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 awaited 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.

correlative position (position) occupied by an individual or a group in society in accordance with the profession, socio-economic status, political opportunities, gender, origin, etc.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

social status

This term in sociology has two meanings. 1. The position of the individual in the social system, associated with certain rights, duties and role expectations. The status of an individual can be attributed (ascriptive), i.e., determined by birth, sex, age, race, etc., which is typical mainly for a traditional, “closed” society, or it can be achieved - acquired through personal efforts, which is most characteristic of a modern, "open" society. The assigned status is of interest to sociology only in the case when it becomes the basis of social inequality, i.e., affects the differentiation of achieved statuses. In traditional societies, S. s. the individual was relatively stable, fixed by religion or law (see Caste, Estate). In modern societies, the status positions of individuals are more mobile. However, in any society there are both types of statuses. Some statuses, such as tenders, are largely predetermined, while others are achieved through competition. The achieved status is also largely determined by ascriptive features. Thus, the possibility of obtaining a good education, which in modern society is a necessary prerequisite for a high S. with, can be directly related to the advantages of family origin. 2. In the theories of social stratification, status is considered as a synonym for prestige, which characterizes the position of an individual or social groups in a hierarchical system. This concept was used by M. Weber as the basis of social stratification, different from class. The statuses of an individual in modern multidimensional systems of stratification can be contradictory. So, having a high educational status, a person can be paid quite low, i.e., occupy a low status on the income scale. The discrepancy between different dimensions gives rise to a tendency to equalize statuses, up to a radical desire to change the system of social stratification (the struggle against privileges in the Soviet Union during the period of perestroika). In modern sociology, four main dimensions of status are commonly used: income, professional prestige, education, and ethnicity.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

A person, being a part of society, is inevitably covered with a persistent coating of social statuses that determine his duties and privileges. You can get rid of some of them by replacing them with more suitable ones, while others will haunt their owner until death. For example, having been born a boy, a child cannot somehow change this fact, remaining a male all his life. Each person has a whole bunch of social statuses that belong to different groups and may vary depending on the situation. The role of these "labels" is fundamental in modern society.

social status. Concept. Kinds

Naturally, the assignment of labels occurs in different ways. Therefore, social statuses are divided into prescribed and achieved. A person receives a prescribed status at birth, having almost no opportunity to change it during life. The individual makes no effort to acquire such a social status. Examples: gender, race, title of nobility, age, etc. From early childhood, a person is taught to comply with the prescribed status: “a man should not cry”, “a girl should be beautiful” and other behavioral stereotypes are designed to grow a harmonious member of society.

The status of a person is the result of efforts aimed at obtaining it. Often any kind of social status reflects the merits of a person in a certain area. For example: a master of sports, a candidate of sciences, a professor, a husband, an alcoholic, a ballerina, etc. Often, it is one of the achieved statuses that is fundamental in a person’s life, most fully reflects his aspirations and talents.

Group social status

Not only individual people, but also entire groups of people have their status in society. Castes, estates, all kinds of associations and professions are by no means equal to each other - each of them occupies its own unique niche in the hierarchy. No matter how much modern cultural and political figures shout about equality, this is just a sweet lie, designed to hide the harsh reality. After all, no one will argue that the social status of miners is immeasurably lower than that of politicians or businessmen.

As soon as a person becomes a member of any group, he immediately receives a lot of rights and obligations inherent in it. For example, when joining the police, an employee receives a number of privileges that are not available to ordinary citizens, but such a status obliges him to act if he sees an offense, even if he is not in the service. To this he is obligated by the status of a social group. Many groups are on the same rung in the hierarchical ladder, while some are unattainably high for mere mortals. At the same time, the benefit that representatives of a profession or association bring to society does not affect the rank in it.

Individual social status

Not only groups and associations of people have their own rank and weight. Within each of them there is a ranking system that determines the relationship between people. School experience teaches us that each class has its own bully, its own nerd, an excellent student, a joker, a leader - all this is the social status of an individual. However, each student has more than one status. Coming to school, children are primarily students, but at home each of them also becomes a son, sister, nephew, etc. Throughout life, everyone tries on a huge number of roles, the social status of the individual constantly changes depending on the team, in which the person turned out to be, and his personal qualities.

In different circles, the same individual may occupy a different position. A strict and domineering boss, holding his subordinates in an iron fist, can be under the heel of a strict wife. It also happens the other way around, when a weak and indecisive person, unable to stand up for himself in a team, turns into a ruthless tyrant as soon as he crosses the threshold of his house. If the statuses of a person in different groups differ significantly, then an internal contradiction arises, which often becomes the cause of conflicts.

Role conflict

In cases where a person occupies a high rank in one group, and in another is at the very bottom of the hierarchical ladder, conflict is inevitable. It can be internal, when the individual silently experiences discomfort, or it can develop into a clash with colleagues. Examples of role conflict are ubiquitous, such as when an older person is an errand boy for a young boss. Or when this boss is relaxing with friends who treat him with some disdain, not at all like his subordinates.

If the social status of a person is high, then he will do his best to maintain it. Naturally, there will always be people who are not satisfied with their rank, who want to rise higher, gain more weight in society. This gives rise to competition within the group, which allows the fittest and strongest members of society to get to the top.

Resolution of internal conflicts

Often, contradictions between roles lead to internal confrontation, which takes a lot of time and effort. For example, during a natural disaster, the rescuer will go first to save his own family, obeying the role of parent and spouse. And only after he is convinced that his relatives are safe, the time will come for the performance of official duties.

The same happens with dealers who sell alcohol or other drugs. As a parent, he does not want his child to be poisoned by this muck, but as a businessman, this person is unable to resist the sweet call of profit. Types of social statuses differ in their significance for the owner. The main thing is to choose the role that is the main one at the moment, thereby destroying the impending internal contradictions in the bud.

