Sociology 8th Edition by Margaret Andersen ,Howard Taylor ,Kim Logio

تمرين 1

Who Cares and Why? Fair Trade and Organic Food
research Question: There has been a notable increase in the public's use of farmers' markets, a greater presence of organic food sections even in mainstream grocery stores, and other indications of the public's growing concern with where one's food comes from and how it is grown. Social movements to enhance awareness of food production have influenced some of this behavior, as has a corporate response to the public's interest in local, safe, and sustainable food production. Do people purchase food (and other products) because of their political and ethical values, and what are those values? This question forms the basis for a study of "ecolabels" by philip Howard and patricia Allen.
research Method: Howard and Allen mailed a survey to 1000 randomly selected respondents, asking them to rate five different reasons why they would select food with different "ecolabels." They identified five different labels: humane (meat, dairy, and eggs coming from animals who have not been treated cruelly); living wage (provides wages to workers above poverty level); locally grown; small-scale (supports small farms or businesses); and "made in the USA." They also collected data on various demographic variables, such as age, income, level of education, gender, and place of residence. They analyzed the results using sophisticated statistical techniques of regression analysis.
research results: First, the researchers note that their respondents were more likely to be women, older, white, higher income, and well-educated than the demographic composition of their random sample. This is an important caveat in interpreting the results, because the results are not generalizable to the whole population. One-third of their respondents reported purchasing local foods frequently; many fewer bought organic food regularly.
The three most popular interests in purchasing food were buying local, humane treatment, and providing a living wage for food production workers, but there were differences by demographic group. Buying local was even more important for rural residents. For those who buy organic food, humane reasons topped their preferences. Women were more interested in ecolabeling than men; higher-income people were less likely to care about living wage than were lower-income respondents. Older respondents were more concerned about the influence of corporations of food production.
Conclusions and Implications: Consumers want the food they buy to reflect their political and ethical judgments. Of course, there are implications of these conclusions for marketing. But, from a sociological perspective, you can also see the influence of demographic variables on the decisions people make about purchasing their food. And, although it was not specifically examined in this study, social movements to "buy local," protect animals, and advocate for food safety have also influenced consumer preferences, meaning that there have been significant changes over time in the food choices that people have.
Examine your own behavior. What influences what you buy to eat?