Achieved status

Last updated April 08, 2024

Achieved status is a concept developed by the anthropologist Ralph Linton for a social position that a person can acquire on the basis of merit and is earned or chosen through one's own effort. It is the opposite of ascribed status and reflects personal skills, abilities, and efforts. Examples of achieved status are being an Olympic athlete, a criminal, a teacher or a college professor.

Status is important sociologically because it comes with a set of rights, obligations, behaviors, and duties that people occupying a certain position are expected or encouraged to perform. Those expectations are referred to as roles. For instance, the role of a professor includes teaching students, answering their questions, and being impartial and appropriate.^{[ clarification needed ]}

Compared to ascribed status

Ascribed status is a position assigned to individuals or groups based on traits beyond their control, such as sex, race, or parental social status. It is usually associated with closed societies. Achieved status is distinguished from ascribed status by virtue of being earned.

Many positions are a mixture of achievement and ascription. For instance, a person who has achieved the status of being a physician is more likely to have the ascribed status of being born into a wealthy family. That is usually associated with open societies or social-class societies.

Social mobility

Social mobility refers to one's ability to move their status either up or down the social stratification system, compared with their family's status in early life. Some people with achieved status have improved their position in the social system by their own merit and achievements.

Someone may also have achieved status that decreases their position within the social system, such as by becoming a notorious criminal. A society in which people's position in that society can change by their actions, by increasing or decreasing, can be referred to as an open system. A closed system society allows less social mobility.

Cultural capital

Cultural capital is a concept, developed by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. It can refer to both achieved and ascribed characteristics, which are desirable qualities (either material or symbolic) that contribute to one's social status: any advantages that a person has and give him or her a higher status in society.

It may include high expectations, forms of knowledge, skill, or education.

Parents provide children with cultural capital, the attitudes and knowledge that make the educational system a comfortable familiar place in which they can succeed easily. There are other types of capital as well.

Social capital refers to one's membership in groups, relationships, and networks. It can also have a significant impact on achievement level.

Education

Industrialization has led to a vast increase in the possible standard of living for the average person but also made that increase necessary. For the productivity of the average worker to rise, he or she had to receive far more education and training, which successively made the average worker much less replaceable and thus more powerful. Hence, it became necessary to satisfy workers' demands for a larger share.

Employment

According to the sociologist Rodney Stark, few Americans believe that coming from a wealthy family or having political connections is necessary to get ahead. In contrast, many people in other industrialized nations think those factors are necessary for advancement. Americans are more likely than the people in those nations to rate "hard work" as very important for getting ahead. Most nations value hard work, but Italians, for example, are hardly more likely to rate it as very important than they are to think that political connections are needed.

Income

People with a lower income will generally be a better example of moving up in the social stratification and achieving status. That holds to be evident in most cases because those who accrue a lower income may either have the motivation to achieve a greater status, or face financial pressure, and attempt to follow their own ambitions and hard work. Those of higher income are typically the result of achieving status.^{[ clarification needed ]}

In other cases, the people with higher incomes may have unjustly acquired that position or were ascribed their status and income (such as monarchs, family-run businesses, etc.). They may have also gained a higher income position by chance.

Those without the privilege of ascribing their status generally have the greater motivation of achieving their own status. The general economic well-being of the society in which they live also tends to be another factor in their status and the extent that they are able to achieve their status.

For example, Americans are less likely than people in other industrialized nations to object to current income variances. According to Rodney Stark, in 1992, only 27% of Americans strongly agreed that income disparities in their country were too large. In contrast, more than half of Russians, Italians, and Bulgarians agreed with that statement.

Stratification systems around the world

In all societies, a person's social status is the result of both ascribed and achieved characteristics. Societies differ markedly on several dimensions in that process: the attributes that are used to assign status, the relative importance of ascribed or achieved attributes, the overall potential for social mobility, the rates of mobility that actually occur, and the barriers to particular subgroups enjoying upward mobility.

Cultural differences around the world

Medieval Europe

One's status in medieval Europe was primarily based on ascription. People born into the noble class were likely to keep a high position and people born of peasants were likely to stay in a low position. This political system is known as feudalism and does not allow for much social mobility.

