Sociology concepts and applications

Sociology

Poverty is a term with negative connotations. Poverty is associated with words such as deprivation and lack. To be poor is to be deprived. To be poor is to lack what others - the rich, the 'comfortable' - possess. Poverty is sometimes also found associated with depravation. Poverty is understood to be a stain or stigma on an individual's or social group's identity. Poverty is sometimes understood to be the consequence of depravation.

Poverty is understood in many senses such as social exclusion, dependency, and the ability to participate in society. This would include education and information. Social exclusion is usually distinguished from poverty, as it encompasses political and moral issues, and is not restrained to the sphere of economics. Social exclusion relates to the alienation or disenfranchisement of certain people within a society. It is often connected to a person's social class, educational status and living standards and how these might affect their access to various opportunities. It also applies to some degree to the disabled, to racial minorities, women and to the elderly. Anyone who deviates in any perceived way from the norm of a population can become subject to coarse or subtle forms of social exclusion.

In "The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead," David Callahan writes:

Americans tend to make moral judgments about people based upon their level of economic success. Everybody loves a winner, the saying goes, and nowhere is that more true than in America. Winners are seen as virtuous, as people to admire and emulate. Losers get the opposite treatment -- for their own good, mind you. As Marvin Olasky, an adviser to President George W. Bush, has said: "An emphasis on freedom should also include a willingness to step away for a time and let those who have dug their own hole 'suffer the consequences of their misconduct'."(Callahan, 2004). Sears, Roebuck and Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ: SHLD), is a leading broad line retailer providing merchandise and related services. Sears, Roebuck offers its wide range of home merchandise, apparel and automotive products and services through more than 2,400 Sears-branded and affiliated stores in the United States and Canada, which includes approximately 926 full-line and 1,100 specialty stores in the U.S. Sears, Roebuck also offers a variety of merchandise and services through sears.com, landsend.com, and specialty catalogs. Sears, Roebuck offers consumers leading proprietary brands including Kenmore, Craftsman, DieHard and Lands' End -- among the most trusted and preferred brands in the U.S. The company is the nation's largest provider of home services, with more than 13 million service calls made annually.

Kmart is a chain of department stores in the United States. The chain merged with Sears in early 2005, creating the Sears Holdings Corporation. Kmart also exists in Australia and New Zealand as Kmart Australia, although it shares no current relation with the U.S. stores except in name. The company's business model makes it a competitor to other general discount retailers like Wal-Mart and Target.

I have written about K-mart and Sears in order to have an idea about what big stores are and about what I am going to talk about.

Customers whose clothes are rated as more fashionable and attractive, and who show better grooming, receive better service than those whose appearance was not rated as highly. Those who are not that well dressed are constantly kept in sight by the clerks, who are probably worried for them not to steel or do something bad in their store. People should always wear more fashionable clothes when they go shopping if they want to be treated with respect.

The biggest problem is though the way the client is treated by the managers of these stores. There are poor stores in which the client is not respected at all: the clerks act as if the clients weren't there, the toilets are dirty, or in the worst cases they do not have a toilet, the fitting rooms are full of garbage as they do not clean them. I have been in a store where everything was kind of cheap and I was really curious to see how the clerks were going to treat me. I was ready to leave this store almost as soon as I walked in the door. I thought the two guys working there were very rude to me and the other people in their store and made us feel like we were in their way. I went there as if I wanted to buy a blouse and I could notice that no one was paying attention to me. This made me feel angry and I went to the clerk and asked about that blouse. I could notice that the store was very dirty, the windows were very dirty too and the clerk didn't look that well either.

A tried going there a few times but even if I always find something great to buy I (in spite of the messy racks, filthy fitting rooms, and nonexistent customer service). Then I can't even buy it. I waited in two long lines which just never moved. I informed the staff why I was leaving. I could tell that many others in line agreed with me. But nobody came to serve us more appropriately. The idea is that this kind of stores are loosing their clients every day because they really do not care about them: everything relates to poverty. People think that the poor ones are buying only from this kind of stores and that's why they don not clean the stores, they do not clean the bathrooms or the fitting rooms because they have low prices and people will buy anyway.