social status. The concept and types of social statuses

social status- the position of the individual or social group in the social system.

status rank- the position of the individual in the social hierarchy of statuses, on the basis of which the status worldview is formed.

status set- a set of several status positions that an individual simultaneously occupies.

Conceptions of social status

The concept of "social status" was first used in science by the English philosopher and lawyer of the 19th century. G. Main. In sociology, the concept of status (from Latin status - position, state) is used in different meanings. The dominant idea is the social status as the position of an individual or a social group in the social system, which is characterized by certain distinctive features (rights, duties, functions). Sometimes social status refers to a set of such distinguishing features. In ordinary speech, the concept of status is used as a synonym for prestige.

In modern scientific and educational literature, they are defined as: the position of the individual in the social system, associated with certain rights, duties and role expectations;

the position of the subject in the system of interpersonal relations,
defining his rights, duties and privileges;
the position of the individual in the system of interpersonal relations, due to his psychological influence on the members of the group;
the relative position of the individual in society, determined by his functions, duties and rights;
the position of a person in the structure of a group or society, associated with certain rights and obligations;
an indicator of the position occupied by an individual in society;
the relative position of an individual or a social group in a social system, determined by a number of features characteristic of the given system;
the position occupied by an individual or a social group in society or a separate subsystem of society, determined by characteristics specific to a particular society - economic, national, age, etc.;
the place of an individual or group in the social system in accordance with their characteristics - natural, professional, ethnic, etc.;
a structural element of the social organization of society, which appears to the individual as a position in the system of social relations;
the relative position of an individual or group, determined by social (economic status, profession, qualifications, education, etc.) and natural characteristics (sex, age, etc.);
a set of rights and obligations of an individual or a social group associated with the performance of a certain social role by them;
prestige that characterizes the position of an individual or social groups in a hierarchical system.

Each person in society performs certain social functions: students study, workers produce material goods, managers manage, journalists talk about events taking place in the country and the world. To perform social functions, certain duties are imposed on the individual in accordance with social status. The higher the status of a person, the more duties he has, the more stringent the requirements of society or a social group for his status duties, the greater the negative consequences of their violation.

status set is a set of status positions that each individual occupies simultaneously. In this set, the following statuses are usually distinguished: ascriptive (assigned), achieved, mixed, main.

The social status of the individual was relatively stable due to the class or caste structure of society and was fixed by the establishment of religion or law. In modern societies, the status positions of individuals are more mobile. However, in any society there are ascriptive (assigned) and achieved social statuses.

Assigned status- this is a social status received "automatically" by its carrier due to factors beyond his control - by law, birth, sex or age, racial and national origin, consanguinity system, socio-economic status of parents, etc. For example, you can not get married, participate in elections, get a driver's license before reaching the required age for this. Assigned statuses are of interest to sociology only if they are the basis for social inequality, i.e. affect social differentiation and the social structure of society.

Achieved status - it is a social status acquired by its bearer through his own efforts and merits. The level of education, professional achievements, career, title, position, socially successful marriage - all this affects the social status of the individual in society.

There is a direct relationship between assigned and achieved social statuses. Achieved statuses are acquired mainly through competition, but some achieved statuses are largely determined by ascriptive ones. Thus, the possibility of obtaining a prestigious education, which in modern society is a necessary prerequisite for high social status, is directly related to the advantages of family origin. On the contrary, the presence of a high achieved status largely compensates for the low ascriptive status of an individual due to the fact that no society can ignore the real social successes and achievements of individuals.

Mixed social statuses have signs attributed and achieved, but achieved not at the request of a person, but due to a combination of circumstances, for example, as a result of job loss, natural disasters or political upheavals.

Major social status the individual determines mainly the position of a person in society, his way of life.

demeanor. When talking about a stranger, we first of all ask: “What is this person doing? How does he make a living? The answer to this question says a lot about a person, therefore, in modern society, the main status of an individual is, as a rule, professional or official.

Lych status It manifests itself at the level of a small group, for example, a family, a work collective, a circle of close friends. In a small group, the individual functions directly and his status is determined by personal qualities and character traits.

group status characterizes an individual as a member of a large social group as, for example, a representative of a nation, confession or profession.

The concept and types of social status

The substantive difference between them boils down to the fact that the role is performed, but the status is. In other words, the role implies the possibility of a qualitative assessment of how the individual meets the role requirements. Social status - This is the position of a person in the structure of a group or society, which determines certain rights and obligations. Speaking of status, we abstract from any qualitative assessment of the person who occupies it, and his behavior. We can say that status is a formal-structural social characteristic of the subject.

