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The purpose of this paper is to describe self‐reported and estimated school meal consumption patterns of the pupils and introduces the pupils' and their parents' suggestions for developing the school meals in Finland with respect to the plate model.

“Food choice view” concerning school meals, previous studies on developing school meals, and the plate model are briefly illustrated. The empirical data were collected in 2007 from four comprehensive schools. A total of 168 6th‐9th graders and their 83 parents returned the questionnaires.

The findings indicate that the pupils do not eat all the items of the plate model. The pupils and their parents gave the following suggestions on how to develop free school meals: more favourite dishes; more alternatives from which to choose; salads to be served as components; wider selection of salads; chilled milk, lactose‐free and fat‐free milk served with soft white bread, brown bread as well as rolls; finally, serve different components such as cold cuts on the bread.

The practical implications are that the pupils' and the parents' desires and wishes could be consulted more often and the municipal budget should be taken into account.

The pupils' self‐reported school meal consumption patterns indicate that the intake of the items belonging to the plate model could be increased by serving the pupils' favourite dishes, which could be of great importance to those in charge of health education and school catering organisations.

Pupil control behaviour is conceptualized as a continuum ranging from “custodialism”, which views students as irresponsible and undisciplined needing strictness and punishment to “Humanism”, which emphasizes a democratic atmosphere in which students are capable of self‐discipline and are treated accordingly. The theoretical framework relates dogmatism, pupil control ideology and pupil control behaviour. The general hypothesis is that closed‐mindedness will be positively related to custodialism in pupil control ideology, which in turn manifests itself in custodial pupil control behaviour. The prediction was supported. The results of the investigation indicate that dogmatism and pupil control behaviour are related; but more importantly, that the association is not direct. The analysis suggests that dogmatism operates through ideology to structure behaviour.

The education of pupils with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) has gradually improved, due to a range of new initiatives and the introduction of the national curriculum. However, it is widely recognised that some pupils have a wide range of early specific and complex needs that are not always met. This paper describes a new early curriculum for self‐development being implemented at the Shepherd School, which is unanimously supported by therapists, parents and teachers. It is suggested that, for pupils with PMLD, the new revised framework could provide a more relevant broad and balanced curriculum, fulfilling individual needs, and ultimately lead to effective access to the national curriculum.

The roles that ethnographers adopt in their fieldwork are “perhaps the single most important determinant of what he [or she] will be able to learn” (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 29). My purpose in this paper is to demonstrate that these roles can be in a state of rapid flux, depending not only on who the researcher is interacting with, but also on a complex system of constantly changing settings for those interactions.

Advocates of market-based reforms in the public sector argue that competition between providers drives up performance. But in the context of schooling, the concern is that any improvements in efficiency may come at the cost of increased stratification of schools along lines of pupil ability and attainments. In this chapter, we discuss our empirical work on competition and parental choice in English primary schools and present a methodology for identifying competition effects that exploits discontinuities in market access close to education district boundaries.

This chapter focuses on the participation and social interaction of pupils with low-incidence disabilities in the Swedish educational system with the goal of relating policies and practices in education for learners with low-incidence disabilities. Sweden has a welfare system that ensures that all low-incidence learners and their families receive support in education and in their everyday life. The research section concentrates on studies that focus on participation and social interaction in an educational context (training school), which is an adapted education program for low-incidence learners characterized by its high staff ratio and individualized forms of teaching. Despite legislation, policies, and intentions that Swedish schools shall include all pupils, it is still a challenge for the Swedish school system to provide education for low-incidence learners in inclusive environments. Research shows that low-incidence learners primarily have vertical relations with teachers and assistants in school, and that there is a lack of horizontal relationships with peers. The greatest challenge is to create learning environments that contribute to building relationships between low-incidence learners and learners without disabilities.

This chapter presents a pedagogical tool for investigating at-risk children's attitudes towards the quality of school life. It has been developed from the questionnaire originally by Williams and Batten (1981), Binkley, Rust, and Williams (1996) and Dinkes, Forrest, and Lin-Kelly (2007).

Schools exist because of the children they educate but examples of their voice influencing their education in an authentic manner can be rare. This chapter outlines the importance of pupil voice and defines the key aspects of authenticity. It uses the themes emanating from this definition as examples of establishing practices to support pupil voice in the classroom. Such practices are based upon the findings of a pupil voice study into the experiences of 14–16-year-old children in physical education (PE) lessons. This PE project was driven by the pupils and adult voice was militated in order to enhance the authenticity of the findings. The project empowered children to raise and discuss the issues they deemed important and find their own solutions without steering or influence by their teachers. The implementation of these findings in one school demonstrated the dynamism and potential of learning based upon child-centred practice.