Why childhood framing matters. What we know and what we need to find out

In this article, Research Advisory Committee member Jeanette Rowley explores the governance and children’s rights implications of industry provided meat and dairy “educational” resources

This article argues that industry provided meat and dairy “educational” resources have the potential to shape children’s assumptions through reassuring farm and food imagery and health framing, and that such materials may raise governance and children’s rights issues that warrant scrutiny and further research. Drawing on Jared Piazza’s observation that young children’s awareness may be limited by a knowledge gap, the article suggests research streams to examine how meat and dairy industry provided resources are used in schools and whether teaching is objective and consistent with the need for neutrality in educational settings.

The article links two strands of thought. First, how meat and dairy industry resources could be a problem in children’s education and second, an overview of governance State obligations regarding the impact of the business sector on children’s rights.

Children, nonhuman animals, and the “farm story”

Young children typically come to know about farmed animals through stories and images such as cartoons, picture books. The “knowledge” they acquire can be reinforced in education through classroom activities, farm visits, and lessons about “where food comes from”. Throughout the UK, meat and dairy producers provide teaching and learning resources for schools, some of which contain depictions of farmed animals aimed at younger children. A brief scan of some found online revealed that images in worksheets or colouring sheets for young children are beautifully designed and look reassuring: animals are often depicted at peace, happy and calm in pleasant surroundings, they sometimes have smiley faces and farms look bright, clean, neat and tidy. The simplified images tell a happy story that most adults know does not represent farm reality or the conditions for farmed animals.

The idea of simplified education is not in itself a problem: early years resources in all subjects need to be age appropriate and appealing. However, in relation to teaching and learning resources about our relationship with other animals and the way they live their lives, the simplification norm becomes analytically important when the source of the simplified learning materials is an industry body with a direct interest in the educational narrative.

A child developmental perspective has been shown to be relevant to this issue. In a 2025 Vegan Society Research News article written by Jared Piazza summarises relevant research findings that suggest childhood may be a particularly influential period for shaping attitudes about animals and animal products. Piazza notes that children often care about animals while their food norms are still forming but will likely have a limited and incomplete understanding of the food they eat or where it comes from. Piazza also notes that adults may avoid frank explanations about the reality for farmed animals. These circumstances, in which childhood is a sensitive stage for the formation of impressions, assumptions and knowledge potentially provide fertile ground for selective and partial (and biassed and false) narratives to find their way into developing young minds. On this view, attention focuses on the nature of teaching and learning materials used in schools, and the way they are used in educating young pupils.

Learning about food and farming

The classroom is a place where topics on our relationship with other animals, their lives or the origin of the food they eat can feature in different subject areas, thus creating a rich informational environment. If teaching and learning resources are provided by the meat and dairy sectors, this rich context potentially includes selective narratives which risk compromising the integrity of the educational setting. Children may naturally associate the resources used in school with authoritative and neutral learning but in reality, be oblivious to meat and dairy sector marketing.

Consider the following case study: “Cool Milk Presents Colour Me! WHERE DOES OUR SCHOOL MILK COME FROM”. This is a playful colouring activity sheet that presents a simplified story about how cow’s milk arrives at school for the benefit of the children. The flow of the story is as follows: the cows “eat grass,” they are milked, milk goes to a factory, it is packaged and then delivered to school. A critical view is that the educational message is delivered invoking a clinically clean process, the use of simple vocabulary, fun depictions and by advancing a selective, basic “farm-to-product” narrative. The analytic concern is that the combination of the statements with “gentle” and fun imagery, implies that this is how dairy farming is, rather than a deliberate partial illustration. The stated “FUN FACTS”, highlight that cows are intelligent, sentient beings, but the way these facts are presented can simultaneously discourage ethical curiosity through their cheerfulness and playfulness. This type of messaging could direct young thoughts away from the cow’s experience to their milk as the product that matters. The “fun” questions contain absurd answers that direct young minds to the correct answers - that drinking the cow’s milk is uncontentious and good for them.

A similar view can be taken in a second case study about the Arla worksheet pack “What is dairy?”, which provides a more pedagogical learning resource. It illustrates the “milk journey” and offers learning activities that make the production of cow’s milk feel normal, technical, and morally uncomplicated. The wordsearch is revealing because it lists 15 words stated to be “all connected with dairy farms and the environment.” The words to search for in this game are: “BEES, ENVIRONMENT, BIODIVERSITY, ECOSYSTEM, WILDLIFE, MILK, BEEHIVE, NATURE, FARMER, PROTECT, MEADOW, DAIRY, TRACTOR, HOLSTEIN, FRIESIAN.” There are no behaviour or wellbeing words in the wordsearch which raises a question around whether this “educational” pack is a resource that functions more like reputational messaging than objective education about the dairy industry.