Like roles, there can be many statuses, and in general, any status implies a corresponding role and vice versa.

Main status - the key of the entire set of social statuses of the individual, mainly determining his social position and importance in society. For example, the main status of a child is age; in traditional societies, the main status of a woman is gender; in modern society, as a rule, the main status becomes professional or official. In any case, the main status acts as a decisive factor in the image and standard of living, dictates the manner of behavior.

Social status can be:

prescribed- received from birth or due to factors independent of its carrier - gender or age, race, socio-economic status of parents. For example, by law, you cannot get a driver's license, get married, participate in elections or receive a pension before reaching the required age for this;
achieved- acquired in society thanks to the efforts and merits of the individual. The status of a person in society is affected by the level of education, professional achievements, career, socially successful marriage. No society can ignore the real success of the individual, so the existence of achieved status has the ability to largely compensate for the low status attributed to the individual;
private- manifests itself at the level of a small group in which the individual functions directly (family, work team, circle of close friends), it is determined by his personal qualities and character traits;
group- characterizes an individual as a member of a large social group - a representative of a class, nation, profession, carrier of certain gender and age characteristics, etc.

Based on sociological surveys, it has been established that the majority of Russians are currently satisfied with their position in society rather than dissatisfied. This is a very significant positive trend in recent years, since satisfaction with one's position in society is not only an essential prerequisite for social stability, but also a very important condition for people to feel comfortable in their socio-psychological state in general. Among those who assess their place in society as “good”, almost 85% believe that their lives are going well. This indicator does not depend much on age: even in the group over 55, about 70% share this opinion. Among those who are dissatisfied with their social status, the picture turned out to be the opposite - almost half of them (with 6.8% in the array as a whole) believe that their life is going badly.

Status hierarchy

French sociologist R. Boudon considers social status as having two dimensions:

horizontal, which forms a system of social contacts and interchanges, both real and simply possible, that develop between the holder of the status and other individuals who are at the same level of the social ladder;
vertical, which is formed by contacts and exchanges that arise between the holder of the status and individuals located at higher and lower levels.

On the basis of such a representation, Budon defines social status as a set of equal and hierarchical relations maintained by an individual with other members of society.

The status hierarchy is typical for any organization. Indeed, without nes organization is impossible; it is due to the fact that all members of the group know the status of each, there is an interaction between the links of the organization. However, the formal structure of an organization does not always coincide with its informal structure. Such a gap between hierarchies in many organizations does not require sociometric research, but is visible to a simple observer, since the establishment of a status hierarchy is the answer not only to the question “Who is the most important here?”, but also to the question “Who is the most authoritative, most competent, most popular with workers? The real status is largely determined by personal qualities, qualifications, charm, etc.

Many modern sociologists pay attention to the functional dissonance that arises from the mismatch of hierarchical and functional status. Such a mismatch can arise due to individual compromises, when the orders of the leadership acquire the character of a “stream of consciousness”, providing subordinates with a “zone of free action”. The result can be generally both positive and manifest itself in an increase in the flexibility of the organization's response, and negative, expressed in functional chaos and confusion.

Status confusion acts as a criterion of social disorganization and, perhaps, as one of the causes of deviant behavior. E. Durkheim considered the relationship between violations of the status hierarchy and the state of anomie and suggested that discord in the status hierarchy in an industrial society takes two forms.

First, the expectations of the individual in connection with the position he occupies in society and the counter-expectations of other members of society directed towards the individual become largely uncertain. If in a traditional society everyone knew what to expect and what awaits him, and in accordance with this he was well aware of his rights and obligations, then in an industrial society, due to the growing division of labor and the instability of labor relations, the individual is increasingly faced with situations that he I did not foresee and for which I am not ready. For example, if in the Middle Ages studying at a university automatically meant a sharp and irreversible increase in social status, now no one is surprised by the abundance of unemployed university graduates who agree to any job.

Second, status instability affects the structure of social rewards and the level of individual life satisfaction.