Family social status

Not only does a single person occupy his rank in the social hierarchy, each family also has its own status. Usually the position of a cell of society depends on material well-being, but this is not always the case. The family of a military or official occupies a special position in society, even if they are not burdened with wealth. In those countries where titles of nobility or castes have been preserved, belonging to a noble dynasty decides a lot.

In ancient times, wealthy merchants often entered into marriages with representatives of a poor but titled family in order to share the high social status of the family with them. Such a far-sighted move opened for the wealthy merchant many doors that were closed to the common people.

The influence of social status on personality

Roles in society are rarely superficial. Such can only be those types of social statuses that are assigned for a short period of time: a passerby, a patient, a buyer.

Basically, belonging to a certain role leaves a deep imprint on a person’s whole life. The status to which the subject attaches the greatest importance has a special influence. For example, a professor, a musician, an athlete, a serial killer, etc. Having taken on a serious role, a person gradually begins to change, acquiring the character traits and skills necessary to fulfill it.

A doctor, if he has worked in this field for a long time, evaluates people in a completely different way than a policeman. The surgeon will evaluate the person according to his parameters, formed by his professional activity. Likewise, an investigator, having worked for years among hardened criminals, will never be the same again.

Expectations of others

Taking on a certain role, we in some way become its hostages. Since the social status of the individual is fixed, others know what to expect from this person. The stereotype will cling like a tick, not allowing you to take a single step to the side. After all, as soon as your behavior goes beyond the expected, pressure will begin to return the lost sheep to the flock. A great tool to keep people on track is a system of rewards and punishments.

Unfortunately, certain types of social status are inevitable. There is no way to get rid of the status of a child, an old man, a man or a woman. From childhood, girls are taught to clean, cook, run a household, take care of themselves, instill the idea that she can take place as a person only by successfully marrying. If a young lady dreams of becoming a boxing or racing star, then she will immediately face misunderstanding or ridicule, few people will take her dream seriously. The same is true with age. No one will take seriously a child's attempts to go into business, and an old man trying to meet a young girl will arouse the disapproval of others.

The meaning of social status

Today it is very fashionable to talk about how everyone around is equal, that everyone has the same rights and obligations. Of course, this is not true. Until now, social status has been decisive in the life of every member of society. Examples of this are found all over the place.

Therefore, all types of social statuses - both group and personal - are as relevant today as they were a thousand years ago. However, do not forget that society hangs labels on you, so they are valid only where there are people. Compliance with social status is only one of the quirks of the modern world, and not the monumental law of the universe. You can only play your role without getting used to it. From childhood, we are taught that achieving prestige and high status in society is a thing of paramount importance. But it is not at all necessary to accept such rules of the game. A person of low social status will go to jail for petty theft, while a banker can rob millions of people with only a formal warning.

What is "society" and what are its main features? – The word “society” is often used by us in everyday life. By it, we mean a certain group of people who are united by a common goal.

This may be a society characterized by a certain nationality or a group of people who at first glance are completely different, but at the same time, the interests of the people who participate in it may coincide. With the advent of democracy, much more different societies have appeared in the world, and here we are not talking about society as the people of a certain country, not at all. Society does not necessarily mean the unification of people on several grounds, such as the concept of "nationality". It is enough for one person to find a group of like-minded people, as a result of which they can be called a small society of interests. Today, the concept has a fairly wide scope of use. In each speech of a politician, you can repeatedly hear how this concept is used in a variety of senses. It acts as a tool that positively influences people.

Society is a developing society. Everything in our world is cyclical, and society can also develop cyclically. With each new day, new factors appear that influence the formation of society and society as a whole. If in the ancient world societies were tribal tribes, then today the concept of society has a broader meaning. Today, it is quite possible to form a society within a society, which indicates that society is constantly acquiring new qualities. Today, society is not perceived as a single whole - it is primarily a collection of individuals who can be united according to one or more characteristics.

Often people can unite in a society in order to achieve a certain goal together - this can be done if, for example, qip 2005 is downloaded for free to a computer and start gathering people from all over the world around you. Sometimes the strength of one person is not enough, so the leader tries to attract as many supporters as possible, who will go side by side with him towards the goal. It is not uncommon for such societies to grow and become more influential. But if a society has no prospects, it will lose its relevance even at the first stages of its formation. It must be remembered that any society is primarily a collection of people who can change their minds as a result of certain events, so the collapse of the group may be inevitable.

There are many interpretations of the concept of "society":
Durkheim viewed society as a supra-individual spiritual reality based on collective ideas.
According to Weber, society is the interaction of people who are the product of social, i.e. other people-oriented actions.
Parsons defined society as a system of relations between people, the connecting beginning of which are norms and values.
From the point of view of Marx, society is a historically developing set of relations between people, emerging in the process of their joint activities.
Comte tried to present the social structure (statics in his terminology) as a complex organism in which special connections are established from the family to the system of religion and the state.
Spencer, noting that society, as a complex organism, has a specific organ for each need or function, and the development of societies occurs through differentiation or division of existing organs. But development takes place not only by dividing the existing social institutions, but also through the death of some and the emergence of completely new social institutions.

In general, this characterization is true today. Any society, and especially a modern one, is complexly structured, but is an integral system of elements. This approach to the concept of society is called a system approach.
The main task of a systematic approach in the study of society is to combine various knowledge about society into an integral system that could become a theory of society. A system is a set of elements ordered in a certain way, interconnected and forming a certain integral unity. The material basis of any system is its elements, which are a complex hierarchy of subsystems with complex connections and interactions. It is necessary for society that these connections and interactions be stable and reproduced in the historical process, passing from generation to generation, while society as a system acquires systemic qualities: when society is not just a sum of elements, but a stable system. There are several interpretations of the structure of society, depending on the point of view of the relationship of elements and what is taken as the initial elements:
Since the initial element of any society is a person, or rather a certain number of people united by family, economic, ethnic, religious, political and other ties, the structure of society can be represented as a system of groups, classes, communities and status-role units. All these elements do not exist by themselves (separately), but are connected into a social system - an integral formation, the main element of which are people, their connections, interactions and relationships.
In addition, in society as a system, subsystems or spheres are distinguished. These are economic, watered. and social subsystems. There is a tradition of dividing society into the material and spiritual spheres of people's lives. Each subsystem is made up of its own blocks or institutions that perform their functions in the structure of an integral social organism, most often these functions are associated with the implementation of certain social needs.