Arla’s worksheet on body parts, contained in the worksheet pack, is particularly notable for showing cows as living animals and then reducing them to a commodity. This sheet teaches children to recognise the cow’s sensory body parts such as eyes and ears, and at the same time to recognise by name the fluid extraction anatomy “udder” and “teat”. The critical view put forward is that this labelling activity frames cows as resources for human gain and that drinking cow’s milk is normal, necessary and natural.

Learning messages can be seen to be delivered entirely through images in resources supplied for very young children. In a third case study, early years colouring pages hosted via a red meat education hub, are promoted as being “centred on learning” and as offering an introduction to life on the farm that depict farm animals in cheerful outdoor scenes. Videos on the same platform reinforce selective narratives through cute cartoons and a reassuring female voice. The “Farm to Food” video aimed at key stage 2, teaches children to refer to animals raised for meat as “livestock”. 

These resources are potentially problematic in their selective presentation of “farm reality” because they have the power to shape assumptions about typical living conditions for farmed animals. The key issue is whether the resource is treated as one perspective among others, and whether pupils are supported to understand the limits of the simplified narrative.

A developmental puzzle: caring about animals while consuming them

A recurring theme in the research Piazza discusses is that children can express strong concern for animals while simultaneously eating them. This behaviour does not necessarily provide evidence of a moral contradiction. Rather, it may reflect cognitive and informational conditions. If children are unable to fully grasp that what they are eating comes from sentient animals, or what the production of animal body parts entails, it seems plausible that they will display a caring approach to animals while eating animal products without feeling or showing that they are conflicted. This point matters because it highlights why children’s access to information, including classroom resources, may shape whether they will develop accurate understandings about animal products and the processing of animals’ bodies or whether they are likely to trust and believe simplified, selective narratives.

Misleading by impression

In the education of young pupils, the arguable “misrepresentation” often found in meat and dairy industry school resources can be analysed as misleading by impression. A resource may contain true statements but inevitably misleads children if it presents unrealistic, simplified images of animals, farms and farm scenarios as typical. For example, the statement that cows eat grass is not false in general, but when presented alongside a highly colourful glossy image of a cute cow eating lush green grass interspersed with daisies, under a sunny blue sky, it can reasonably create a false impression. The potential assumptions formed in young minds should not be underestimated.

This is where Piazza’s discussion of a childhood knowledge gap is relevant. If children’s understanding of animal products is incomplete, then simplified classroom narratives about farmed animals and the way they live out their lives, can be powerful sources of learning. The important point is that resources should avoid creating the impression that a given image is how things are, particularly when the source provider has a vested interest in a selective narrative.

Education or promotion? Commercial influence and the rights of the child

Commercial influence in schools can arguably happen through branding and scheme affiliation. This can blur the boundary between educational and promotional materials, even where they also contain educational content.

Cool Milk’s (CM) school resources are explicitly framed as “a range of materials to help promote your school milk scheme”, and its website displays various resources intended for schools to use. This purpose statement signals that the materials are not purely neutral teaching and learning resources. This not only raises questions about biased potentially biased teaching and learning materials, but also about when a promotional agenda becomes business marketing. This point can be illustrated with reference to the mandatory declaration schools must display when they participate in the subsidies school milk scheme.

Cool Milk advertises itself as the UK’s leading school milk supplier. Under the school milk subsidy rules, participating schools must display a poster prominently at the entrance of the school to indicate that they are providing dairy products that are subsidised by the scheme. An official basic, plain, black and white declaration poster minimal text can be seen here. It simply states “Our school provides dairy products subsidised under the school milk scheme.” Cool Milk’s advertise a “scheme participation poster” but goes much further than merely stating the minimum declaration of participation in the milk subsidy scheme. Its design includes CM promotional messaging, a CM branded superhero cartoon character, smiling and holding a glass of milk, and a list of promoted health benefits. Thus, Cool Milk’s scheme participation poster raises questions about the boundaries between what is required, permitted and should be regulated in compulsory education settings.

The knowledge gap referred to by Piazza could potentially include the inability of younger pupils to distinguish between “educational” and “marketing”. This kind of knowledge is arguably underdeveloped in the very young and repeated exposure to something in an authoritative, education setting risks normalising the content and acceptance of the associated assumptions and behaviours. (Note: schools do not have to display the milk provider’s poster, they could create their own declaration, or download one from Gov.UK. However, if their milk provider promotes their declaratory poster as a convenient option for them, they may be likely to accept and display that instead). The next section gives a brief overview of some governance principles for business materials used in compulsory education settings.

Schools have discretion in how they deliver information about the dairy industry and nutritional education about cow’s milk, and can display independently produced materials in classrooms or dining areas. However, one of the stated educational objectives is so that children know “where and how ingredients are grown, reared, caught and processed” (emphasis added). Given that none of the materials surveyed for this article seem to adequately present this type of information in an objective way, and indeed, some seem to adopt a degree of selective framing that verges on misrepresentation, it is reasonable to raise issues for governance in education.

