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SOCIETY & STATUS
Where do you fit in?
SOCIAL STRUCTURE & STATUS
So What IS Social Structure?
■ SOCIAL STUCTURE – UNDERLYING PATTERNS OF RELATIONSHIPS IN A
GROUP
– When entering a new group (i.e. walking into a new class, starting a new job,
etc.) we bring some knowledge as to how people will normally act
– This is a LEARNED behavior and in the process we learn about STATUSES and
ROLES…
Status
■ STATUS – a position a person occupies within a SOCIAL STRUCTURE
– Student, Doctor, Welder, Mother, Son, etc.
– Helps define who we are in relation to others within that same social structure
– Some statuses are acquired at birth
■ Newborn female = a child, a daughter
– Sociologists are interested in the relationships between social statuses
■ When investigating something like delinquency, a Sociologist may focus on the
status of a social worker in relation to the statuses of the police office, the judge
and the teacher
Status…Part II
■ ASCRIBED STATUS – status that is neither earned nor chosen; it is
assigned to us
– i.e. a person is either male or female at birth (your sex is assigned to you)
– In some societies, religion and social class are ascribed at birth
■ Caste system in India – you can NOT rise to a higher class
■ Israelis and Judaism
ASCRIBED STATUS
Prince William & Prince Harry
• Born into the British Royal family
• Regardless of what Prince William
wants, he WILL be King one day
CASTE SYSTEM:
INDIA
No matter the laws on the books, you
cannot move out of one caste into
another, even today
CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA
BHRAMIN
UNTOUCHABLES
Status…Part III
■ ACHIEVED STATUS – status that is either earned or chosen
– CHOOSE to become a spouse or a parent
– CHOOSE your work/occupation
Status…Part IV
■ You do NOT just hold one status; in fact you could hold dozens
■ STATUS SET – all of the statuses that a person occupies at any
particular time
– Let’s say you’re a social worker…you could also be a father, husband and
gardener
– Each of these statuses is a part of another network of statuses
■ In addition to being a social worker, an individual is also a part-time drummer in a
band – in this status, he might interact with the statuses of the club owner, dancers,
fellow musicians, etc.
Status…Part V
■ Are all of a person’s statuses equal? Short answer is no
■ MASTER STATUS – a position that strongly affects most other aspects of
a person’s life
– They influence other aspects of the person’s life
– Master statuses can be either achieved or ascribed
■ In an industrial societies, occupations (which are achieved statuses for the most
part) are going to be the master status
■ Your occupation strongly influences almost your entire life
– Where you live, how you live, and how long you live
– Age, gender, race and ethnicity are examples of ascribed master statuses
because they significantly affect the likelihood of achieving other social statuses
■ Will the U.S. ever have a female President? Would you let a 19 or a 90 year old
perform surgery?
SOCIAL STRUCTURE & ROLES
Rights & Obligations
■ Any status carries a variety of roles – an expected behavior associated
with a particular status
– Roles of a doctor – diagnosing illnesses, prescribing treatments, keeping up with
medical advancements, etc.
*ROLES = STATUSES IN ACTION*
– Roles describe behaviors
■ RIGHTS – behaviors that individuals expect from others
■ OBLIGATIONS – behaviors that individuals are expected to perform towards others
■ i.e. the RIGHTS of one status correspond to the OBLIGATIONS of another
– Doctors are OBLIGATED to diagnose their patients’ illnesses
– Patients have the RIGHT to expect their doctors to test and diagnose to the best
of their ability
Role Performance & Social Interaction
■ When people begin to interact socially, they are then “performing” in
their roles and their attached statues
– ROLE PERFORMANCE – the actual behavior involved in carrying out a role
– SOCIAL INTERACTION – the process of influencing each other as people relate
■ i.e. before you guys get into a fight, they have probably gone through a process of
insulting and challenging one another
■ Think back to the Shakespearean quote…is it starting to make sense?
