In modern societies, occupation is usually thought of as the main determinant of status, but other memberships or affiliations such as ethnic group, religion, gender, can have an influence. For instance, a physician doctor will have higher status than a factory worker, but an immigrant doctor from a minority race may have a lower social status. This is because, many societies place higher esteem on some races than on others. Economic status occurs when one’s position in the stratification structure is based on their economic status in the world. This is based on income, education, and occupation.
Status is achieved through social stratification. Social stratification describes the way in which people are placed in the society. It is associated with the ability of individuals to live up to some set of ideals or principles regarded as important by the society or some social group within it. The German sociologist Max Weber (1947) developed a theory proposing that stratification is based on three factors that have become known as “the three P’s of stratificationâ€: property, prestige and power. He claimed that social stratification is a result of the interaction of wealth, prestige and power.
• Property refers to one’s material possessions and their life chances. If someone has control of property, that person has power over others and can use the property to his or her own benefit.
• Prestige is also a significant factor in determining one’s place in the stratification system. The ownership of property is not always going to assure power, but people with prestige and little property can command power.
• Power means the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance.
The French sociologist Bourdieu (1984) developed theories of social stratification based on aesthetic taste in his work, Distinction. Bourdieu claims that how one chooses to present one’s social space to the world, one’s aesthetic dispositions, depicts one’s status and distances oneself from lower groups. Specifically, Bourdieu hypothesizes that these dispositions are internalized at an early age and guide the young towards their appropriate social positions, towards the behaviors that are suitable for them, and an aversion towards other lifestyles.
Bourdieu (1984) theorizes that class fractions teach aesthetic preferences to their young. Class fractions are determined by a combination of the varying degrees of social, economic, and cultural capital. Society incorporates symbolic goods, especially those regarded as the attributes of excellence, as the ideal weapon in strategies of distinction. Those attributes deemed excellent are shaped by the interests of the dominating class. He emphasizes the dominance of cultural capital early on by stating that differences in cultural capital mark the differences between the classes.
Aesthetic dispositions are the result of social origin rather than accumulated capital and experienced over time. The acquisition of cultural capital depends heavily on total, early, imperceptible learning, performed within the family from the earliest days of life. Bourdieu hypothetically guarantees that the opinions of the young are those that they are born into, the accepted definitions that their elders offer them. How one describes one’s social environment relates closely to social origin because the instinctive narrative springs from early stages of development.
Bourdieu also opined that tastes in food, culture and presentation, are indicators of class, because trends in their consumption seemingly correlate with an individual’s fit in society. Each fraction of the dominant class develops its own aesthetic criteria. A multitude of consumer interests based on differing social positions necessitates that each fraction has its own artists and philosophers. Bourdieu believes that meals served on special occasions are an interesting indicator of the mode of self-presentation adopted in ‘showing off’ a life-style. The idea is that their likes and dislikes should mirror those of their class fractions.
Weber (1947) developed the idea of status groups. Status groups are communities that are based on ideas of proper lifestyles and the honor given to people by others. These groups only exist because of people's ideas of prestige or dishonor. Also, people in these communities are only supposed to associate with people of like status, and all other people are looked at as inferiors.
Weber (1947) also developed various ways that societies are organized in hierarchical systems of power. These ways are social status, class power and political power.
• Social Status: If you view someone as a social superior, that person will have power over you because you believe that person has a higher status than you do.
• Class Power: This refers to unequal access to resources. If you have access to something that someone else needs, that can make you more powerful than the person in need. The person with the resource thus has bargaining power over the other.
• Political Power: Political power can influence the hierarchical system of power because those that can influence what laws are passed and how they are applied can exercise power over others.
Status can be changed through a process of social Mobility. Social mobility is a change of position within the stratification system. A move in status can be upward (upward mobility), or downward (downward mobility). Social mobility allows a person to move to another social status other than the one he or she was born in. Social mobility is more frequent in societies where achievement rather than ascription is the primary basis for social status.
