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Abstract

This research is about sustainability and student food practices. The aim was to explore student narratives around sustainable consumption, specifically food consumption, in order find out how and why students modified their lifestyle, the reasons for this and students' perceived responsibility and power in creating wider societal change in consumption habits. I used a social constructionist perspective to guide my methods and analysis. Through conducting 6 semi-structured interviews with students at the University of Portsmouth, aged 18-25, actively thinking about sustainability in their daily lives, I was able to draw some conclusions about students’ sustainable consumption using thematic analysis to make sense of my data. I concluded that factors influencing sustainability within a student setting included time, effort, convenience and lack of availability. Furthermore, I identified that mass media and other cultural forms had the potential to change societal norms, due to the positivity placed on its influence. Finally, there was an interesting conflict between perceived personal responsibility yet lack of control when it comes to changing consumption habits on a wider scale.

Course: Sociology - BSc (Hons) - C0315

Date Deposited: 2020-02-10

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis13528.html