Status and Role

Status and role are often described as twin concepts because they describe two sides of the same social position. A status is simply a position within society or within a particular group — every society, and every group inside it, contains many such positions, and every individual occupies several of them simultaneously. A status carries with it a defined set of rights and duties: the status of 'mother', for instance, comes with its own norms of conduct, responsibilities and privileges. A role, by contrast, is the dynamic, behavioural side of a status — the actual playing-out of the position. As the chapter puts it: a status is occupied, but a role is played. A status can also be described as a role that has become regularised, standardised and formalised within the wider society or within a specific association.

Because modern life is complex, a single individual typically occupies many different statuses at once — a school student is simultaneously a student to their teacher, a customer to the grocer, a passenger to the bus driver, a sibling to their brother or sister, and a patient to their doctor. This full collection of positions a person holds at any one time is called a status set. Statuses also change across a person's life, moving in a predictable sequence — a son becomes, in turn, a father, then a grandfather, and so on; this is called a status sequence.

Statuses themselves are of two broad kinds. An ascribed status is one a person occupies simply because of birth, or takes on involuntarily — age, caste, race and kinship are the most common bases for ascribed status, and it is the dominant kind of status in simple, traditional societies. An achieved status, by contrast, is one a person occupies voluntarily, through their own ability, effort or choices — educational qualifications, income and professional expertise are the usual bases for achieved status, and modern societies are distinctively organised around it, which is why we so often hear the demand to 'prove yourself'. Even in achievement-oriented modern societies, ascribed status continues to matter a great deal — the two never operate in complete isolation from each other.

Every status also carries prestige — the value people attach to the position itself, independent of who happens to occupy it or how well they perform in it. Prestige rankings differ across societies and change over time: a doctor may carry higher prestige than a shopkeeper even while earning less, but what counts as a prestigious occupation is not fixed once and for all. …