In modern society, it is customary to single out, following Parsons, 4 areas within which certain public institutions function:
Economic sphere or sphere of economy. Within this sphere there are institutions of money, securities, banks. In economy sphere is the production of material goods, the market. The main content of the economy. sphere is the production, exchange and consumption of material goods.
The political or political sphere within which such policies exist. institutions, such as the institution of parliamentarism, the institution of the presidency, the government, the bureaucracy, local self-government, watered. parties, social organizations and movements. The main content, the meaning of polit. relations is power, i.e. way to influence the behavior of other people in watered. sphere. The condition that ensures the power of some people over others is the law that gives different official categories different rights in the system of state and political. management.
The sphere of public life is culture, the main element of which is education, science, religion, art, morality, values ​​and ideals.
The sphere where family childbirth, family relations act. The main institutions of this sphere are the institution of marriage and divorce.

In different societies, all these areas have significant differences: power, and the economy, and culture, and the family have a different structure, have different qualities. Marxist theory is close to this, highlighting: economic, political, cultural and social. But regardless of the selected elements, the main thing is that society is an integral system with qualities that none of the elements included in it have.

Based on the theory of social stratification, the social structure is interpreted as a set of hierarchical interconnected social groups, which are characterized by vertical and horizontal decency:
1. they occupy different positions in the system of social inequality of a given society according to the main social criteria (power, income, prestige, property);
2. they are interconnected by economic, political and cultural relations;
3. they are the subjects of the functioning of all social institutions of a given society and, above all, economic ones.

5 Social status(from lat. status - position, state) - the position of a person in society, occupied by him in accordance with age, gender, origin, profession, marital status and other indicators and involving certain rights and obligations. Every person occupies several positions in society.
The word "status" came to sociology from the Latin language. In ancient Rome, it denoted the state, the legal status of a legal entity. However, at the end of the 19th century, the English historian Main gave it a sociological sound.
status set- the totality of all statuses occupied by a given individual.
social set(Robert Merton) = social status + status set.
13.2 . Types (classifications) of statuses:
13.2.1. Statuses determined by the position of an individual in a group:
1) social status- the position of a person in society, which he occupies as a representative of a large social group (profession, class, nationality, gender, age, religion).
Professionally - official status- the basic status of the individual, fixes the social, economic and production-technical situation of a person (banker, engineer, lawyer, etc.).
2) personal status- the position that a person occupies in a small group, depending on how he is assessed by his individual qualities.
Personal status plays a dominant role among people you know. For familiar people, it is not the characteristics, where you work and your social position that are important, but our personal qualities.
3) Main status- the status by which the individual is distinguished by others determines the lifestyle, the circle of acquaintances, the manner of behavior with which a person is identified by other people or with which he identifies himself. For men, most often - the status associated with work, profession, for women - a housewife, mother. Although other options are possible.

The main status is relative: it is not unambiguously connected with gender, profession, race. The main thing is the status, which determines the style and lifestyle, the circle of acquaintances, the manner of behavior.
13.2.2. Statuses acquired by virtue of the presence or absence of free choice:
Ralph Linton: 1) ascriptive status (prescribed, attributed, inborn status); 2) achieved status (achieved, achieved, acquired status).

Prescribed Status- imposed by society, regardless of the efforts and merits of the individual (ethnic origin, place of birth, etc.).
1) Assigned status- the social status with which a person is born (innate, natural status is determined by race, gender, nationality), or which will be assigned to him over time (inheritance of a title, fortune, etc.).
natural status- the essential and most stable characteristics of a person (men and women, childhood, youth, maturity, etc.).
!!! Assigned status does not coincide with innate. Only three social statuses are considered innate: sex, nationality, race (i.e. biologically inherited); (Negro - born, characterizing the race; man - born, describing gender; Russian - born, showing nationality).
2) Reachable(acquired) status - social status, which is achieved as a result of a person's own efforts at will, free choice, or acquired through good luck and luck.
3) mixed status has signs of prescribed and achieved, but achieved !!! not by the will of man: Disabled, Refugee, Unemployed, Emperor, American-Chinese.
Political upheavals, coups d'etat, social revolutions, wars can change or even cancel some statuses of huge masses of people against their will and desire.
The title of academician is at first attainable, but later it turns into ascribed, because. considered to be for life.
13.3 . Status hierarchy:
An intergroup hierarchy takes place between status groups; intragroup - between the statuses of individuals within the same group.
status rank– place in the status hierarchy: high, medium, low.
13.4 . Status mismatch occurs: 1) when an individual occupies a high position in one group and a low position in another; 2) when the rights and obligations of one status contradict or interfere with the exercise of the rights and obligations of another status.
13.5 . Elements (components) of social status:
13.5.1. status role- a behavior model focused on a specific status;
13.5.2. status rights and obligations determine what the holder of this status can do and what he must do;
13.5.3. status range- the boundaries within which status rights and obligations are exercised; free manner of behavior, suggesting options for behavior in the implementation of a status role;
13.5.4. status symbols- external insignia that allow to distinguish between the holders of various statuses: uniform, insignia, style of clothing, housing, language, gestures, demeanor;
13.5.5. status image, image(from English. image - image, image) - a set of ideas that have developed in public opinion about how a person should behave in accordance with his status, how his rights and obligations should correlate;
Image- a widespread or purposefully formed idea about the nature of an object (person, profession, product, etc.).
13.5.6. status identification- identification of oneself with one's status and status image. The higher the status rank, the stronger the identification with it. The lower the personal status, the more often the benefits of social status are emphasized.
13.5.7. status vision of the world- features of the vision of the world, social attitudes that have developed in accordance with the status.

