Hello -
I was web-browsing and came across your message about “status.” Without having time to read through all responses, I felt I’d send you this quick message to relate a sociological definition for the term. (I have taught the subject at a community college level, while still proceeding through graduate studies at a major university.)
Status, for sociologists, properly refers merely to one’s position in some social arrangement, which could either be a very clear-cut position (as in a bureaucracy) or a less clear-cut position that nevertheless has some sort of recognition by others who interact with the person. The terms “high status” and “low status” are in common popular use, but should more properly refer to high and low “prestige.” Prestige refers to the extent to which a person (or a category of persons) tends to receive favorable recognition from others, and this recognition may or may not be connected with the person’s status. For example, each U.S. president may automatically be granted great prestige by some persons, merely by virtue of having that particular status as president. But there are many cases where various persons have great prestige without necessarily occupying specific positions (having a particular status). There are many ways in which such apparent mismatch becomes rectified, as prestige tends to be supplemented by the granting of various honors that bestow particular statuses that reflect and formalize the prestigiousness of the person. Examples include honorary degrees or credentials, nominal leadership positions generated by new organizations dedicated to causes or values shared by the individual who is prestigious in that group.
It is true that the concepts of status and prestige (although confused by persons use of the phrase “high status”) are related to social stratification, and Max Weber was indeed an important early theorist in this subject (sociology being a pretty young discipline, writings of 100 years ago are considered early, or “classical,” in the field). Indeed, the more modern term, “socioeconomic status” (SES) is intended to reflect Weber’s multi-faceted approach to the subject of social stratification, in that the “three Ps” (property, prestige, power) that roughly correspond to Weber’s original terminology of class, status, party (economic, social, political) are, in the modern SES framework, given a simplified (but more easily measured) treatment as being composed of education, income, and occupation (the latter being considered one of the most important “statuses” when it comes to evaluating one’s position in a social stratification system, often conceived in terms of social class, whereupon similar phrases to the ones you mentioned, “high class” and “low class” are often heard, and many persons, who are unaware of the sociological endeavor to use specific words with specific meaning, tend to freely substitute one word for another and thus may refer to “high status” when they may actually mean something like “high class” or “high prestige.”) In SES, the “socio-” would be connected with education, the “economic” component would be connected with income, and the “status” component would be connected with one’s occupation. These three variables are imperfect indicators but have the virtue of being relatively easy to identify and measure. (The measurement of occupation, to make things even more confusing for those who haven’t taken a course in social stratification, tends to be on the basis of “occupational prestige”—I mention this only to give additional emphasis about the actual complexity of the subject, and thus the need for precision in the use of these words, when sociologists describe and write about the subjects.)
Note also that for Weber, “status” was closer to “prestige” than the modern sociological conception of the term’s meaning. A long process over the past century has been involved in the favoring of certain terms over others, in sociology, and indeed the introductory sociology textbooks and courses tend to spend a great deal of time distinguishing between common, lay uses of various terms, and the specific meanings that sociologists intend when they use the terms.
Does this help to clarify things at all? Part of the challenge of sociology is that, as with physics, there are many concepts that are really best understood in relation to other concepts (and thus the concepts get introduced to students in pairs or sets; e.g. mass is different from weight, although related to it; power has a specific meaning different from force or work, although the concepts are seen to be related to each other in very specific ways that requires diligent training and practice to understand), but unlike physical systems, the social systems that sociology deals with are often specific to the context of specific times and places (e.g. American society of the early 21st Century) and thus it is much harder to speak in terms of general, universal laws. Given the difficulty of quantifying sociological relationships, it turns out to be very important for sociologists to speak clearly and precisely (sometimes seeming, unfortunately, to do the opposite, when their writings are read by those who are not aware of the need for precise language and distinctions, and who are also unfamiliar with the “jargon” and precision being painstakingly used in those writings).
Feel free to ask me any follow up questions, if you like...
Thanks for posting this. It’s always interesting to see how what seem like obvious concepts actually have histories and are disputed.
Education, income, and occupation strikes me as a classification that’s destructively over-simplified. How does it handle power and respect relationships which are outside the mainstream? I’m thinking of children, street gangs, and terrorist groups. I don’t think it can even generate an adequate description of families. I’m going to file it under “prime example of drunk and lamp post fallacy”.
You might be interested in this description of how status is handled in the SCA—it argues that having a system of three types of honor (for service, research, and heavy fighting) contribute greatly to the success of the organization.