Feudalism in Latin America

Bolivia used to have newspaper advertisements that claimed to have land, animals and peasants for sale. The peasants were not necessarily slaves but placed in their social class and required to work because they were bound to the land on which they lived and that they farmed.^{[ clarification needed ]} That sort of social interaction is based mainly on the people's strong belief of tradition and to uphold the actions of the past. In 1971, Ernesto Laclau addressed the argument of Latin America was feudalist or capitalist. He determined that the social system was very different from the capitalist system in Europe and the United States and so Latin America would be more closely related to having a feudalist approach to social interaction.

Caste system

The formation of a hierarchy differs from the polarities of both given and achieved status.^[1] In caste systems, ascription is the overpowering basis for status. Traditional society in South Asia and other parts of the world such as Egypt, India, Bali, Tibet, and Japan were composed of castes. Each group was limited to certain occupations. Low-paying occupations such as collecting garbage were reserved for one caste, whose members were excluded from holding any other occupation. Correspondingly, highly skilled occupations, such as being a priest or a goldsmith, were reserved for another caste.

However, some people managed through talent and luck to rise above their given caste. For example, great aptitude as a soldier was often a way to reach a higher status.

Related Research Articles

A caste is a fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to: marry exclusively within the same caste (endogamy), follow lifestyles often linked to a particular occupation, hold a ritual status observed within a hierarchy, and interact with others based on cultural notions of exclusion, with certain castes considered as either more pure or more polluted than others. Its paradigmatic ethnographic example is the division of India's Hindu society into rigid social groups. Its roots lie in South Asia's ancient history and it still exists. However, the economic significance of the caste system in India has been declining as a result of urbanisation and affirmative action programs. A subject of much scholarship by sociologists and anthropologists, the Hindu caste system is sometimes used as an analogical basis for the study of caste-like social divisions existing outside Hinduism and India. The term "caste" is also applied to morphological groupings in eusocial insects such as ants, bees, and termites.

A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class, middle class, and upper class. Membership of a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, income, and belonging to a particular subculture or social network.

Ascribed characteristics, as used in the social sciences, refers to properties of an individual attained at birth, by inheritance, or through the aging process. The individual has very little, if any, control over these characteristics. Typical examples include race, ethnicity, gender, caste, height, and appearance. The term is apt for describing characteristics chiefly caused by "nature" and for those chiefly caused by "nurture", see: Nature versus nurture.

Social status is the relative level of social value a person is considered to possess. Such social value includes respect, honor, assumed competence, and deference. On one hand, social scientists view status as a "reward" for group members who treat others well and take initiative. This is one explanation for its apparent cross-cultural universality. On the other hand, while people with higher status experience a litany of benefits--such as greater health, admiration, resources, influence, and freedom--those with lower status experience poorer outcomes across all of those metrics.

Social class in the United States refers to the idea of grouping Americans by some measure of social status, typically by economic status. However, it could also refer to social status and/or location. The idea that American society can be divided into social classes is disputed, and there are many competing class systems.

The term social order can be used in two senses: In the first sense, it refers to a particular system of social structures and institutions. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social order is contrasted to social chaos or disorder and refers to a stable state of society in which the existing social structure is accepted and maintained by its members. The problem of order or Hobbesian problem, which is central to much of sociology, political science and political philosophy, is the question of how and why it is that social orders exist at all.

Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given society. This movement occurs between layers or tiers in an open system of social stratification. Open stratification systems are those in which at least some value is given to achieved status characteristics in a society. The movement can be in a downward or upward direction. Markers for social mobility such as education and class, are used to predict, discuss and learn more about an individual or a group's mobility in society.

Ascribed status is a term used in sociology that refers to the social status of a person that is assigned at birth or assumed involuntarily later in life. The status is a position that is neither earned by the person nor chosen for them. It is given to them by either their society or group, living them little or no control over it. Rather, the ascribed status is assigned based on social and cultural expectations, norms, and standards. These positions are occupied regardless of efforts or desire. These rigid social designators remain fixed throughout an individual's life and are inseparable from the positive or negative stereotypes that are linked with one's ascribed statuses.

Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power. It is a hierarchy within groups that ascribe them to different levels of privileges. As such, stratification is the relative social position of persons within a social group, category, geographic region, or social unit.

Social position is the position of an individual in a given society and culture. A given position may belong to many individuals.

Sociologists use the concept of occupational prestige to measure the relative social-class positions people may achieve by practicing a given occupation. Occupational prestige results from the consensual rating of a job - based on the belief of that job's worthiness. The term prestige itself refers to the admiration and respect that a particular occupation holds in a society. Occupational prestige is prestige independent of particular individuals who occupy a job. Sociologists have identified prestige rankings for more than 700 occupations based on results from a series of national surveys. They have created a scale and then rank given occupations based on survey results.

The sociology of education is the study of how public institutions and individual experiences affect education and its outcomes. It is mostly concerned with the public schooling systems of modern industrial societies, including the expansion of higher, further, adult, and continuing education.

Life chances is a theory in sociology which refers to the opportunities each individual has to improve their quality of life through elements like education, employment, among others. The concept was introduced by German sociologist Max Weber in the 1920s. It is a probabilistic concept, describing how likely it is, given certain factors, that an individual's life will turn out a certain way. According to this theory, life chances are positively correlated with one's socioeconomic status.

Status attainment is the process of one attaining one's positions in society, or class. Status attainment is affected by both achieved factors, such as educational attainment, and ascribed factors, such as family income. The theory of status attainment states that one can be mobile, either upwardly or downwardly, in the form of a class system.

Social inequality occurs when resources within a society are distributed unevenly, often as a result of inequitable allocation practices that create distinct unequal patterns based on socially defined categories of people. Differences in accessing social goods within society are influenced by factors like power, religion, kinship, prestige, race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class. Social inequality usually implies the lack of equality of outcome, but may alternatively be conceptualized as a lack of equality in access to opportunity.

Ascription occurs when social class or stratum placement is primarily hereditary. In other words, people are placed in positions in a stratification system because of qualities beyond their control. Race, sex, age, class at birth, religion, ethnicity, species, and residence are all good examples of these qualities. Ascription is one way sociologists explain why stratification occurs.

Achievement ideology is the belief that one reaches a socially perceived definition of success through hard work and education. In this view, factors such as gender, race/ethnicity, economic background, social networks, or neighborhoods/geography are secondary to hard work and education or are altogether irrelevant in the pursuit of success.

In sociology, social transformation is a somewhat ambiguous term that has two broad definitions.

Socioeconomic mobility in the United States refers to the upward or downward movement of Americans from one social class or economic level to another, through job changes, inheritance, marriage, connections, tax changes, innovation, illegal activities, hard work, lobbying, luck, health changes or other factors.

Homogamy is marriage between individuals who are, in some culturally important way, similar to each other. It is a form of assortative mating. The union may be based on socioeconomic status, class, gender, caste, ethnicity, or religion, or age in the case of the so-called age homogamy.

References

↑ Japan's Invisible Race: Caste in Culture and Personality, p., George A. De Vos, Hiroshi Wagatsuma

Bibliography

Linton, Ralph (1936). The Study of Man: An Introduction. online edition
Stark, Rodney (2007). Sociology (10th ed.). Thomson Wadsworth. ISBN 978-0-495-09344-2.
Wise, M (2005). Cultural Capital, Habitus and Sense of Belonging in Medical School: The Impact of Ascribed and Achieved Status. online edition
Rose, Peter (1982). Sociology: Inquiring into Society (2nd ed.). St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-73984-2.
Shepard, Jon; Robert W. Greene (2003). Sociology and You. Ohio: Glencoe McGraw-Hill. pp. A-22. ISBN 0-07-828576-3. Archived from the original on 2010-03-08.
McDonagh, Eileen (1982). "To Work or Not to Work: The Differential Impact of Achieved and Derived Status upon the Political Participation of Women". American Journal of Political Science. 26 (2): 280–297. doi:10.2307/2111040. JSTOR 2111040.