To understand what determines the status hierarchy in traditional - pre-industrial - societies, one should turn to modern societies of the East (except for caste ones). Here you can find three important elements that affect the social position of the individual - gender, age and belonging to a certain "estate", which assign to each member of society his rigid status. At the same time, the transition to another level of the status hierarchy is extremely difficult due to a number of legal and symbolic restrictions. But even in traditionally oriented societies, the spirit of entrepreneurship and enrichment, the personal favor of the ruler affect the distribution of statuses, although the legitimation of status occurs through a reference to the traditions of the ancestors, which in itself reflects the weight of the attributing elements of the status (the antiquity of the family, the personal prowess of the ancestors, etc. ).

In modern Western society, the status hierarchy can be viewed from the standpoint of either meritocratic ideology as a fair and inevitable recognition of personal merits, talents and abilities, or holistic sociologism as a result strictly determined by social processes. But both theories offer a very simplistic understanding of the nature of status, and there are points that cannot be explained in the context of either of them. For example, if status is entirely determined by personal qualities and merit, then how to explain the presence in almost any organization of formal and informal status hierarchies?

Within an organization, this duality means a mismatch of competence and power, observed in various forms and at various levels, when decisions are made not by competent and impartial experts, but by "capitalists" who are guided by the logic of self-interest, or "soulless technocrats". The discrepancy between professional qualifications and material and status remuneration is also inexplicable. Inconsistencies in this area are often denied or hushed up in the name of the meritocratic ideal of "status by merit." For example, in modern Russian society, the situation of low material remuneration and, as a result, low prestige and status of highly educated and highly intelligent people has become typical: “The profession of physics in the USSR in the 1960s. enjoyed high prestige, and the accountant - low. In modern Russia, they have changed places. In this case, prestige is strongly associated with the economic status of these occupations.

Since systems are more complex and subject to faster evolution, the mechanism for assigning status remains uncertain. First, the list of criteria involved in determining the status is very long. Secondly, it becomes more and more difficult to reduce the totality of various status attributes belonging to each individual to a single symbol, as in traditional societies, where it was enough to say “this is the son of such and such”, so that the social status of a person, his material level, circle of acquaintances and friends. In traditional societies, the individual and his status were very closely linked. Personality and status tend to diverge these days. The identity of a person is no longer set: she herself builds it with her own efforts throughout her life. Therefore, our perception of ourselves as a person is split into many aspects in which our social status is manifested. Personal identity is felt not so much through a connection with a fixed status, but through a sense of one's own value and uniqueness.

Section 6
social relations

6.1. Social interaction and public relations

Society as a system is distinguished by the close interconnection and interdependence of all its elements and subsystems. Just like in nature, everything is part of a single complex. By affecting or destroying one of its components, the very existence of the natural world can be threatened.

A complex system of social connections and interactions permeates all spheres of society from top to bottom. Taking any political decision, we will be able to trace its consequences in all spheres. Let's take an example from our recent past. The implementation of privatization and denationalization in the economy, the introduction of market relations led to the destruction of the old one-party political system, a change in the entire system of legislation. Significant changes have also taken place in the sphere of spiritual culture.

Let us consider in more detail the basic concepts and definitions related to the characteristics of social ties and relationships.

The main types of social connections are functional and causal. Causal relationships stand out in the case when one of the phenomena brings to life another, is its basis.

Functional links can be traced in the interdependence of goals and objectives carried out by society and its individual elements. For example, the task of producing vital goods is inseparable from the distribution of the results of labor, the reproduction and socialization of a person, the implementation of management, etc.

Both causal and functional relationships are always realized in unity. The first can be represented as a vertical, since one phenomenon precedes another in time. The latter are formed at the same moment in time.

To achieve its goals and objectives, society constructs a system of social relations - communications and corresponding structures - social institutions. Social relations are understood as relations that arise between groups of people and within them in the process of the life of society. In accordance with the division of society into subsystems, scientists distinguish economic, social, political and spiritual spheres. For example, relations in the sphere of distribution of material goods are economic, relations in the sphere of social management, decision-making on the coordination of public interests can be called political.

By their nature, these relations can be solidary (partnership), based on the coordination of the interests of the parties, or conflict (competitive), when the interests of the participants are opposite. In addition, relations differ in terms of the level of interaction: interpersonal, intergroup and international. But a number of their elements remain always unchanged.

In the structure of any relationship, one can distinguish:

Participants (subjects);

An object that is significant to them;

Needs (subject-object relations);

Interests (relations subject - subject);

Values (relationships between the ideals of interacting subjects).

The nature of social ties and relations changes in the process of social evolution, as society changes.

