social status. Modern public life in Russia

Good afternoon, dear friends! Today I prepared a cool material about what social status is. This topic needs to be known to anyone passing the exam in social science, because it is basic for understanding both the social sphere and other areas. In the last post, we analyzed . But the topic is so necessary that I decided to write a separate post.

The concept of social status

Social status is a fixed position of a person in society. A very simple definition. Society is a layer cake of social strata. Each person occupies a fixed position in this or that country, which can, however, be changed.

For example, the status of a student in a school. A student can be a first grader (first grader), a 10th grader, or a high school graduate. Each of these statutes implies a position in the school and in society. There are much more requirements from teachers for a school graduate than for a first-grader, more responsibility.

The status of a child implies that the child must obey his parents, go to kindergarten, school, explore the world, and fulfill his household duties.

The same applies to other aspects of society. At any enterprise there are specialists who have been working here for 10-20 years. And there are interns who have recently been hired. A trainee and a specialist have a different share of responsibility, different functions.

The teacher must form in his students the competencies necessary for their professional life. Chauffeur - It's okay to drive a bus or car so passengers don't feel like they're riding in a cattle truck, etc.

In addition to duties, the status gives its owner rights. For example, if you are a bus driver, your annual vacation should be at least 35 days, and if you are a teacher, then at least 56 days 🙂

Thus, the status has the following characteristics: the scope of duties in relation to society, the scope of rights, status symbols (for example, among the military), and its social role.

Types of social statuses

For the purpose of more detailed coverage of this topic, I took from my bins the following info card:

Download this infocard in natural size

If you deal with the types of statuses, then I think everything is clear too.

Primary or chief social status- the one that is important to you in your life. It is clear that if you are a Hollywood star, like Matt Damon (shown on the info card), then you can’t get away from him anywhere. Your life will be connected with it. If you are a doctor, then it is clear and understandable that your main occupation is treating patients.

Secondary- we change several times a day: a bus passenger, a customer in a store, etc. Of course, we identify ourselves with him much less than with the main social status. For example, when you go out into the street, you will not feel like a pedestrian until you reach a traffic light.

ascriptive- which is assigned to you regardless of your desire and your will. Born in a Bashkir family - you will be a Bashkir, born in a Buryat family - you will be a Buryat. Born a boy - you will be, uh ... well, in most cases a boy, you were born a girl, most likely you will remain 🙂

Achieved social status- which you achieve in the course of life. It can be professional, basic, etc.

mixed status- assigned when your position on the social ladder is incomprehensible. Perhaps you have become a lumpen or a social outsider. For an introduction to these terms, read the article. Examples: the pepsi generation, the thumb generation... well, that's when you constantly press the buttons on your phone to make your thumb become more flattened.

Your child will be born with an already normal flattened finger, so that it is more convenient to press the phone 🙂 This is the generation of the thumb.

Personal social status the one you get in a social group. Usually it can be both formal (direction manager, director, foreman, etc.) and informal (diver, bespectacled man - the one who wears glasses; macho, dude, dude, bum, scourge, loser, healthy or unhealthy - teremnoe).

I hope the topic has become clearer. Subscribe to new articles, share this material with friends on social networks!

Sincerely, Andrey Puchkov

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, and education.

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.

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 the social status denotes 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 (gender, 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, developing 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 traditionalist-oriented societies, the spirit of entrepreneurship and enrichment, the personal favor of the ruler affect the distribution of statuses, although the legitimization 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.

concept

The concept in the sociological sense was first used by the English historian and lawyer Henry Maine.

Social status - the place or position of the individual, correlated with the position of other people; this is the place of the individual in a hierarchically organized social structure, his objective position in it; it is an inexhaustible human resource that gives a person the opportunity to influence society and through it to receive privileged positions in the system of power and distribution of material wealth. Each person occupies a number of positions in society, each of which implies a number of rights and obligations. Social statuses are structural elements of the social organization of society, providing social ties between the subjects of social relations. Society not only creates social positions - statuses, but also provides social mechanisms for the distribution of members of society in these positions.

Status types

Each person, as a rule, has not one, but several social statuses. Sociologists distinguish:

natural status- the status received by a person at birth (sex, race, nationality). In some cases, birth status may change: the status of a member of the royal family - from birth and as long as the monarchy exists.
acquired (achieved) status- the status that a person achieves by his own efforts (position, post).
prescribed (assigned) status- the status that a person acquires regardless of his desire (age, status in the family), it can change over the course of life. Prescribed status can be congenital or acquired.

Status incompatibility

Status incompatibility occurs under two circumstances:

when an individual occupies a high rank in one group, and a low rank in the second;
when the rights and obligations of the status of one person contradict or interfere with the fulfillment of the rights and obligations of another.

Examples: a scientist had to leave to work as a seller in a commercial kiosk, an elderly person is used as an errand boy, a policeman has to go to racketeering, a minister has to participate in negotiations with terrorists. A highly paid official (high professional rank) will most likely also have a high family rank as a person who ensures the family's material well-being. But it does not automatically follow that he will have high ranks in other groups - among friends, relatives, colleagues!

Literature

In English

Warner W.L., Heker M., Cells K. Social Class in America. A Manual co Procedure for Measurement of Social Status. Chicago, 1949.
Linton R. The Study of Man. N.Y., 1936

In Russian

2.2. Social statuses and roles(S. 54-59) in the book: Shkaratan, Ovsei Irmovich. Sociology of inequality. Theory and reality; National research University "Higher School of Economics". - M.: Ed. house of the Higher School of Economics, 2012. - 526 p. - ISBN 978-5-7598-0913-5

Portal for the student. Self-training

social status. Modern public life in Russia

The concept of social status

Types of social statuses

The meaning of the term and general characteristics

Types of social statuses, examples

Prescribed social status: examples

Achieved status

Roles in society

Prestige

Conceptions of social status

The concept and types of social status

Status hierarchy

concept

Status types

Status incompatibility

Literature

In English

In Russian

Notes

see also

See what "Social status" is in other dictionaries:

Books

Portal for the student. Self-training

The concept of social status

Types of social statuses

The meaning of the term and general characteristics

Types of social statuses, examples

Prescribed social status: examples

Achieved status

Roles in society

Prestige

Conceptions of social status

The concept and types of social status

Status hierarchy

concept

Status types

Status incompatibility

Literature

In English

In Russian

Notes

see also

See what "Social status" is in other dictionaries:

Books

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