to report findings on an initiative set up by The Welsh Assembly Government to provide free, healthy breakfasts to primary school children throughout Wales.

The research employed a cluster randomised controlled trial design with 58 schools in South, West and North Wales. Quantitative measures were taken at baseline, four months and 12 months.

With the injection of more money and effective services it was found that the free school breakfast initiative could help improve health and social inequalities.

This paper provides some of the background to the initiative, describes the evaluation and highlights some of the key methodological issues that arose during the course of the research.

Social, physical and temporal characteristics are known to influence the eating experience and the effectiveness of nutritional policies. As the school meal service features prominently in UK nutritional and health promotion policy, the paper's aim is to investigate the characteristics of the primary school dining context and their implications for eating behaviours.

A case study of one local authority in Wales was conducted involving 11 primary schools stratified into socio‐economic quartiles. Focussed observations were carried out over two to three lunchtimes per school to explore their social, physical and temporal characteristics. These were supplemented by semi‐structured interviews with catering staff and midday supervisors.

The dining halls had numerous generic attributes (e.g. accommodation, equipment, length of lunchtime, social actors). These interacted to have a direct, but not necessarily positive, bearing on food choice and consumption. Overcrowded, multi‐purpose dining halls coupled with time pressures and dynamic social situations detracted from the eating experience and the ability of staff to encourage children to eat.

Without addressing these underlying issues, school nutritional policy may only play a limited role in influencing what children eat. It is recommended that policy places a greater emphasis on factors such as the eating environment; the time available for eating; and the role of the midday supervisor.

Previous studies of dining halls have generally been part of process evaluations of nutritional interventions. This study adds value by conducting a focussed investigation into the relationship between the dining hall environment and eating behaviours.

Investigates the image of craftsmanship as a predictor influencing the purchase, by Americans, of European cars. Focuses also on the development of the factor model used in identifying differences between the purchase of European and American cars. Complements efforts of many others intent on the identification of factors giving the Europeans the competitive edge. Reports on a sample of 250 recent purchasers of US and European cars to find out the variables involved, of these 200 were returned and 140 were used for analysis – the remaining 60 were retained to be used as a final test of the model. Objectives were to determine whether such points as craftsmanship influenced Americans to purchase a European car and uses image analysis as well as discriminant analysis. Concludes that though this analysis and results are discussed it can in no way be described as definite or inclusive. Says this research may provide impetus for more extensive research into European image and impact on US consumers.

Marketing eschatology judges marketing’s sins of omission and commission and describes the future state where “good” triumphs over that which led us to error. Begins by presenting the argument that the future will reject methodological exclusivism involving the two rival claims of methodological monism to the effect that there is just one method for all the sciences and the rival claim that the study of human beings requires a methodology of its own, distinct from that of the natural sciences. Methodological exclusivism should be replaced with methodological pluralism which will be objective pluralism and not a matter of “anything goes”. Continues by arguing that marketing, in drawing theories from the behavioural sciences, has paid insufficient attention to the questions and problems to be addressed resulting in illicit grafts with dysfunctional consequences. Marketing in the future will avoid such errors. The third part discusses the status of the principles of marketing and shows how such principles will be justified in the future, other than by disavowing all such principles, unless they are the result of formal empirical inquiry. Finally, discusses marketing’s traditional vain obsession with mechanistic approaches and the belief in the universality of universal “laws” and why the future will eschew such beliefs.