SOCIAL STRUCTURES

People Social Structure Dominance on Food and Shopping

People Social Structure Dominance on Food and Shopping

Introduction

Social sciences define the term 'social structure' as patterned social arrangements within society. These arrangements emerge from the actions of individuals and also determine the course of future actions. They are an arrangement of human relations that places every individual in an appropriate place within society, and, in the process, either defining their function or being defined by them. For instance, Western culture has traditionally promoted a patriarchal society which is mostly dominated by males so that they are given preferential treatment in the society over their female counterparts. In fact, this preferential treatment existed to such an extent that the female members of the society had practically no rights while their social values were also non-existent.

Even when women were finally recognized by society as efficient contributors to the workforce, their work was limited to what was defined as “women's work”, which involved subordinate roles such as being a secretary, waitress, or nurses. However, the society structure judged all of these positions to be the appropriate place for women within the society and, as a result, within the prevalent social structures. Although things have changed much in western society today and social structures have evolved significantly, such extremes still exist in other patriarchal cultures.

Among the social structures, due to the freedom of individuality, certain people in a social structure carry out social actions according to their psychology which doesn't meet with the collective social structure norm. In some cases it is also observed that despite the individual desire, people carry out the actions as they are expected from them by the social circle around them. The primary purpose of this essay is to review relevant literature that would help in assessing the extent to which social structures affect the food and shopping decisions of people.

Discussion

In order to assess the effect of social structures on the food and shopping decisions, this essay will to review the different social structures.

Class distinction

Social class distinctions are one of social structures (Anderson & Taylor, 2012, pp. 100). They significantly influence the access of resources in the society (Anderson & Taylor, 2012, pp. 100). Different classes have different limits of spending and their behaviour of spending is influenced by them. Lower classes nominally include blue collar or working class which is generally associated with people having a lower level of education, semiskilled or unskilled occupations and lower income. Middle class is based on white collar workers and usually are more educated, graduate from college and high schools, holding positions of mid-level management or technical positions and earning the average from average income of their society. The last class is called as upper class which enjoys higher level of education with highest gross salaries and they have occupied most prestigious occupational positions in the market.

Impact on Food

Food is playing as a central role in the consumer life, it is the nutrition source and hedonic experience, and it serves different cultural and ...