6.2. Social groups, their classification

The whole history of people's lives is the history of their relationships and interactions with other people. In the course of these interactions, social communities and groups are formed.

The most general concept is social community - a set of people united by common conditions of existence, regularly and steadily interacting with each other.

In modern sociology, several types of communities are distinguished.

Primarily, nominal communities- a set of people united by common social characteristics, which are established by a scientist-researcher in order to solve his scientific problem. For example, people of the same hair color, skin color, sports lovers, stamp collectors, vacationers at sea can be united, and all these people may never come into contact with each other.

Mass communities - these are real-life aggregates of people who are accidentally united by common conditions of existence and do not have a stable goal of interaction. Fans of sports teams, fans of pop stars, and participants in mass political movements are typical examples of mass communities. The features of mass communities can be considered the randomness of their occurrence, the temporality and uncertainty of the composition. One type of mass community is crowd . The French sociologist G. Tarde defined a crowd as a multitude of persons gathered at the same time in a certain place and united by feeling, faith and action. In the structure of the crowd, leaders stand out on the one hand, and everyone else on the other.

According to the sociologist G. Lebon, the behavior of the crowd is due to a certain infection that provokes collective aspirations. People infected with this infection are capable of ill-conceived, sometimes destructive actions.

How to protect yourself from such an infection? First of all, people with a high culture, well-informed about political events, have immunity to it.

In addition to the crowd, sociologists operate with such concepts as the audience and social circles.

Under audience is understood as a set of people united by interaction with a certain individual or group (for example, people watching a performance in the theater, students listening to a lecture by a teacher, journalists attending a press conference of a statesman, etc.). The larger the audience, the weaker the connection with the unifying principle. Please note that during the broadcast of a meeting of any large group of people, the TV camera may snatch someone from the audience who has fallen asleep, someone who is reading a newspaper or drawing figures in his notebook. The same situation often occurs in the student audience. Therefore, it is important to remember the rule formulated by the ancient Romans: "Not the speaker is the measure of the listener, but the listener is the measure of the speaker."

social circles- Communities created for the purpose of exchanging information between their members. These communities do not set any common goals, do not undertake joint efforts. Their function is to exchange information. For example, to discuss the change in the dollar against other currencies, the performance of the national team in the qualifying round of the World Cup, the reforms planned by the government in the field of education, and so on. A variety of such social circles is a professional circle, for example, scientists, teachers, artists, artists. The most compact in composition is a friendly circle.

Social circles can nominate their leaders, form public opinion, and be the basis for the formation of social groups.

The most common concept in sociology is the social group.

Under social group is understood as a set of people united on the basis of joint activities, common goals and having an established system of norms, values, life guidelines. In science, several signs of a social group are distinguished:

Composition stability;

duration of existence;

Definiteness of the composition and boundaries;

General system of values and norms;

Awareness of one's belonging to a group by each individual;

Voluntary nature of association (for small groups);

The unification of individuals by external conditions of existence (for large social groups).

In sociology, there are a number of grounds for classifying groups. For example, by the nature of the bonds, groups can be formal and informal. According to the level of interaction within the group, groups are distinguished primary(family, company of friends, like-minded people, classmates), which are characterized by a high level of emotional ties, and groups secondary who have almost no emotional ties (work collective, political party).

Here is an example of the classification of social groups for various reasons in the form of a table:

Types of social groups

Foundations group classifications	Group type	Examples
By number of participants	small large	family, group of friends, sports team, company board of directors labor collective, residents of the microdistrict, university graduates ethnic groups, confessions, programmers
By the nature of relationships and connections	formal informal	political party, labor collective cafe visitors
At the place of residence	settlement	townspeople, villagers, residents of the metropolitan metropolis, provincials
Depending on gender and age	demographic	men, women, children, old people, youth
By ethnicity	ethnic (ethnosocial)	Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Vepsians, Mari
By income level	socio-economic	rich (high income people), poor (low income people), middle class (middle income people)
By nature and occupation	professional	programmers, operators, teachers, entrepreneurs, lawyers, turners

This list could go on and on. It all depends on the basis of classification. For example, a certain social group can be considered all users of personal computers, mobile phone subscribers, the totality of subway passengers, and so on.