The UK government has duties and responsibilities to regulate the activities of business in their relationships with schools. General Comment No. 16, published by the Committee on the Rights of the Child explains that the business sector can impact children’s rights, including in education. Given that young children are highly susceptible, marketing in education must therefore be appropriately assessed and regulated.

With regard to educational materials supplied by the meat and dairy industry, governance audits should include assessments of impacts on various children’s rights. For example, the aims and integrity of education (CRC Art. 29 read with Art. 28); whether children’s best interests are met through supplier branded materials as opposed to neutral, independently produced educational resources (CRC Art. 3) and the right to be protected from discrimination. The right to be protected from discrimination is a particularly important area for governance, especially given that the school milk scheme doesn’t include plant-based alternatives to cow’s milk and posters may contribute to exclusion and stigma for vegan pupils. Other relevant children’s rights include the right to health when assessing business statements about health claims (CRC Art. 24), and the right to be heard and participate: children’s voices must be heard and validated (CRC Art. 12).

Industry provided school resources may be overlooked in matters of school governance but should be treated with caution. Schools should set standards that are consistent with the need for neutrality in education and appropriately assess the content of industry resources and monitor how they are used in teaching and learning.

What do we know about scale?

A major limitation to the vegan community’s knowledge about this topic is that there doesn’t appear to be useful data on how many schools use industry produced meat and dairy teaching and learning resources (e.g. posters, worksheets, quizzes, presentations, education packs, colouring books). Publicly available industry figures tend to show the reach of their resources rather than the usage of materials in lessons. However, the figures do indicate the scale of the potential “problem”.

Cool Milk states that it works with more than 12,000 schools and over 200 local authorities. Of course, the figures indicate the scale of their “school milk” supply business and do not prove that any of their resources are used in schools or that their milk scheme declaration poster is displayed in any of the 12,000 schools. We do know however, as explained above, that displaying a poster in the entrance of the school is the operational norm to declare participation in the school milk scheme. We also know that schools are permitted to show industry provided resources in classrooms and dining halls.

Funded by “over 100,000 British producers across the beef, lamb, pork, dairy and cereals sectors”, AHDB provides educational resources for teaching ages 3-16 and reported that its Food – a fact of life resource was downloaded 1.3 million times in 2021, and that resources including activity packs, quizzes, lesson plans, presentations and worksheets were downloaded 1.3 million times. Further, “almost 1,000 educators attended events, workshops and webinars…, covering topics such as cheesemaking and butchery, with 80% using the training to update their own lesson plans.” AHDB describes itself as “the independent, impartial public body that unlocks success in British agriculture.”

In Northern Ireland, a report published in 2025 by the Meat and Livestock Commission states that the reach of its food4life education programme was 15,000 pupils in 164 primary schools and 400 post-primary schools in a given year. Its posters for primary schools are in the colourful joyful style discussed earlier and use colourful imagery to divide sentient animals’ bodies into “cuts of meat”.

Why this issue is important

Piazza explicitly notes that adults may change their diet after learning about industrial animal agriculture and its negative impact on the environment. If indeed, children develop a knowledge gap in relation to the lives of farmed animals and their food, and the meat and dairy sector learning materials fill that gap, it could potentially mean that children will grow to perpetuate the status quo. This issue also has particular relevance for vegan families because industry produced classroom materials can create social pressure by creating and perpetuating normative judgments about the resources status of nonhuman animals. These social (and potentially, school) conditions can marginalise families raising children according to ethical convictions such as veganism. The issue is equally relevant for climate conscious families because as Piazza points out, food systems knowledge intersects with environmental issues.

The agenda for further research

Piazza calls for broad research in the field of vegan advocacy in education, including childhood differences in their concerns for farmed animals and the most appropriate way to teach children about farmed animals that is also sensitive to the concerns of parents. The figures regarding the potential scope of the problem suggest that a significant volume of industry sector teaching and learning resources are being distributed and used in UK schools and justify further research, particularly on how often they are used in lessons and how they are represented by educators.

Research aimed at determining what is already taking place in schools can include:

Conclusion

The supply and use of meat and dairy industry produced resources in UK schools can be understood as a public information and governance issue. This would be at the intersection of childhood vulnerability to persuasion, educational integrity, commercial influence, and equality and inclusion frameworks. Industry resource reach indicators suggest that businesses with a vested interest in perpetuating the resource status of nonhuman animals have substantial access to UK schools, but evidence about the number of their resources actually used in the classroom, and the governance practices in schools is limited. As Piazza suggests, more research is required on childhood learning and this research can include an examination of the sources of information young children are exposed to, especially in the context of suggested child “shielding”, the resulting knowledge gap and the influential status of meat and dairy industry resources used in authoritative environments such as schools. In the meantime, it is vital that the vegan community continues to develop educational resources to ensure schools are able to access additional, contrasting resources that are grounded in compassion for farmed animals. This will help support educators to deliver the curriculum in an objective and neutral manner.

The views expressed by our Research News contributors are not necessarily the views of The Vegan Society.