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    Status and Role

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    Rm Li
    Social status refers to one's position within a social group, while role refers to the behaviors expected of that status. People often have multiple, overlapping statuses and roles. For example, a woman may be a mother, aunt, grandmother, wife, daughter, and hold other statuses simultaneously. For each status, she is expected to behave differently depending on who she is interacting with. A status can be either achieved, such as becoming a mother by having a child, or ascribed, such as one's status determined by their family or gender at birth. While all societies have both achieved and ascribed statuses, cultures differ in which they emphasize more.

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    Status and Role

    Uploaded by

    Rm Li
    49 views2 pages
    Social status refers to one's position within a social group, while role refers to the behaviors expected of that status. People often have multiple, overlapping statuses and roles. For example, a woman may be a mother, aunt, grandmother, wife, daughter, and hold other statuses simultaneously. For each status, she is expected to behave differently depending on who she is interacting with. A status can be either achieved, such as becoming a mother by having a child, or ascribed, such as one's status determined by their family or gender at birth. While all societies have both achieved and ascribed statuses, cultures differ in which they emphasize more.

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    Social status refers to one's position within a social group, while role refers to the behaviors expected of that status. People often have multiple, overlapping statuses and roles. For example, a woman may be a mother, aunt, grandmother, wife, daughter, and hold other statuses simultaneously. For each status, she is expected to behave differently depending on who she is interacting with. A status can be either achieved, such as becoming a mother by having a child, or ascribed, such as one's status determined by their family or gender at birth. While all societies have both achieved and ascribed statuses, cultures differ in which they emphasize more.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    49 views2 pages

    Status and Role

    Uploaded by

    Rm Li
    Social status refers to one's position within a social group, while role refers to the behaviors expected of that status. People often have multiple, overlapping statuses and roles. For example, a woman may be a mother, aunt, grandmother, wife, daughter, and hold other statuses simultaneously. For each status, she is expected to behave differently depending on who she is interacting with. A status can be either achieved, such as becoming a mother by having a child, or ascribed, such as one's status determined by their family or gender at birth. While all societies have both achieved and ascribed statuses, cultures differ in which they emphasize more.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    UCSP: Status & Role

    Status and Role


    In all of the many social groups that we as individuals belong to, we
    have a status and a role to fulfill.  Status is our relative social position
    within a group, while a role is the part our society expects us to play in a
    given status.  For example, a man may have the status of father in his  
    family.  Because of this status, he is expected to fulfill a role for his
    children that in most societies requires him to nurture, educate, guide,
    and protect them.  Of course, mothers usually have complementary roles.

    Social group membership gives us a set of statuses and role tags


    that allow people to know what to expect from each other--they make us
    more predictable.  However, it is common for people to have multiple
    overlapping statuses and roles.  This potentially makes social encounters
    more complex.  A woman who is a mother for some children may be an
    aunt or grandmother for others.  At the same time, she may be a wife for
    one or more men, and she very likely is a daughter and granddaughter of
    several other people.  For each of these various kinship statuses, she is
    expected to play a somewhat different role and to be able to switch
    between them instantaneously.  For instance, if she is having a
    conversation with her mother and young daughter, she is likely to politely
    defer to the former but will be knowledgeable and "in-control" with the
    other.  These role related behaviors change as rapidly as she turns her
    head to face one or the other.  However, her unique personal relationships
    might lead her to think and act differently than what would be culturally
    expected.  In other words, social group membership gives us a set of role
    tags that allow people to know what to expect from each other, but they are
    not always straight jackets for behavior.

    Acquiring Statuses
    The way in which people get our statuses can vary significantly in
    detail from culture to culture.  In all societies, however, they are either
    achieved or ascribed.  Achieved statuses are ones that are acquired by
    doing something.  For instance, someone becomes a criminal by
    committing a crime.  A soldier earns the status of a good warrior by
    achievements in battle and by being brave.  A woman becomes a mother
    by having a baby.  She also can acquire the status of widow by the death of
    her husband.  In contrast, ascribed statuses are the result of being born
    into a particular family or being born male or female.  Being a prince by
    birth or being the first of four children in a family are ascribed statuses.  We
    do not make a decision to choose them--they are not voluntary statuses. 
    We do not pick the family we are born into nor do we usually select our own
    gender. 

    Both achieved and ascribed statuses exist in all societies.  However,


    some cultures choose to emphasize the importance of one or the other.  In
    North America today, achieved statuses outside of the family are reinforced
    while ascribed ones are generally rejected.  Children are encouraged from
    an early age to be independent and self-reliant.  They are told to better
    themselves in life.  This can be seen in the admiration of "self-made
    people" and in the somewhat negative image in the mass media of
    people who are rich only because they inherited it.  This strong cultural
    bias has led to the enactment of anti-nepotism laws for government jobs. 
    These make it a crime to hire and promote people because they are your
    relatives.  In addition, the North American emphasis on achieved status
    has led to an acceptance and encouragement of social class mobility
    and a rejection of gender and ethnicity based restrictions.  Children are
    taught in school from an early age that, despite the fact that they may be
    from a poor family, male or female, they should aspire to get a good
    education, better themselves and their family economically, and even
    become a leader in society.

    In India, ascribed, rather than achieved, social status has been


    strongly reinforced for more than 3,000 years and permeates most areas of
    life even today.  As a result, social mobility has been very difficult to
    achieve until recent generations.  Even now, it is limited for those at the
    bottom of society.  At the heart of the Indian ascription system
    are castes   (or varnas  ).  These are carefully ranked, rigidly hereditary
    social divisions of society.

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