A rallying, group-forming factor is also citizenship - a person's belonging to the state, expressed in the totality of their mutual rights and obligations. Citizens of one state are subject to the same laws, have common state symbols. Belonging to certain political parties and organizations establishes ideological affinity. Communists, liberals, social democrats, nationalists imagine the future and the correct structure of society in different ways. In this regard, they are very similar to political communities and religious associations (confessions), only they pay more attention not to external changes, but to the inner world of people, their faith, good and evil deeds, and interpersonal relationships.

Special groups are formed by people with common interests. Sports fans from different cities and countries share a passion for their favorite sport; fishermen, hunters and mushroom pickers - search for prey; collectors - the desire to increase their collection; lovers of poetry - feelings about what they read; music lovers - impressions of music and so on. We can easily find all of them in the crowd of passers-by - fans (fans) wear the colors of their favorite team, music lovers walk with players and are completely absorbed in music, etc. Finally, students from all over the world are united by the desire for knowledge and education.

We have listed quite large communities that unite thousands and even millions of people. But there are also countless smaller groups - people in line, passengers of the same compartment on the train, vacationers in a sanatorium, museum visitors, neighbors on the porch, street comrades, party participants. Unfortunately, there are also socially dangerous groups - gangs of teenagers, mafia organizations, extortionate racketeers, drug addicts and substance addicts, alcoholics, beggars, homeless people (homeless people), street hooligans, gamblers. All of them are either directly related to the underworld, or are under its scrutiny. And the boundaries of the transition from one group to another are very invisible. A regular casino visitor can instantly lose all his fortune, get into debt, become a beggar, sell an apartment or join a criminal gang. The same threatens drug addicts and alcoholics, many of whom at first believe that they will give up this hobby at any moment if they wish. Getting into the listed groups is much easier than getting out of them, and the consequences are the same - prison, death or an incurable disease.

Almost all of the above social groups now exist in our country. The biggest problem in Russian society is the huge gulf between a small group of super-rich people and the bulk of the population living on the edge of poverty. Developed modern societies are characterized by the presence of the so-called middle class. It is made up of people who have private property, an average income level and a certain independence from the state. Such people are free to express their views, it is difficult to put pressure on them, they do not allow violations of their rights. The more representatives of this group, the more prosperous society as a whole. It is believed that in a stable society, the representatives of the middle class should be 85-90%. Unfortunately, this group is just being formed in our country, and ensuring its rapid growth is one of the main tasks of state policy.

6.3. social status

In any society, regardless of its historical and geographical boundaries, a hierarchy is formed, the order in which groups of people are arranged. Somewhere this order is determined by birth, somewhere by education, somewhere by wealth. The position of each specific person in such a hierarchy can be called social status.

social status - the position of a person in society, occupied by him in accordance with age, gender, origin, profession, marital status, and a certain set of rights and obligations associated with this. All statuses are divided into two large groups - initial(prescribed, innate) and achieved. Among the former, gender, race and age are usually named. Sometimes nationality and religious affiliation are also included here (this is typical for traditional societies). Little girls play with dolls and help their mother with the housework, while boys are more outdoors, prefer outdoor games and are afraid of being branded as “sissy”. With age, these differences move to another level. The achieved status is fixed only taking into account the individual qualities of a person, thanks to his choice, talent, activity, abilities, diligence or luck.

They used to play a huge role in society born (given) statuses. A person's life largely depended on the position of his parents in society, and his own talents, education and skills did not play a decisive role. For example, a member of the clergy or a nobleman in medieval France belonged to the privileged estates, and they were granted all the basic rights. And, on the contrary, the third estate - the absolute majority of the country's inhabitants - was deprived of civil rights.

In modern society, everyone can achieve a high status, much depends on the individual himself. To some extent, statuses and roles are similar to each other, but the main difference between them is that the status involves the assessment of others, and the role is performed by the person himself.

Allocate social scientists and other types of statuses. Among the most important of them: main(the most characteristic status for a given person, according to which others distinguish him or with which they identify him); social(the position of a person as a representative of a large social group); private(individual) (the position that a person occupies in a small group, depending on how he is assessed by his individual qualities (leader, outsider, etc.)).

Living in a society, one cannot be free from it. During life, a person comes into contact with a large number of other individuals and groups to which they belong. At the same time, in each of them he occupies a certain place. To analyze the position of a person in each group and society as a whole, they use such concepts as social status and Let's take a closer look at what it is.

The meaning of the term and general characteristics

The very word "status" originates from ancient Rome. Then it had more of a legal connotation, rather than a sociological one, and denoted the legal status of an organization.