Social status and its types.

The basis of social inequality in psychological terms is the social status of individuals, social groups, and strata.

Social status: 1) congenital and assigned 2) developed 3) earned

P. Sorokin emphasizes that status must be deserved and always proved by the assessment of others, which is very important for a person's self-esteem. Evaluation of others in one way or another confirms the status of a person, or vice versa, destroys.

Sociologists distinguish:

1)prescribed- imposed by society, regardless of the efforts and merits of the individual. It depends on the place of birth, ethnic group.

2) acquired (achieved) - is determined by the efforts of the person himself.

Allocate: - the natural status of a person - implies stable personality traits; - professional official - it fixes the socio-economic and production status of a person (accountant, teacher).

A person can have several statuses at once - integral status. Social status is expressed by complex connections between the subjects of social relations.

Personality is the object of a number of sciences and, being a complex, multifaceted social phenomenon, requires an integrated interdisciplinary approach. Man is, on the one hand, a biological being, an animal endowed with consciousness, having speech, the ability to work; on the other hand, a person is a social being, he needs to communicate and interact with other people. A person is the same person, but considered only as a social being. Speaking of personality, we digress from its biological natural side. Not every person is a person. Individuality is the personality of a particular person as a unique combination of peculiar mental characteristics. An individual is a person as a unit of society. Human life and activity are determined by the unity and interaction of biological and social factors, with the leading role of the social factor. "Individual" - in the sense of a biological organism, a carrier of common genotypic hereditary properties of a biological species, a single representative of the human race (we are born as an individual). "Personality" - the socio-psychological essence of a person, formed as a result of the assimilation by a person of social forms of consciousness and behavior, the socio-historical experience of mankind (we become a person under the influence of life in society, education, training, communication, interaction). The concept of personality is introduced to determine the social essence of a person. Personality is not only an object of social relations, it not only experiences social influences, but also transforms them, since it gradually begins to act as a set of internal conditions through which the external influences of society are refracted. Thus, a person is not only an object and product of social relations, but also an active subject of activity, communication, consciousness, self-consciousness. To be a person means to make a choice that arises due to internal necessity, to evaluate the consequences of the decision made and to hold accountable for them to yourself and the society in which you live. A personality is characterized by five potentials: 1. cognitive potential - the amount of information, knowledge about the natural and social world that a person has; 2. value potential - ideals, life goals, beliefs, aspirations of the individual; 3. creative potential - independently developed skills, abilities to create a new one, to productive work, organizational activity; 4. communicative potential - forms of sociability, strength of contacts established by a person with other people; 5. artistic potential - the level of artistic, spiritual needs of the individual. A special and unlike other personality in the fullness of its spiritual and physical properties is characterized by the concept of "individuality". Individuality is expressed in the presence of different experiences, knowledge, opinions, beliefs, in differences in character and temperament, we prove and confirm our individuality. It is possible to single out the main characteristics of individuality: abilities, temperament, character, worldview, motivation, orientation (main tendencies of behavior). The concept of personality is closely related to the related concepts of man, individual and individuality. What is the essence and difference between these concepts? Man is the highest stage in the development of living organisms on Earth, the subject of socio-historical activity and culture. Researchers note the tripartite nature of man as a biopsychosocial being. It is also important that a person is not only a product (result of influence) of certain social relations, but also the creator of these relations themselves. An individual is a separate, isolated member of a social community: a people, a class, a group, or the whole society. Individuality is a unique combination of natural and social properties of an individual.

7 The social role is associated with the status, these are the norms of behavior of a person occupying a certain status.

Role behavior is a specific use of a social role by a person. This reflects his personal characteristics.

The concept of a social role was proposed by George Herbert Mead at the end of the 19th - 20th centuries. A person becomes a person when he acquires the skill to enter the role of another person.

Each role has a structure:

Model of human behavior on the part of society.

A system of representing a person how he should behave.

The actual observable behavior of a person holding this status.

In case of mismatch between these components, a role conflict arises.

1. Inter-role conflict. A person is a performer of many roles, the requirements of which are incompatible or he does not have the strength, time to perform these roles well. At the heart of this conflict lies an illusion.

2. Intra-role conflict. When there are different requirements for the performance of one role by different representatives of social groups. Staying inside the role conflict is very dangerous for the individual.

The social role is the fixation of a certain position that this or that individual occupies in the system of social relations. A role is understood as "a function, a normatively approved pattern of behavior expected from everyone occupying a given position" (Kon). These expectations do not depend on the consciousness and behavior of a particular individual; their subject is not the individual, but society. What is essential here is not only and not so much the fixation of rights and obligations, but the connection of the social role with certain types of social activity of the individual. The social role is "a socially necessary type of social activity and a way of behavior of the individual" (Bueva, 1967, 14). A social role always bears the stamp of social assessment: society can either approve or disapprove of certain social roles, sometimes approval or disapproval can be differentiated by different social groups, role assessment can acquire completely different meanings in accordance with the social experience of a particular social group .

In reality, each individual performs not one but several social roles: he can be an accountant, a father, a trade union member, and so on. A number of roles are assigned to a person at birth, others are acquired during lifetime. However, the role itself does not determine the Activity and the behavior of each specific carrier in detail: everything depends on how much the individual learns, internalizes the role. The act of internalization is determined by a number of individual psychological characteristics of each specific bearer of a given role. Therefore, social relations, although they are essentially role-playing, impersonal relations, in reality, in their concrete manifestation, acquire a certain "personal coloring". Each social role does not mean an absolute predetermination of patterns of behavior, it always leaves a certain "range of possibilities" for its performer, which can be conditionally called a certain "style of playing the role."

