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By most sociological schema, superstructure does not refer to the specific materials of an organization, such as a school or a store, but rather to the set of psychological or semantic configurations whereby that structure is rationalised and reproduced in human experience. That is, it is the "invisible force" behind or within the structure, or perhaps, it is the anthropocentric "reason" for the structure.

According to one sociological perspective, superstructure may be revealed by examining the direct interpersonal engagements that take place within canonical (typical) settings or situations, through the hermeneutic of sociobiology.

Within Marxist social theory, superstructure is the particular form through which human subjectivity engages with the material substance of society. The form is to an extent objective and to an extent subjective. The relationship between superstructure and base is considered to be a dialectical one, not a distinction between actual entities "in the world".

see also: sociology, structuralismSee also structural analysis and structural functionalism. Structuralism is an approach that grew to become one of the most widely used methods of analyzing language, culture, and society in the second half of the 20th century. Structuralism', however, do, post-structuralismPost-structuralism is a body of work that followed in the wake of structuralism, and sought to understand a world irrevocably dissected into parts of systems, as in deconstruction. Post-structuralists are most clearly distinct from their structuralist pre, Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault ( October 15, 1926 June 26, 1984) was a French philosopher and "historian of systems of thought". His writings have had an enormous impact on many fields including literary criticism and theory, philosophy (especially philosophy of science, Franz JakubowskiFranz Jakubowski (1912 1970) was a Marxist theorist. Born in Poland, he grew up in what was then the 'free city' of Danzig. His father was a doctor. From 1930 to 1933 he studied law in Heidelberg, Berlin, Munich and Breslau, before completing his studies

In engineeringEngineering is the application of science to the needs of humanity. This is accomplished through knowledge, mathematics, and practical experience applied to the design of useful objects or processes. Professional practitioners of engineering are called en, superstructure refers to parts of a construction that project above a baseline: in building works, above the foundations, in shipbuilding, above the main deck.

In mathematicsMathematics is commonly defined as the study of patterns of structure, change, and space; more informally, one might say it is the study of "figures and numbers". In the formalist view, it is the investigation of axiomatically defined abstract structures, the superstructure over a set S is used in one the approaches to non-standard analysisModel theory In the most restricted sense, nonstandard analysis or non-standard analysis is that branch of mathematics that formulates analysis using a rigorous notion of infinitesimal, where an element of an ordered field F is infinitesimal if and only i.