Role Conflict & Role Strain
■ While everyone has statuses and roles, life can be far from boring and
predictable and in fact, sometimes those statuses and roles can create
conflict
■ ROLE CONFLICT – condition in which the performance of a role in one
status interfere with the performance of a role in another status
– i.e. think about your roll as a student and an employee or club
member…is it difficult to balance study and work demands?
■ ROLE STRAIN – condition in which the roles of a single status are
inconsistent or conflicting
– i.e. a college coach has to recruit for next season, but also has to focus on being
successful in the current season
Role Conflict & Role Strain
■ So what do we do when we experience either role conflict or role strain?
You prioritize and whichever you deem as the most important gets
accomplished
PREINDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES
BEGINNING OF TIME – 1800s
What is a SOCIETY?
■ SOCIETY – COMPOSED OF PEOPLE LIVING WITHIN DEFINED
TERRITORIAL BORDERS WHO SHARE A COMMON CULTURE
– Meet a members basic needs (food, shelter)
– IN THEORY, a society is independent of outsiders – it contains enough smaller
social structures (family, economy, etc.) to meet the needs of its members
HUNTING & GATHERING
Survive by hunting animals and gathering
edible foods (wild fruits and vegetables)
Usually nomadic (move from place to place
as the food supply or the season changed)
Tend to be very small (less than 50 people)
and members are scattered over a wild area
and most members are related by blood or
marriage
Based on cooperation – members share
what they have with other members
■ No real social class because you are
interdependent on each other for simple
survival and have no political institutions
■ i.e. traditional Inuit in Canada and Alaska
use dueling songs to settle disputes
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES
Survive primarily through the growing of
plants
More permanent settlements – people
could work a piece of land for an extended
period of time
Primary goal is the survival of family
members – people are more self-sufficient
so they just look out for individual needs
PASTORAL SOCIETIES
Food is obtained by raising and taking care
of animals
■ Herd animals such as cattle, camels,
goats
■ Depend on not only the products (milk)
but also their meat
Grains are needed to feed these animals so
you have to either farm yourself, or trade
with those who do
More migration, but permanent villages can
be maintained
■ Women would stay at home while the
men take the herds to different pastures
■ Men are the providers and therefore,
women’s place in society is low
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES
Like a HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, by they use
plows and draft animals in growing food
■ Transitioned from HORTICULTURAL due to the
invention of the plow
■ Plow – allows the farmer to control weeds
and turn weeds into fertilizer by burying them
deep in the soil
■ Plow allowed people to dig deeper into the
ground and reach the nutrient-rich dirt that
had below root level
More Productivity = More Food
■ Animals allows you to cultivate more land
with less human effort
■ People are more free to engage in noneconomic activities such as formal education
■ Cities can be built and people can specialize
in a product – i.e. blacksmith, hat maker
INDUSTRIAL &
POSTINDUSTRIAL
SOCIETIES
1800S – PRESENT
Basic Features of Industrial Society
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY – society that is dependent
upon science and technology to produce its basic
goods and services.
What happens when agricultural societies become
industrial societies?
– Industrialism brings with it a change – AWAY
from simple, traditional technology (i.e. plows)
TOWARD the application of scientific knowledge
to create more complex technological devices
(i.e. the steam engine)
How does the role of the family change?
– Economic activities
Factory
– Education
Formal schooling
– Blood relationships decline in importance
because families became more geographically
separated and distant
■
Family choice of spouse declined, individual
mobility increased dramatically and social class
became based more on occupation
Basic Features of Postindustrial Society
POSTINDUSTRIAL SOCIETY – Society in which
the economic emphasis is on providing services
and information
5 major features:
1. Majority of the labor force are employed in
services (banking, medical care, entertainment,
etc.) rather than in agriculture
2. White-collar employment replaces much Bluecollar work
3. Technical knowledge is the key organizing
feature in postindustrial society
4. Technological change is planned and assessed
5. Reliance on computer modeling in all areas