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COURSE: GLOBAL STUDIES IIYEAR: 2015

University of South East- Asia

Chapter 2 Society and Social GroupsUNIT 5 SOCIAL STATUS

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Social StatusSTATUS

- In sociology, status refer to the position that an individual occupies.

It doesn’t matter who you are, whether rich or poor, every person has status/es they occupy.

It may be of great prestige (lawyer, astronaut, etc.) or very little prestige ( fast food attendant, valet, etc.)

SOCIAL STATUS - a large number of people with

similar amounts of income and education who work at jobs that are roughly comparable in prestige.

STATUS SETSociologist use the term status set

to refer to all the statuses or positions that you occupy.

You may be a daughter, sister, cousin, classmate, friend, employee, and spouse at the same time.

Ascribed status and Achieved statusASCRIBED STATUS involuntary you inherited them at birth

race, sex, parents’ social class

Ascribed status and Achieved statusACHIEVED STATUS voluntary you earn or accomplish these these are the results of your efforts:

to be a student, a friend, a spouse, a minister, a priest, a doctor, etc.)

or results of your lack of effort: you became a school dropout, a former friend, a former husband, you became a beggar, etc.

Ascribed and achieved statusesA person can have a combination of

ascribed and achieved statuses.Take into consideration Princess Diana

of Wales: she was a wife, mother and Princess of Wales. Her being a princess is achieved because she married Prince Charles.

When they divorced, it was also an achieved status of being a divorcee, a former Princess, and former wife.

STATUS SYMBOLSThese are items that are used to identify

a statuse.g. Uniforms for students, police,

firefighters, etc.IDs for different positions and companiesWedding rings for married peopleAprons for cooks and chefsBusiness suits and ties for corporate

people, etc.

Master statusesA master status is something that cuts

across the other statuses that you hold.It can be something ascribed ( male or

female) or achieved (being wealthy).It is something that people recognized

you most of all.Just like in the case of Stephen Hawking:

he is a very intelligent person in the field of physics, but people also see him as a disabled person, suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease.

RolesRoles are the behaviors, obligations and

privileges attached to a status.The difference between role and status is

that you occupy a status, but you play a role (Linton, 1936).

Our roles are a sort of fence that helps keep us doing what society wants us to do.

It make us know what is appropriate, for us to know what are the things we can and cannot do.

GroupsA group consists of people who

regularly and consciously interact with one another.

The members of the group share similar values, norms, and expectations.

The groups to which we belong represent powerful forces in our lives.