Now social status is the position of a person in a particular group and society as a whole, endowing him with certain rights, privileges, and duties in relation to other members.

It helps people communicate better with each other. If a person of a certain social status does not fulfill his duties, then he will be responsible for this. So, an entrepreneur who sews clothes to order, if the deadlines are missed, will pay a penalty. In addition, his reputation will be damaged.

Examples of the social status of one person are a schoolboy, son, grandson, brother, member of a sports club, citizen, and so on.

This is a certain one according to his professional qualities, material and age, education and other criteria.

A person can simultaneously enter several teams at once and, accordingly, play not one, but many different roles. Therefore, they talk about status sets. Each person is unique and individual.

Types of social statuses, examples

Their range is quite wide. There are statuses acquired at birth, and there are statuses acquired during life. Those that society ascribes to a person, or those that he achieves through his own efforts.

Allocate the main and passing social status of a person. Examples: the main and universal, in fact, the person himself, then comes the second - this is a citizen. The list of basic statuses also includes consanguinity, economic, political, religious. The list goes on.

Episodic is a passer-by, a patient, a striker, a buyer, an exhibition visitor. That is, such statuses in the same person can change quite quickly and periodically repeat.

Prescribed social status: examples

This is what a person receives from birth, biologically and geographically given characteristics. Until recently, it was impossible to influence them and change the situation. Examples of social status: gender, nationality, race. These given parameters remain with a person for life. Although in our progressive society they have already threatened to change the sex. So one of the listed statuses to some extent ceases to be prescribed.

Much of what pertains to kinship will also be considered as prescribed father, mother, sister, brother. And husband and wife are already acquired statuses.

Achieved status

This is what a person achieves on his own. Making efforts, making choices, working, studying, each individual eventually comes to certain results. His successes or failures are reflected in the society giving him the status he deserves. Doctor, director, company president, professor, thief, homeless person, vagabond.

Almost every achievement has its own insignia. Examples:

the military, security officials, employees of the internal troops - uniforms and epaulettes;
doctors have white coats;
people who have broken the law have tattoos on their bodies.

Roles in society

To understand how this or that object will behave, the social status of a person will help. We find examples and confirmations of this all the time. Expectations in the behavior and appearance of an individual, depending on his belonging to a certain class, is called a social role.

So, the status of a parent obliges to be strict, but fair to your child, to bear responsibility for him, teach, give advice, prompt, help in difficult situations. The status of a son or daughter is, on the contrary, a certain subordination to parents, legal and material dependence on them.

But, despite some patterns of behavior, each person has a choice of how to act. Examples of social status and its use by a person do not fit one hundred percent into the proposed framework. There is only a scheme, a certain template, which each individual implements according to his abilities and ideas.

It often happens that it is difficult for one person to combine several social roles. For example, the first role of a woman is mother, wife, and her second role is a successful business woman. Both roles involve the investment of effort, time, full return. There is a conflict.

An analysis of the social status of a person, an example of his actions in life, allow us to conclude that it reflects not only the internal position of a person, but also affects the appearance, manner of dressing, speaking.

Consider examples of social status and standards associated with it in appearance. So, the director of a bank or the founder of a reputable company cannot appear at the workplace in sports trousers or rubber boots. And the priest - to come to church in jeans.

The status that a person has reached makes him pay attention not only to appearance and behavior, but also to choose a social circle, place of residence, training.

Prestige

Not the last role in the fate of people is played by such a concept as prestige (and positive, from the point of view of the majority, social status). We can easily find examples in the questionnaire, which all students write before entering higher educational institutions. Often they make their choice focusing on the prestige of a particular profession. Now few of the boys dream of becoming an astronaut or a pilot. It used to be a very popular profession. Choose between lawyers and financiers. So the time dictates.

Conclusion: a person develops as a person in the process of mastering different social statuses and roles. The brighter the dynamics, the more adapted to life the individual will become.

Modern public life in Russia.

Modern society is very diverse and changeable, in it each person has many opportunities to change his position - you can move from a village to a city (or vice versa), change your job, move to another apartment, get a new profession, become a representative of another class. A very important role in this in the modern world is played by the level of education. Without deep knowledge and high professionalism, it is impossible to move to a new prestigious position, get a stable job, become indispensable in your place.