Social differentiation is inherent in all forms of human existence. The behavior of the individual is explained by social inequality in society. It is influenced by social background; ethnicity; the level of education; job title; prof. belonging; power; income and wealth; lifestyle, etc.

The performance of the role is individual, but socio-culturally conditioned.

Types of roles:

Psychological or interpersonal (in the system of subjective interpersonal relations). Categories: leaders, preferred, not accepted, outsiders;

Social (in the system of objective social relations). Categories: professional, demographic.

Active or actual - currently being executed;

Latent (hidden) - a person is potentially a carrier, but not at the moment

Conventional (official);

Spontaneous, spontaneous - arise in a specific situation, not due to requirements.

F. Zimbardo (1971) conducted an experiment (students and prison) and found that the role strongly influences human behavior. Role prescriptions shape human behavior. There may be a phenomenon of deindividualization - the phenomenon of the absorption of a person by a social role. A person loses control over his individuality (example - jailers).

Role behavior is an individual fulfillment of a social role - society sets the standard of behavior, and the fulfillment of a role has a personal coloring. The development of social roles is part of the process of socialization of the individual, an indispensable condition for the "growth" of the individual in a society of his own kind.

Jung identifies the concept of persona and role (ego, shadow, self). During socialization, it is important not to merge with the "persona", so as not to lose the personal core (selfhood).

A social role is a fixation of a certain position that this or that individual occupies in the system of social relations. A number of roles are prescribed from birth (to be a wife/husband). A social role always has a certain range of possibilities for its performer - "role performance style". By assimilating social roles, a person assimilates social standards of behavior, learns to evaluate himself from the outside and exercise self-control. The personality acts (is) the mechanism that allows you to integrate your "I" and your own life, to carry out a moral assessment of your actions, to find your place in life. It is necessary to use role-playing behavior as a tool for adaptation to certain social situations.

9 Socialization- this is the process (and result) of the assimilation and active individual of social experience, carried out in communication, activity and behavior, the experience of social life, the system of social ties and social relations.

Socialization- this is the process of transformation of an initially asocial subject into a social personality, i.e. a person who owns the models of behavior accepted in society, who has accepted social norms and roles. Through socialization, people learn to live in society, to interact effectively with each other, especially in the context of socially significant joint activities.

Socialization involves the active participation of the individual in the development of the culture of human relations, in the formation of certain social norms, roles and functions, in the acquisition of the skills necessary for their successful implementation. Socialization includes a person's knowledge of social reality, mastering the skills of practical individual and group work. Public education is of decisive importance for the processes of socialization.

There are several sources of socialization of the individual.

Transfer of culture- it is carried out through such social institutions as the family, the system of education, training and upbringing.

Mutual influence of people- It occurs in the process of communication and joint activities.

Primary experience- it is associated with the period of early childhood, with the formation of basic mental functions and elementary forms of social behavior.

Self-regulatory processes- they correlate with the gradual replacement of external control of individual behavior with internal self-control.

The system of self-regulation is also formed and developed in the process of interiorization of social attitudes and values. Internalization is the formation of mental structures in an individual through the assimilation of ways of external social activity and behavior. Internalization is the transformation of interpsychological (interpersonal) relationships into intrapsychological (intrapersonal relationships with oneself). In development, such stages of internalization are distinguished:

1) an adult acts on a child with a word, prompting him to do something;

2) the child adopts the method of address and begins to influence the word on the adult;

3) the child begins to influence himself with the word.

In general, the process of socialization can be characterized as:

Gradual expansion (as the individual acquires social experience) of the sphere of his communication, activity and behavior;

The development of self-regulation and the formation of self-awareness and an active life position.

The institutions of socialization are the family, preschool institutions, schools, labor and other (for example, leisure) groups.

In the process of socialization, a person is enriched with social experience and individualized, becomes a personality, acquires the opportunity and ability to be not only an object, but also a subject of social influences, to influence the socialization of other people.

The fundamental concept in the theory of socialization is the concept of the original asocial person (child). In this case, socialization looks like a process of transformation of a subject, initially asocial, into a social personality.

However, the question of whether a human cub is born social or asocial is not particularly discussed in the literature. In principle, it is considered that asocial. Although there are opposing points of view. It is sometimes said that the child's sociality comes down to the need for communication. That is, the child is initially asocial, but if we assume the presence of some kind of minimal innate sociality, then it is expressed in the need for communication. It seems that this thesis is not correct enough. Nothing is known about the presence or absence of a child's need for communication if there is no communication itself, if the experience of communication does not come to him from outside. After all, such situations are known: when children are fed up to a certain age by wild animals. Yes, to humanize them in a certain sense of the word, despite decades of tireless work of psychologists, it still failed (there is a case of such observation and work for more than twenty years in the literature), but this fact does not say anything about the need for communication as such.

There is reason to believe that in the socio-psychological literature the question of the relationship between the concepts of "socialization", "education", "education", "personal development", etc. has not been resolved. One of the points of view is that the concept of "socialization" does not replace the concepts of “education”, “education”, “personal development”, well-known in pedagogy and pedagogical psychology, in other words, all these concepts are not synonyms.

Assimilation of social norms, skills, stereotypes;

Formation of social attitudes and beliefs;

Entry of the individual into the social environment;

Introduction of the individual to the system of social relations;

Self-actualization I personality;

Assimilation by the individual of social influences;

Social learning of socially accepted forms of behavior and communication, lifestyle options, joining groups and interacting with their members.

Without going into a discussion about the content of the concepts of "education", "education", "personal development", we note that all of the above is included in their scope. It turns out that these three concepts and the concept of "socialization" are still synonyms.

