by Status is a position occupied by a person in society. In a lifetime, an individual occupies different statuses based on age, gender, class, occupation, and education.
A person can have several statuses at a point in time such as being a daughter, social worker, member of a book-reading club, guitarist, and manager in a company.
A combination of all the statuses that a person holds is called a status set.
Human beings always classify status into two- high status / low status.
Each status has privileges/disprivileges connected to it. For example, those who have the status of a Dalit or untouchable in India, don’t have the right to use public well, to share food with other castes, and to marry someone from the upper cast.
Linton has divided statuses into two groups
Ascribed and Achieved Status
Ascribed status is a social status that is assigned by birth, not by abilities, skills, or achievements. This status is assigned based on the norms and standards in society. Any individual can secure this status regardless of effort and desire.
The universally used criteria for securing status are age, sex, kinship, and race. The birth of an individual in a particular social category such as class and caste also becomes the criterion for the ascription of statuses in several but not all societies.
Achieved Status is a social status that can be achieved by anyone through competition and individual effort. These are acquired over an individual’s lifetime. Occupation and education are thus called achieved statuses. Marital statuses of a wife or a husband are also achieved statuses
Sometimes it is difficult to categorize between ascribed and achieved statuses. For example, earlier we believe gender is something that is fixed by birth, but it is not more fixed. The gender of a person moves from one gender to another, that is called transgender.
Master status
Master status is a social status that dominates or overshadows all other statuses. Gender, race, and caste are the factors that determine master statuses in societies. Gender and race are the forces that often decide an individual’s income, occupation, education, social networks, and so on. Similarly, mental or physical disability can also become a master status and govern the everyday behavior of society toward the disabled.