Hello - I was web-browsing and came across your message about “status.” Without having time to read through all responses, I felt I’d send you this quick message to relate a sociological definition for the term. (I have taught the subject at a community college level, while still proceeding through graduate studies at a major university.)
Status, for sociologists, properly refers merely to one’s position in some social arrangement, which could either be a very clear-cut position (as in a bureaucracy) or a less clear-cut position that nevertheless has some sort of recognition by others who interact with the person. The terms “high status” and “low status” are in common popular use, but should more properly refer to high and low “prestige.” Prestige refers to the extent to which a person (or a category of persons) tends to receive favorable recognition from others, and this recognition may or may not be connected with the person’s status. For example, each U.S. president may automatically be granted great prestige by some persons, merely by virtue of having that particular status as president. But there are many cases where various persons have great prestige without necessarily occupying specific positions (having a particular status). There are many ways in which such apparent mismatch becomes rectified, as prestige tends to be supplemented by the granting of various honors that bestow particular statuses that reflect and formalize the prestigiousness of the person. Examples include honorary degrees or credentials, nominal leadership positions generated by new organizations dedicated to causes or values shared by the individual who is prestigious in that group.
It is true that the concepts of status and prestige (although confused by persons use of the phrase “high status”) are related to social stratification, and Max Weber was indeed an important early theorist in this subject (sociology being a pretty young discipline, writings of 100 years ago are considered early, or “classical,” in the field). Indeed, the more modern term, “socioeconomic status” (SES) is intended to reflect Weber’s multi-faceted approach to the subject of social stratification, in that the “three Ps” (property, prestige, power) that roughly correspond to Weber’s original terminology of class, status, party (economic, social, political) are, in the modern SES framework, given a simplified (but more easily measured) treatment as being composed of education, income, and occupation (the latter being considered one of the most important “statuses” when it comes to evaluating one’s position in a social stratification system, often conceived in terms of social class, whereupon similar phrases to the ones you mentioned, “high class” and “low class” are often heard, and many persons, who are unaware of the sociological endeavor to use specific words with specific meaning, tend to freely substitute one word for another and thus may refer to “high status” when they may actually mean something like “high class” or “high prestige.”) In SES, the “socio-” would be connected with education, the “economic” component would be connected with income, and the “status” component would be connected with one’s occupation. These three variables are imperfect indicators but have the virtue of being relatively easy to identify and measure. (The measurement of occupation, to make things even more confusing for those who haven’t taken a course in social stratification, tends to be on the basis of “occupational prestige”—I mention this only to give additional emphasis about the actual complexity of the subject, and thus the need for precision in the use of these words, when sociologists describe and write about the subjects.)
Note also that for Weber, “status” was closer to “prestige” than the modern sociological conception of the term’s meaning. A long process over the past century has been involved in the favoring of certain terms over others, in sociology, and indeed the introductory sociology textbooks and courses tend to spend a great deal of time distinguishing between common, lay uses of various terms, and the specific meanings that sociologists intend when they use the terms.
Does this help to clarify things at all? Part of the challenge of sociology is that, as with physics, there are many concepts that are really best understood in relation to other concepts (and thus the concepts get introduced to students in pairs or sets; e.g. mass is different from weight, although related to it; power has a specific meaning different from force or work, although the concepts are seen to be related to each other in very specific ways that requires diligent training and practice to understand), but unlike physical systems, the social systems that sociology deals with are often specific to the context of specific times and places (e.g. American society of the early 21st Century) and thus it is much harder to speak in terms of general, universal laws. Given the difficulty of quantifying sociological relationships, it turns out to be very important for sociologists to speak clearly and precisely (sometimes seeming, unfortunately, to do the opposite, when their writings are read by those who are not aware of the need for precise language and distinctions, and who are also unfamiliar with the “jargon” and precision being painstakingly used in those writings).
Feel free to ask me any follow up questions, if you like...
Thanks! Mike
Thanks for posting this. It’s always interesting to see how what seem like obvious concepts actually have histories and are disputed.
Education, income, and occupation strikes me as a classification that’s destructively over-simplified. How does it handle power and respect relationships which are outside the mainstream? I’m thinking of children, street gangs, and terrorist groups. I don’t think it can even generate an adequate description of families. I’m going to file it under “prime example of drunk and lamp post fallacy”.
You might be interested in this description of how status is handled in the SCA—it argues that having a system of three types of honor (for service, research, and heavy fighting) contribute greatly to the success of the organization.