It seems that the relationship between these concepts should be sought not in the plane of their content, but in their connection with each other. And this connection is the same as between the concepts of “end” and “means”. Socialization is the goal. It consists in getting an individual, firstly, adaptive to society, and secondly, adequate to it. Everything else is a means: training, education, formation, development, etc.

Society does not care what the result of socialization will be. If this result is negative, did the socialization of the individual take place in this case or did it not take place? Yes, it took place, but society is not satisfied with the degree of this solvency. It takes additional measures and efforts to achieve from the individual his adaptability and adequacy, and these additional efforts, as it were, continue the process of socialization. If this is not achieved at all, then society localizes the individual for life in a habitat specially created for these purposes, and some societies legitimately physically destroy such an individual.

The individual not only assimilates, but also actively reproduces the system of social ties, therefore, he simultaneously acts in the process of socialization as both its object and its subject.

The process of socialization can take place under conditions of spontaneous impact on a person of various circumstances of life in society, as well as purposeful activity both on the part of society and on the part of the individual.

R. Merton

Social status is:

2) achieved (attainable), that is, one that a person himself achieves during his life, making certain efforts (profession, material wealth, political influence, etc.).

d.). Sometimes a person may have a mixed social status, but most often a person has several statuses, since he is a subject of different social groups (for example, a man is a boss at work, but at home he is a kind and caring father). But still, basically, the social status of a person and his position in society are determined by one, the most basic status. In most cases, it is determined by the place of work.

It is important to understand the following:

Social statuses, their types

In everyday conversations, the word "status" is used to refer to the position of an individual, determined by his economic position, influence and prestige. A person is social, he interacts with various social groups. Entering many social groups at the same time, he occupies a different position in each of them. To analyze the degree of inclusion of an individual in various groups, as well as the provisions, the cat. he occupies in each of them, use the concept of social status. Under the status is understood the social position of a person within a group or society, associated with certain of his rights and obligations, this is the rank or position of an individual in this group. . It is with the help of statuses that we identify each other in various social structures. Mother, mayor, priest, friend, boss, man, captain, child, Yakut, customer, professor and convict - all these are statuses.

Social status is a characteristic of a social position, the presence of an internal content side of the status means that the SS characterizes what rights, duties, privileges, powers are assigned to those who perform a particular function. The presence of an external nomination form means that the SS has its own nomination: teacher, doctor, president, cleaner, grandfather, daughter, etc. In sociology, it is important that the status of a daughter is not just a status of kinship, but also a certain subordination to parents, an obligation to listen to their opinion, material, legal dependence on them. The total sum of all statuses - the status set - illustrates the individuality of a person and his place in the system of social relations, the totality of all statuses is organized in hierarchical ranks (they are connected and subordinate to each other). Types of statuses: 1. congenitally acquired, congenital - attributed (nationality, gender, race), i.e. the status inherited from birth, inborn is called ascribed (ascriptive). Generally accepted criteria for ascribed status are age and sex. 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. Race, religion, family and socioeconomic status are also generally accepted grounds for determining a person's status.

Other statuses we get through individual choice and competition, these are 2.

achieved (acquired) The status acquired by an individual in society due to his own efforts is called achieved. No society can ignore the difference of individuals, so the success or failure of an individual is reflected in giving him a certain status on the basis of a specific achievement. A professor, a choir conductor, a doctor, an actor, a university student, a priest, a policeman, a pickpocket, a company president, a coach, and a scuba diver are all examples of achieved status. There are 3 statuses associated with the kinship system, some kinship statuses are acquired (adoption, baptism). Statuses can be formalized and non-formalized: formalized statuses are protected by law (factory director, regional governor), a similar status arises within the framework of formal institutions, groups, so a person seeks to “protect himself” with a formal status, non-formalized statuses are not based on laws (leader of a company of friends, informal team leader). In addition to the main status associated with the profession, it is appropriate to say about the generalized status, otherwise called. index of social position - a holistic assessment of the social positions of both one's own and others in the system of social coordinates.

Of the many statuses, first of all, it is necessary to determine the main status, what exactly determines a person socially. Of particular importance in this is the status of the individual associated with work, profession, property status is of considerable importance. However, in an informal company of friends, these signs may be of secondary importance - here the cultural level, education, and sociability can play a decisive role. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between the basic, general hierarchy of personality statuses, cat. works in most situations in a given society, and specific, used in specific conditions, for specific people. So, the main status is a key status that determines the social position and importance of a person, associated with certain of his rights and obligations. For children, the primary status is age; similarly, in many societies, gender is the primary status. The core status forms the framework within which our goals are formulated and our learning takes place. Statuses in society are hierarchized, the accepted hierarchy of statuses is the basis of social stratification, social prestige (respect, recognition) of statuses is the hierarchy of statuses shared by society and enshrined in culture, public opinion. The prestige of status is shared by society, any restructuring of social institutions is associated with changes in the hierarchy of statuses.

Each person in society has certain relationships, performs certain duties and has some rights. All this is an indicator of the position in society that a person occupies, and of his social status, which she possesses. Social status determines the position of the group and its members in certain areas of human life.

The position of a person in society is determined by his profession, nationality, age, marital status. (All these determinants R. Merton called the "status set".) One person has many statuses, as he participates in many groups and organizations. He is a man, father, husband, son, teacher, professor, doctor of science, middle-aged man, member of the editorial board, Orthodox, etc. One person can have two opposite statuses, but in relation to different people: for his children he is a father and for his mother a son.

Social status is:

1) prescribed (attributed), that is, one that a person receives regardless of his desire and most often from birth (sex, nationality, age);

2) achieved (attainable), that is, one that a person himself achieves during his life, making certain efforts (profession, material wealth, political influence, etc.). Sometimes a person may have a mixed social status, but most often a person has several statuses, since he is a subject of different social groups (for example, a man is a boss at work, but at home he is a kind and caring father).

Social role and social status.

But still, basically, the social status of a person and his position in society are determined by one, the most basic status. In most cases, it is determined by the place of work.

