status

Examples of status in the following topics:

• Status Inconsistency

  • Status inconsistency occurs when an individual's social positions are varied and these variations influence his or her overall social status.
  • Status inconsistency is a situation where an individual's social positions have both positive and negative influences on his or her social status.
  • For example, a teacher may have a positive societal image (respect, prestige, etc.), which increases her status but she may earn little money, which simultaneously decreases her status.
  • Sociologists investigate issues of status inconsistency in order to better understand status systems and stratification, and because some sociologists believe that positions of status inconsistency might have strong effects on people's behavior.
  • Gerhard Lenski originally predicted that people suffering from status inconsistency would favor political actions and parties directed against higher status groups.

• Social Status

  • Whenever there is any form of society, one sees social status come into play.
  • One's social status is determined in different ways.
  • 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.

• 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.
  • Thus, people were ranked by ascribed status.
  • Status based on family background, ethnicity, gender, and religion, which is also known as "ascribed status," is less important.
  • People in such societies may be confined to their ancestral occupations, and their social status is largely prescribed by status at birth.

• 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.
  • Weber introduced three independent factors that form his theory of stratification hierarchy: class, status, and power.
  • 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.

• Income

  • Individual and household income remains one of the most prominent indicators of class status within the United States.
  • Many people who have vast accumulated wealth have virtually non-existent salaries, so total personal income is a better indicator of economic status.
  • However, in a dual-income household the combined income of both earners, even if they hold relatively low status jobs, can put the household in the upper middle class income bracket.
  • Census Bureau in terms of either household or individual income and remains one of the most prominent indicators of class status.
  • In other words, income does not determine the status of an individual or household but rather reflects that status.

• 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.

• The Conflict Perspective

  • Conflict theory is particularly interested in the various aspects of master status in social position—the primary identifying characteristic of an individual seen in terms of race or ethnicity, sex or gender, age, religion, ability or disability, and socio-economic status.
  • When we are analyzing any element of society from this perspective, we need to look at the structures of wealth, power and status, and the ways in which those structures maintain social, economic, political and coercive power of one group at the expense of others.
  • According to conflict theorists, the family works toward the continuance of social inequality within a society by maintaining and reinforcing the status quo.
  • Because inheritance, education and social capital are transmitted through the family structure, wealthy families are able to keep their privileged social position for their members, while individuals from poor families are denied similar status.
  • According to conflict theorists, the family works toward the continuance of social inequality within a society by maintaining and reinforcing the status quo.

• 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.
  • He believed that it was a tool of social control used to maintain an unequal status quo, and that it should be abolished.

• Socioeconomic Status

  • Building on the ideas of Max Weber, who saw three main dimensions of stratification (class, status, and party), contemporary sociologists often define stratification in terms of socioeconomic status (or SES).
  • These three characteristics combine to indicate someone's social class or socioeconomic status.

• 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.