achieved status

Examples of achieved status in the following topics:

• Open vs. Closed Stratification Systems

  • In an open class system, people are ranked by achieved status, whereas in a closed class system, people are ranked by ascribed status.
  • In modern western Europe, status depends on individual educational and professional attainment, meaning that people are ranked based on achieved status.
  • In an open class system, the hierarchical social status of a person is achieved through their effort.
  • Achieved status is a position gained based on merit or achievement (used in an open system).
  • Social mobility is much more frequent in countries that use achievement as the basis for status.

• Social Status

  • One can earn his or her social status by his or her own achievements; this is known as achieved status.
  • Social status is most often understood as a melding of the two types of status, with ascribed status influencing achieved status.
  • Admission, therefore, is an achieved status that was heavily influenced by resources made available by the person's ascribed status.
  • It is easy to see how achieved and ascribed statuses accumulate into the social status of an individual.
  • Discuss the basis of both ascribed and achieved social status and how they influence one another and a person's standing within different groups of society

• Prestige

  • A person can earn prestige by his or her own achievements, which is known as achieved status, or they can be placed in the stratification system by their inherited position, which is called ascribed status.
  • For example, prestige used to be associated with one's family name (ascribed status), but for most people in developed countries, prestige is now generally tied to one's occupation (achieved status).
  • Compare the two types of prestige - achieved and ascribed, and how prestige is related to power, property and social mobility

• Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

  • Gemeinschaft community involves ascribed status, meaning a fixed status given by birth.
  • Gemeinschaft community involves ascribed status, meaning a fixed status given by birth.
  • Gesellschaft society involves achieved status, or a status reached by education and professional advancement.

• Social Mobility

  • Most commonly, social mobility refers to the change in wealth and social status of individuals or families.
  • This type of society has an open status system, which functions on the basis of achieved status, or status gained through one's own merit.
  • On the other hand, closed status systems are based on ascribed status.
  • Ascribed status is a fixed position a person is born into, not based on their performance.
  • Compare the various types of social mobiliy, the status systems they exist in, and their status between countries and over time.

• Types of Social Mobility

  • When a child who is born to parents with college degrees attains a graduate degree, this is an example of intergenerational mobility — the child achieves higher status than their parents.
  • Once the British middle class experienced absolute upward mobility, an individual child became expected to achieve greater status than their parents, even though this was not true in every individual case.
  • The expectation that children's status would exceed parents was based on relative social mobility.
  • Most commonly, social mobility refers to the change in wealth and social status of individuals or families.
  • Other times, social mobility is intra-generational, meaning that a person changes status within their lifetime.

• Class Structure in the U.S.

  • Modern sociologists argue that in the vast majority of cases, people do not achieve the American Dream — instead, people born to poor parents are likely to stay within the lower class, and vice versa.
  • This critique is somewhat mitigated by the fact that income is often closely aligned with other indicators of status; for example, those with high incomes likely have substantial education, high status occupations, and powerful social networks.
  • According to the "American Dream," American society is meritocratic and class is achievement-based.
  • In other words, there is inequality in America, with some people attaining higher status and higher standards of living than others.
  • But there is no clear place to draw a line separating one status group from the next.

• Defining Boundaries

  • ., a group member may pass from a low status group into a high status group), individuals are more likely to engage in individual mobility strategies.
  • Where group boundaries are considered impermeable, and where status relations are considered reasonably stable, individuals are predicted to engage in social creativity behaviors.
  • Here, without changing necessarily the objective resources of in the in-group or the out-group, low status in-group members are still able to increase their positive distinctiveness.
  • This may be achieved by comparing the in-group to the out-group on some new dimension, changing the values assigned to the attributes of the group, and choosing an alternative out-group by which to compare the in-group.

• Weber's View of Stratification

  • Max Weber formed a three-component theory of stratification in which social difference is determined by class, status, and power.
  • According to Weberian theory, a member of the United States Congress is an example of someone who is high in the social hierarchy due to status and power, although they have relatively low economic status.
  • Class is a person's economic position in a society, based on birth and individual achievement.
  • Status refers to a person's prestige, social honor, or popularity in a society.
  • Weber noted that political power was not rooted solely in capital value, but also in one's individual status.

• Religion and Social Control

  • Marx viewed religion as a tool of social control used by the bourgeoisie to keep the proletariat content with an unequal status quo.
  • From a Marxist perspective, these expectations become part of religion's ability to control society and maintain the status quo.
  • According to Marx, in a capitalist society, religion plays a critical role in maintaining an unequal status quo, in which certain groups of people have radically more resources and power than other groups of people.
  • Only then would this class of people be able to rise up against the bourgeoisie and gain control of the means of production, and only then would they achieve real rewards, in this life.
  • He believed that it was a tool of social control used to maintain an unequal status quo, and that it should be abolished.