To determine the social status of a person, it is of great importance to assess the existing positions in the society in which a person lives, to determine the prestige and authority of these positions.

Social status is a certain position in the social structure of a group or society, associated with other positions through a system of rights and obligations. The status "teacher" makes sense only in relation to the status "student", but not in relation to the salesman, pedestrian or engineer. To them, he is just an individual.

With the help of social status, relations in a group are regulated, norms and rules for the behavior of representatives of groups that correspond to a certain status are established.

In various eras of our society, the determining indicator was: under capitalism - income, money, under socialism - the worker's labor contribution. By performing certain duties, a person occupies a certain status in society and begins to fulfill those social roles in society that correspond to this social status.

It is important to understand the following:

1) social statuses are interconnected with each other, but do not interact with each other;

2) only subjects (owners, carriers) of statuses interact with each other, i.e. people;

3) it is not statuses that enter into social relations, but their carriers;

4) social relations connect statuses among themselves, but these relations are realized through people - status carriers.

Status group and lifestyle

In reviewing the various definitions of status, I have so far focused on status as the position of the individual in society. However, from a sociological point of view, status is much more interesting as an attribute of social groups or collectives. Therefore, we need to move from definitions of individual status to notions of group status, community status, and collective lifestyles. While the American sociological tradition has often focused on individual status, the Weberian tradition has been more concerned with the origin, maintenance, and social consequences of status groups and status communities as cohesive and militant social collectivities. In Economics and Society, Weber recognized the different meanings of the concepts of status and prestige, but, in my opinion, only two aspects of status he considered especially seriously. First, the concept of status as a system of "estates" by which society (especially the feudal system) was divided on the basis of legal, social and cultural privileges, giving rise to separate, various caste-like groups. Status groups turn into estates when their privileges crystallize into a system of legal and economic immunities arising from external control or regulation, protected by custom, religion and law.

Secondly, Weber was interested in analyzing the historical and social functions of status groups or status communities, which are collectives that have a similar lifestyle, a common moral system, a common language or culture, and religious differences. As a result, these cultural commonalities give rise to isolated, internally solidary communities organized to protect or enhance their ability to enjoy cultural and social benefits and privileges. From this point of view, social stratification creates, maintains and distributes various forms of power in society through the mechanisms of political monopoly, cultural reproduction and social exclusion. The idea that status differences are maintained through cultural exclusivity was especially developed in Pierre Bourdieu's sociology of culture. From the point of view of these sociological approaches, we can derive two corresponding concepts of status: status as a way of life (cultural status) and status as political and legal rights (civil status component).

Weber defined status position (Stadische Lage) as an effective social claim to nobility (honor) or respect in the form of positive and negative privileges. Status is usually based on a specific lifestyle, formal training, or formal prestige derived from a particular occupation. Status, moreover, is maintained and expressed through the ranking of living conditions and nutrition, through the monopoly use of privileged access to power and wealth, through the social solidarity generated by the marriage union, and, finally, through certain customs and status conventions. Under the status group, he understood a set of social actors (actors) who successfully claim a specific honor (honour) in a wider social environment and enjoy certain social privileges. Status groups are communities that have privileged access to limited resources, especially if those resources entail cultural, moral, or symbolic attributes.

Following Frank Parkin, we may note that status groups or communities usually arise as a result of social and political usurpation, causing a collective struggle to increase access to scarce resources and in this way to strengthen the collective position in the system of honor (honour). Weber went on to compare economic classes and status communities in terms of their internal solidarity and militancy. Unlike economic classes, status groups are characteristic social collectives of a communal nature, which involves the reproduction of a typical lifestyle and cultural heritage. Economic classes, on the other hand, are simply aggregates of individuals bound together by exchange and other economic relations.

Social statuses and social roles

Consequently, status communities are organized as communities in order to protect and strengthen their social privileges and rights.

The meaning of these formal definitions enabled Weber to undertake a series of comparative historical studies of social structure and social change. Weber wanted to show that economic wealth is not the only measure of social power and influence. In addition, he wanted to explore societies in which prestige through education or culture was greater than power based on ownership of the means of production. For example, in his study of Chinese society, Weber emphasized the political and cultural status of the educated. He wrote that “for twelve centuries social rank in China was determined more by merit than by wealth. These qualifications, in turn, were determined by education and especially by examination. China has made education literally the only measure of social prestige, giving it a greater role than was the case in Europe during the period of the humanists or in Germany.

From Weber's point of view, this cultural layer contributed to the strengthening of social stability and traditionalism in China, since there was a similarity between the Confucian ethics of the layer and the lifestyle of civil officials. In The Religion of India, Weber showed how religious beliefs about pollution played an important role in the organization and maintenance of the caste system. These examples underline the fact that Weber preferred to conduct a historical study of power relations in human society, rather than to formally develop the conceptual distinctions between class, status, and party. In subsequent sociology, Weber's emphasis on history was lost. But a static categorization of different strata or segments is not a substitute for historical sociology.

Weber's development of the idea of ​​status groups has been used to counter the Marxist analysis of economic class. Weber wanted to show that status groups are more cohesive, socially and politically more conscious than economic classes, which Weber defined as market-operating aggregates. Status groups are critically dependent on maintaining an exclusive lifestyle aimed at maintaining certain cultural monopolies. Status groups seek to reproduce themselves through the mechanisms of education in order to prevent the social mobility of outsiders and emphasize their exclusivity and particularism. It is useful to compare T. Veblen's book "The Theory of the Leisure Class" with Weber's treatment of status groups:

For Weber, as for Veblen, the function of prestige consumption, that is, to emphasize a pragmatically meaningless style of consumption requiring many years of study, was to prevent mobility and to institutionalize the privileges of those who had risen to the top in previous years or eras. . Therefore, status groups are determined by a specific lifestyle.