Almost all of the above social groups now exist in our country. The biggest problem of Russian society is the huge gulf between a small group of super-rich people and the main mass of the population living on the edge of poverty. Developed modern societies are characterized by the presence of the so-called middle class. It is made up of people who have private property, an average income level and a certain independence from the state. Such people are free to express their views, it is difficult to put pressure on them, they do not allow violations of their rights. The more representatives of this group, the more prosperous society as a whole. It is believed that in a stable society, the representatives of the middle class should be 85-90%. Unfortunately, this group is just being formed in our country, and ensuring its rapid growth is one of the main tasks of state policy.

A serious danger to the stability of society is also marginalization. Marginal people are people who find themselves outside their usual groups, occupying an unstable, intermediate position in society. A person who used to be an engineer, a teacher, a university lecturer, who does not fit into modern market relations, can become unemployed, work odd jobs, engage in the shuttle business. This person is marginalized. His self-doubt, in his future, can turn into destructive actions, dissatisfaction with the existing order.

The lumpen should be distinguished from the marginals. Lumpens are a group of people who have sunk to the social bottom, beggars, persons without a fixed place of residence. Lumpenization is usually associated with periods of social upheaval, deepening the crisis state of social structures. Society, as it were, throws the lumpen out of social life, out of the normal circle of human relations.

social status

social status- the position of a person in society, occupied by him in accordance with age, gender, origin, profession, marital status, and a certain set of rights and obligations associated with this. All statuses are divided into two large groups - initial (prescribed, innate) and achieved. Among the former, gender, race and age are usually named. Sometimes this also includes nationality and religious affiliation (this is typical for traditional societies). Little girls play with dolls and help their mother with the housework, while boys are more outdoors, prefer outdoor games and are afraid of being branded as “sissy”. With age, these differences move to another level. The achieved status is fixed only taking into account the individual qualities of a person, thanks to his choice, talent, activity, abilities, diligence or luck.

Previously, inborn (given) statuses played a huge role in society. A person's life largely depended on the position of his parents in society, and his own talents, education and skills did not play a decisive role. For example, a member of the clergy or a nobleman in medieval France belonged to the privileged estates, and they were granted all the basic rights. And, on the contrary, the third estate - the vast majority of the country's inhabitants, were deprived of civil rights.

Allocate social scientists and other types of statuses. Among the most important of them: main(the most characteristic status for a given person, according to which others distinguish him or with which they identify him); social(the position of a person as a representative of a large social group); personal (individual)(the position that a person occupies in a small group, depending on how he is assessed by his individual qualities (leader, outsider, etc.)).

social role

One of the most significant concepts in modern sociology is the concept of a social role. In domestic science, it took root not so long ago, but in foreign, especially American sociological thought, a similar concept was introduced more than half a century ago.

You probably have favorite actors. Why are they loved? Of course, not only for appearance. They make us worry, believe in what is happening on the screen or stage.

The ancient Greeks said that life is a theater, and the person in it is an actor. Let's look at ourselves in terms of the roles that are played on the stage called "everyday life". You wake up early in the morning and your parents feed you breakfast, give you instructions and advice, help you choose clothes. Here you play the role of a son or daughter. On the way, in the role of a friend, you can chat with a friend from a neighboring school. Then you turn into a high school student and study certain subjects, and at recess you become just a student of the school, because there is no division into classes. After staying in an educational institution, sometimes you have to become a buyer or a passenger, and on the street - a football player, fan, music lover, passer-by, and so on ad infinitum. Each person is simultaneously capable of performing a whole range of social roles: he can be a family member (son, grandson, father, grandfather), an employee of a large enterprise, a member of a political party, a fan of a football team, a member of the board of trustees of the school where his children study, a friend and etc. A number of roles are typical for young people and little typical for adults. For example, children often become regulars at discos, members of fan clubs of popular artists, clubs of computer game lovers. Only adults can be conscripts, voters elected to public office.

At the same time, there are a number of roles that teenagers and adults can play equally. Here are some examples: an Internet user, a football fan, a customer in a store, a visitor to a library or museum.

How is the social role interpreted in science? Under social role is understood as a way of behavior that corresponds to the norms accepted in a given society, expressed in the expectations of the surrounding people. Also, the role can be considered as a set of requirements that are put forward in relation to a person occupying a certain position.

Each of these roles involves certain behaviors - what is allowed to do as a football player is not appropriate for a passenger (playing ball even on an empty bus is indecent), and the behavior of the buyer cannot be transferred to school (although some often try to bargain because of the mark , as if they were in the market). For example, in the role of a car driver, the director of an enterprise cannot order other drivers, even if his subordinates are among them. Each role has its own rules, requirements, rights, expected behavior. Students also have them.

