Role and Status

Role

Generally role is the function of a status
 

According to Robert Bierstedt says that a role is the dynamic or the behavioral aspect of status.”
 

According Duncan Mitchell writes that a social role is the expected behavior associated with a social position.
 

For Kingsley Davis role refers to the manner in which a person actually carries out the requirements of his position.

Status

Society is understood in terms of the network of social interaction and interconnection. In any interaction situation we cannot expect everyone to respond to the stimulus in the same manner. Because everyone has his own separate identity which is already there even before entering the social situation.
 

According to Duncan Mitchell “social status refers to the position occupied by a person, family, or kinship group in a social system relative to other.”
 

Ralph Linton says that “status is the place in a particular system, which a certain individual occupies at a particular time”.
 

Robert Bierstedt is of the opinion that “A status is simply a position in society or in a group. The status is the position afforded by group affiliation, group membership or group organization.”
Morris Ginsberg “A status is a position in a social group or grouping, a relation to other positions held by other individuals in the group or grouping”

Types of Status

A status is simply a rank or position that one holds in a group. One occupies the status of son or daughter, playmate, pupil, radical, militant and so on. Eventually one occupies the statuses of husband, mother bread-winner, cricket fan, and so on, one has as many statuses as there are groups of which one is a member. For analytical purposes, statuses are divided into two basic types:

1. Ascribed Statuses.
2. Achieved Statuses.

Ascribed Statuses

Ascribed statuses are those which are fixed for an individual at birth. Ascribed statuses that exist in all societies include those based upon sex, age, race ethnic group and family background.
 

Similarly, power, prestige, privileges, and obligations always are differentially distributed in societies by the age of the participants. This has often been said about the youth culture in the U.S. because of the high value Americans attach to being young. Pre-modern China, by contrast, attached the highest value to old age and required extreme subordination of children. The perquisites and obligations accompany age change over the individual's lifetime, but the individual proceeds inexorably through these changes with no freedom of choice.
 

As the discussion implies, the number and rigidity of ascribed statuses vary from one society to another. Those societies in which many statuses are rigidly prescribed and relatively unchangeable are called caste societies, or at least, caste like. Among major nations, India is a caste society. In addition to the ascribed statuses already discussed, occupation and the choice of marriage partners in traditional India are strongly circumscribed by accident of birth. Such ascribed statuses stand in contrast to achieved statuses.

Achieved Statuses

Achieved statuses are those which the individual acquires during his or her lifetime as a result of the exercise of knowledge, ability, skill and/or perseverance. Occupation provides an example of status that may be either ascribed or achieved, and which serves to differentiate caste-like societies from modern ones. Societies vary in both the number of statuses that are ascribed and achieved and in the rigidity with which such definitions are held. Both ascribed and achieved statuses exist in all societies. However, an understanding of a specific society requires that the interplay among these be fully understood. For Weber class is a creation of the market situation. Class operates in society independently of any valuations. As Weber did not believe in the economic phenomena determining human ideals, he distinguishes status situation from class situation.
 

According to Linton, status is associated with distinctive beliefs about the expectations of those having status, as for example, the status of children. Other common bases for status are age, sex, birth, genealogy and other biological constitutional characteristics. However, status, according to Linton, is only a phenomenon, not the intrinsic characteristic of man but of social organization. What matters is not what you really are, but what people believe you to be. At times, some confuse the two terms, status and role. Status defines who a person is, as for example, he is a child or a Negro, or a doctor; whereas, role defines what such a person is expected to do, as for example, he is too young to work, he should care about parents etc.