Thus, a status group is a community of individuals who have organized themselves to maintain or extend their social privileges through the mechanism of social closure in order to protect existing monopoly privileges from outsiders. ... The existence of status groups inevitably gives rise to social conflict and social struggle, although these forms of social struggle can often be masked or hidden.

Conflict sociology

One great controversy in sociology has arisen over the question of whether social relations are characterized primarily by agreement or conflict. Theories of social cohesion seek to explain how social order is formed, they usually argue that social stability is created by shared values ​​and expectations. Conflict sociologists, on the other hand, are more impressed by the prevalence of conflict, tension, and disorder than by areas of agreement and consensus. Viewed from our time, many of these disputes now seem to be something unproductive, since it is clear on the level of common sense that all social relations give rise to both agreement and conflict at the same time. However, in the analysis of status groups and status struggles there are strong arguments in favor of the conflict sociology approach, since in this work I argue that status by its very nature entails an endless struggle over the allocation of limited resources, especially cultural ones. Conflict sociology in its most developed form provides a general and theoretically important approach to social relations.

... The historical development of status stratification in the United States differed from the development of class systems in Europe in a number of important ways. First of all, the United States did not inherit the feudal nobility, and migration played a key role in the formation of a sense of individual success as the main component of the value system, while the social system was organized into separate competing ethnic communities. These historical differences partly explain the difference in approaches to social stratification in American and European sociology. While European social theory was primarily interested in the role of economic classes in industrial society, American sociologists were more interested in the study of the social mobility of individuals, the analysis of occupational structure, and the subjective perception of prestige.

In the American context, Weber's conflicting approach to status privilege was transformed and superseded by the "Warner School of Sociology". The concepts of "status" and "class" were merged, and the importance of conflict in the formation of consciousness was ignored. Social stratification was now seen as a continuous gradation of positions, which was equated with ranking by prestige. Individuals were seen as moving through these ranking positions through their own personal efforts; the notion of socially closed status groups seeking to monopolize resources was abandoned in favor of an image of America as a classless society with great scope for social mobility. The emphasis on class conflict and competition of status groups, which are essential elements in the dynamic process of the historical transformation of society (which we noted in the sociology of both Marx and Weber), was supplanted by the emphasis on consensus in studies of communities (communities) by the Warner school and the structural-functionalist theory of stratification L .Davis and W.Moore. Of course, these approaches to social stratification in American sociology were eventually widely criticized for, for example, the fact that the functionalist approach to status ignored significant inequality, the role of interests generated by it, the monopolization of resources, and large-scale intergroup conflicts that take place in American life.

Having outlined the variety of definitions and approaches to status, I would now like to formulate my own approach more clearly. First, I emphasize the political and legal features of the concept of status. As I have already noted, in Latin this word originally meant a legal position or position in society, according to which a citizen could claim various forms of relief from political and tax obligations. Therefore, by status I mean, first of all, a complex of socio-political claims against society, which gives an individual (or, more sociologically speaking, a group) certain benefits and privileges, distinguishing him from other individuals or groups. These socio-political claims are about scarce resources, especially education, culture, and symbolic resources. This cultural aspect of status gives rise to a second dimension: the concept of status as a culturally specific way of life that distinguishes a status group with a special identity in society. In feudal societies, access to privileges was organized exclusively through estates (clergy, nobility and common people), which had their own cultural and value systems. In modern society, the struggle over social privileges and distinctive symbols is more mobile and open, it involves countless groups, collectives and layers.

By emphasizing the socio-political aspect, it is easier to maintain a clearer line between status and the idea of ​​economic class, since class refers to the system of economic inequality in society, using the categories of production, property, and consumption. Therefore, I would prefer to use the concept of "economic class" as an equivalent of "social class". ... On the one hand, I want to distinguish between economic classes and status communities, and on the other hand, I believe that class and status analyzes are far from mutually exclusive things, they are best used in combination ... My analysis of social stratification shows the economic structure of society (classes) , the distribution of legal rights (citizenship) and the organization of prestige and honor in terms of "cultural capital" (status as a culturally distinctive way of life).

Although the reader has probably already sensed that the idea of ​​status is surrounded by rather difficult terminological complexities, nevertheless, for the purposes of analysis, I introduce in this work one more distinction: between status communities and status columns or blocks. The status community is, so to speak, the true form of a stable community (or, in sociological parlance, the Gemeinschaft relationship); these are communities where individuals share common attributes over a relatively long period of time, such as language, culture, or ethnicity. For example, the Welsh community in South Australia or the Irish community in New York are, according to my terminology, status communities of established, internally solidary collectives. Conversely, status columns (columns) or blocks are rather associations or organizations (Gesellschaft relations) in which individuals create organizational structures to achieve specific goals, such as receiving benefits or tax breaks. An example of a status column is all persons belonging to single-parent households who claim benefits or other privileges in the welfare state (welfare state). Other examples are retiree associations, consumer advocacy groups, charities for disabled soldiers… These are lobbying groups that often form associations in the name of civil rights to put pressure on local or national governments. Thus, status columns appear to achieve very limited and possibly short-term political and social goals, while status communities tend to be stable, multi-dimensional, complex, seed groups.

Status columns or blocs become involved in status politics, which includes claims to the state for social rights by groups that experience some discrimination and appeal to modern, universalist legislation. Since egalitarian universalism is the main criterion for modern democracies, citizens will experience various forms of inequality in terms of such features of status as age, gender or nationality. Where these status columns become recipients of state assistance, we have status politics... In the political and legal sense, I mean by status (a set of social requirements for the public economy or the state) modern citizenship...

B. Turner. Status (From the book: Bryan S. Turner. Status. Open University, Milton Keynes, 1988). /Translation English. and edition of V.I. Ilyin. Available from URL: http://www.socnet.narod.ru/library/authors/Ilyin/hrest/terner.htm

L. Warner
Social class and social structure