Of course, over time, the same social roles change. So until recently, the role of a stepmother meant a soulless, lazy, rude woman who hates her husband's children and tries to kill them from the world. Many folk tales paint just such an image. Now even the words “stepmother”, “stepdaughter” and “stepson” are practically not used, family relations have changed. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine a situation where a new wife turns her husband's daughter into a housekeeper or sends her son to work. Thus, we can talk about the significant influence of historical and national characteristics on the social structure of society, because the role, for example, of a husband today and the role of a husband in ancient China are completely different, as well as the roles of children, old people, military men, writers, etc.

An important problem is the correlation of the social role and personal "I". Sometimes a person is forced to "step on the throat of his own song", to go against his own aspirations in the name of following the generally accepted clichés and expectations that society imposes on him.

The situation of a person is further complicated by the fact that some of his roles may come into conflict. So, the criminal may well feel like a caring parent, but sooner or later he will have to make a choice: solving a crime entails punishment and excommunication from his own children, which means that one of the roles should crowd out the other in a conflict.

The social roles of the modern Russian teenager are also numerous. He simultaneously acts as a family member (grandson (granddaughter), son or daughter, brother or sister), a member of the school team, a member of a friendly company in the yard or in the country, a member of a fan association of a football club, a frequenter of Internet cafes, etc. There are roles that can only be played by adults or only by children. For example, the role of a conscript soldier can only be played by a young man who has already reached the age of 18. Only from the age of 15 can a teenager take on a temporary job under a contract, acquire the social role of a worker, an employee. Only an adult can drive the car. The role of a secondary school student is typical for a child, but it is extremely rare for adults to study in secondary school (evening).

And, on the contrary, there are roles that are equally performed by both children and adults. Football fans, visitors to an Internet cafe, a concert of a popular rock band, fans of a fashionable writer can be people of different sexes and ages.

Criteria for classifying social statuses

Definition 1

Social status refers to the position that an individual or social group occupies in society.

There is a classification of social statuses: for example, statuses are divided into prescribed (which a person got at birth, regardless of his will) and achieved (which a person acquired as a result of his volitional initiative actions), personal and group (according to position in a small or large social group ), into formal and informal (officially fixed in documents or not).

We can talk about a number of criteria by which social status is determined:

economic (the position of the family in society, the level of wages of the individual, etc.),
national,
age,
sexual,
ethnic,
political (attitude towards the current government, political activity or absenteeism, etc.).

However, there is also a mixed social status, which is a special kind of it.

Examples of mixed social status

Definition 2

Mixed social status is a status that simultaneously combines the signs of both prescribed and achieved, but not achieved by the will of the person himself.

Example 1

Mixed social status will be the status of a refugee, disabled person, unemployed, emperor, etc.

Major social changes (economic crisis, revolution, war, change of political regime, etc.) can change the status of a huge number of people against their will or will.

As a result of serious economic crises, a very large number of people are left without work. The status of the unemployed is not desirable, but its receipt does not depend on the person due to global factors that the individual cannot control. In addition to the economic crisis, such factors include the restructuring of society, and mass layoffs in a particular industry, and the ruin of a company, etc.

Another striking example of mixed social status is the status of a disabled person. If a person at the age of 35 became disabled for reasons beyond his control, his social position has changed dramatically: previously he could provide for himself on his own, but now he is in the care of the state. This status cannot be called achievable, since a person would hardly want to become a disabled person of his own free will, and at the same time, it cannot be called prescribed, since this person did not have limited opportunities from birth. Thus, this social status is defined as mixed.

The following will also be a mixed social status: an academician is an attainable status that is acquired after a long and painstaking scientific work related to a person’s desire and will, however, since this status later becomes lifelong, it turns into a prescribed one. A person who has reached the degree of doctor of science cannot pass it on to his son, but he can enjoy certain advantages if he decides to follow the scientific path. The father's colleagues will always patronize the young man, he acquires the attributed status of the son of a doctor of sciences. Thus, this is also a rare, but an example of mixed social status.

Finally, the title of Olympic champion is for life (an athlete will remain an athlete who won an Olympic medal for the rest of his life), however, his title of champion can be selected by new athletes who will show better results in the new Olympic Games. As a result, such a title is transferable, and this social status is also mixed.

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