Category: Social Interactions and Social Structure Status and Role

We have already alluded to the conflicts relative to statuses and roles earlier. Following Merton, it is suggested that a distinction be made between status conflict and role conflict. Quite often role conflict is illustrated by the example of a judge in whose court his son appears as a convict. Such a situation creates a…

Within a particular organization an individual climbs the ladder and goes on to assume more and different responsibilities. Such promotions represent changes in designation. A movement from a lecturer to a reader and on to professor, and then to Dean and to Vice Chancellor represents a sequence of statuses. There are also statuses that come…

Contrary to ascribed statuses, which remain unaltered as seen above, achieved statuses can be lost or taken away. Meira Kumar had to resign from the Ministership to which she was sworn in only a few days ago in order to be a candidate for the position of Speaker. A political party, likewise, may also cancel…

Statuses are of two types: Ascribed and Achieved. Ascribed Status An ascribed status is an assigned status. It is given by the society, or the social group, without regard for any particular or unique abilities or qualities of an individual. This is also called status by birth. Our gender, nationality, parentage, race or caste, religion, and even our…

In earlier sociological literature, status was used as a synonym of a person’s overall standing. MacIver, for example, used the word status in his discussion on class, and talks about various ‘bases of status’ such as birth and wealth, mode of living, occupational advantage, political power, etc. For him, status denoted one’s class or caste.…

Negotiating a social relationship can also be understood by way of another example. A person has to negotiate a distance to reach a desired destination. Thus the person is an actor (a traveller), and the destination is his/her goal. To reach the destination, he has to cover a distance, symbolized by the road. The distance can…

When two persons ‘interact’ with each other, each interacting person (called technically an ego) takes account of the other party (called technically alter). The ‘alter’ is not merely a physical object, but a person with a congeries of statuses, related attitudes, expectations, and with the capacity to pass judgement. The ego takes note of all these while transacting business…

The social sphere consists of the interactions of pluralities of human individuals. These interactions lead to the formation of social systems and account for their continuity as well as change. That is why, in sociological analysis, we do not focus on the individual as a biological being, or even as a personality. These are the…