Consumption patterns and lifeworlds using the example of convenience food

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Sociology - Consumption and Advertising, grade: 1,0, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano , language: English, abstract: In this Bachelor-thesis the consumption of convenience food of German households isanalysed from the perspective of sociology of consumption. At first three theoreticalconceptions are presented and discussed which serve as a basis for the empirical analysis thatis undertaken later. The first conception is made up by Pierre Bourdieu s analysis of consumption behaviour ofthe French society in the 1960s. His book, Distinction: A Social Critique of Taste, shall beseen as the methodological starting point for the later empirical research. FollowingBourdieu s findings, this led to the question whether substantial class differences in theconsumption of convenience food are detectable in German society. George Ritzer s thesis,The McDonaldization of Society, and its key terms Efficiency, Calculability, Predictability,and Control further argue in favour for the choice of convenience food. The third theoreticalpillar is the conception of lifeworld and its development in the field of philosophy andsociology. The empirical part uses an arrangement of German households in family lifeworlds,as it is also done by the German Society for Consumer Research. The analysed empirical dataon purchasing behaviour was provided by the market research study Typology of Desires2010. After analysis based on standing in society, phase of life, and household composition, Students/ Apprentices and Unemployed/ Working Poor resulted as the lifeworlds with thestrongest consumption of convenience food. The initial question in the direction of a socialdetermination of consumption of convenience food must be negated. Instead can be arguedthat consumption is strongly determined by the phase of life, and partially by social status insociety and household composition.