Unit 7. Statuses

Warm up

Exercise 1. Match the English words on the left with their Russian equivalents on the right. Learn the words by heart.

1. to influence	a) достигать;
2. an ascribed status	b) прикреплять;
3. to attach	c) текущий статус;
4. an opportunity	d) влиять;
5. available	e) приобретенный социальный статус;
6. an achieved status	f) возможность;
7. to attain	g) система возможностей;
8. opportunity structure	h) социальный статус по рождению;
9. master status	i) доступный;
10. salient status	j) доминирующий статус.

READING

Exercise 2. Read and translate the following text. Use the dictionary when necessary.

Statuses

Ordinarily, we use the word status to mean “prestige”. We speak of a person as having high or low status, or of being a status-seeker. In sociology, however, status refers more particularly to a position in the social structure – any position that determines where a person “fits” within the society. Being a job-seeker, a waiter, a student, a mother, a child, or a friend are all social statuses.

Every person occupies a number of different statuses at any given time. A certain student is not just a student but can also be a man, a son, a fiance, a Protestant, and so on. Some statuses are assigned to people without effort on their part; they are called ascribed statuses. Being male or female, a Mexican-American, a Rockefeller, and a senior citizen are examples of ascribed statuses. You have almost no control over whether or not you occupy these kinds of social positions. You are born a Rockefeller, or adopted into that family, just as you are born white or black, male or female, beautiful or plain. The meanings attached to ascribed statuses do change, however. For example, the meaning attached to being an American female has changed greatly in recent years, as more and more opportunities have become available to women.

In contrast to an ascribed status, an achieved status is a position a person attains largely through personal effort. Physician, politician, artist, teacher, town drunk, or Boston Strangler – each of these is an achieved status. But what people achieve is heavily shaped by the opportunity structure available to them. For instance, the children of a woman living on welfare in an inner-city slum have a different set of achieved statuses available to them than the sons and daughters of a successful corporate executive.

When one of a person’s statuses largely determines many of the other statuses that he or she acquires, it is called a master status. Being the Prince of Wales, for instance, is a master status because it determines so many of the person’s other social positions (ceremonial leader, military officer, even husband and father since a future king must have heirs).

Not everyone has a master status. Many people simply have a variety of ascribed and achieved statuses that take on more or less importance depending upon the social situation. For instance, when you step into a college classroom your status of student comes to the fore and is the major influence on your attitudes and behavior. It is not particularly important that you are also a friend, a son or daughter, a part-time employee, and so forth. In the classroom context your student status dominates. In contrast, when you visit your parents your status of son or daughter is the one that tends to influence your thoughts and actions. Here your student status recedes to the background and your position in the family takes the foreground. When a status dominates in a certain social context, it is called a salient status.

Exercise 3. Decide whether the following statements are true or false.

1. Originally the word “status” was used to mean “fame”.

2. Being a student, an employee, a granny, a daughter, or a friend are all social statuses.

3. You can easily control your ascribed status.

4. A sociologist is an achieved status.

5. When you meet your parents your status of a student dominates.

Exercise 4. Answer the following questions.

1. What does the word status refer to?

2. Can a person have several different statuses at once?

3. Is being a male or a female a master status or an ascribed status?

4. Can the meanings attached to ascribed statuses change?

5. How can you describe an achieved status?

6. Do all people have the same set of achieved statuses available to them.

7. What is called a master status?

8. What does the importance of the status depend on?

9. Can you name your ascribed and achieved statuses?

10. How do you understand the term “a salient status”?

Exercise 5. Match each definition with the correct word. Translate the words into Russian and learn them by heart.

1. to determine	a) to be determined or based;
2. to occupy	b) to take up a place or to fill an extent in time;
3. senior	c) a serious attempt;
4. recent	d) the scenery or ground behind something;
5. an effort	e) to settle or decide by choice of alternatives or possibilities;
6. a welfare	f) having lately come into existence;
7. available	g) present or ready for immediate use;
8. to depend	h) higher ranking;
9. major	i) aid in the form of money and necessities for those in need;
10. background	j) greater in rank, importance or interest.

Exercise 6. Now read and translate the text on The Structure of Social Interaction. Use the dictionary when necessary.