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Social statuses existed before the social sciences. When scholars began to develop this concept in the nineteenth century, they were drawing on the juridical writings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and, more broadly, the vocabulary used by social groups to define themselves across time and space. From this moment forward, social statuses occupied a central position in the work of historians, sociologists, and anthropologists. These scholars were aiming to describe and explain the dynamics of human societies, but they also participated in framing the debates at the heart of the social sciences—as attested by the recurrent disputes between a Marxian notion of class and a Weberian conception of status groups, particularly among readers with tacit political motivations. Max Weber played a fundamental part in the success of the concept, taking the juridical aspect and the idea of society as a body, inherited from the ancien régime, and adding a specifically sociological content relating to the hierarchy of social prestige, which is neither directly inherited (as with castes) nor purely economic (as with classes). In truth, this definition was rarely applied stricto sensu by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists, but it did allow for the elaboration of a concept that could delimit groups of individuals sharing legal and symbolic characteristics within a given society, and that could incorporate the categories used by social actors themselves into historical analysis. Thus, during the 1960s, it was around the notion of status that interpretations of the ancien régime as a society of orders or a society of classes took shape, while anthropologists began to consider notions of emic and etic. From the 1980s, however, the concept of social status receded into the background as the idea of a global interpretation of society by the social sciences was called into question.

"How does cultural hierarchy relate to social hierarchy? Do the more advantaged consume 'high' culture, while the less advantaged consume popular culture? Or has cultural consumption in contemporary societies become individualised to such a degree that there is no longer any social basis for cultural consumption? Leading scholars from the UK, the USA, Chile, France, Hungary and the Netherlands systematically examine the social stratification of arts and culture. They evaluate the 'class--culture homology argument' of Pierre Bourdieu and Herbert Gans; the 'individualisation arguments' of Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Zygmunt Bauman; and the 'omnivore--univore argument' of Richard Peterson. They also demonstrate that, consistent with Max Weber's class--status distinction, cultural consumption, as a key element of lifestyle, is stratified primarily on the basis of social status rather than by social class."--Provided by publisher

The Handbook of Social Status Correlates summarizes findings from nearly 4000 studies on traits associated with variations in socioeconomic status. Much of the information is presented in roughly 300 tables, each one providing a visual snapshot of what research has indicated regarding how a specific human trait appears to be correlated with socioeconomic status. The social status measures utilized and the countries in which each study was conducted are also identified. QUESTIONS ADDRESSED INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING: Are personality traits such as extraversion, competitiveness, and risk-taking associated with social status? How universal are sex differences in income and other forms of social status? What is the association between health and social status? How much does the answer vary according to specific diseases? How well established are the relationships between intelligence and social status? Is religiosity associated with social status, or does the answer depend on which religion is being considered? Are physiological factors correlated with social status, even factors involving the brain? Finally, are there as yet any "universal correlates of social status"?

This paper looks at the proposal for a community wage for domestic purpose beneficiaries as an initiative that recasts the gendered nature of welfare allocation. It raises broader theoretical questions on the implications of workfare for women's social status which has traditionally been defined in terms of their unpaid domestic work. It concludes that the government's retreat from an imposed workfare regime on domestic purpose beneficiaries with young children amounts to a reaffirmation of the primacy of the domestic role for women by the state. The paper takes the line that this state reproduction of women's domestic role legitimates women's inferiority.

AbstractSocial class is mostly inherited, but what is the source? From movies and TV, we can see how high social status often originates with efforts to gain control of strategic locations in an earlier generation. With that advantage and the economic leverage it offers, family fortunes are transformed into social standing. Westerns, such as Pale Rider and Once Upon a Time in the West, reveal how violence often lies at the root of today's social differences. Chinatown demonstrates how the same corrupt processes work in an urban setting. As long as private wealth gained through deceit or coercion can be sanitized in the next generation, rent seeking will remain the most popular means of gaining power. Filmmakers can help us see how these processes actually play out and possibly teach us how to prevent them.

Despite a fair amount of conjecture regarding the circumstances that lead to the generation of status orders, most of the previous literature in this area typically has studied the effects of social cues within a laboratory setting. This article analyzes the evolution of the status hierarchy within a large-scale, natural setting. The results of empirical analyses assessing a large online community of software developers show that in the process of status attainment, community members tend to evaluate a focal actor's reputation according to publicly available social references. Ironically, these same social references also work to constrain an actor's status mobility.

AbstractIn empirical studies of friendship networks, participants are typically asked, in interviews or questionnaires, to identify some or all of their close friends, resulting in a directed network in which friendships can, and often do, run in only one direction between a pair of individuals. Here we analyze a large collection of such networks representing friendships among students at US high and junior-high schools and show that the pattern of unreciprocated friendships is far from random. In every network, without exception, we find that there exists a ranking of participants, from low to high, such that almost all unreciprocated friendships consist of a lower ranked individual claiming friendship with a higher ranked one. We present a maximum-likelihood method for deducing such rankings from observed network data and conjecture that the rankings produced reflect a measure of social status. We note in particular that reciprocated and unreciprocated friendships obey different statistics, suggesting different formation processes, and that rankings are correlated with other characteristics of the participants that are traditionally associated with status, such as age and overall popularity as measured by total number of friends.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: A Rediscovery -- Chapter Previews -- 1 Education as Learned Effectiveness -- Education, Learned Effectiveness, and Health -- Education and Socioeconomic Status -- Education as a Root Cause of Good Health -- 2 The Association between Education and Health -- Defining Health -- Measuring Health -- Education's Correlation with Health Measures -- 3 Education, Personal Control, Lifestyle, and Health -- Education and Human Capital -- Designing a Healthy Lifestyle -- The Sense of Control Links Education to Healthy Lifestyle -- 4 Education, Socioeconomic Status, and Health -- Economic Resources -- Productive Activities -- Education, Socioeconomic Status, and Health -- 5 Education, Interpersonal Relationships, and Health -- Education, Marriage, and Social Support -- Marriage and Health -- 6 Age and Cumulative Advantage -- Accumulating Effects -- Amplifying Effects -- Decline Slowed or Only Delayed? -- Education's Cumulative Advantage -- 7 Specious Views of Education -- Education as Credential -- Education as Reproducer of Inequality -- Education as False Satisfier -- Education as Spurious Correlate -- Education, Inequality, and Health -- Education: The Solution, Not the Problem -- 8 Conclusion: Self-Direction Toward Health -- Learned Effectiveness Tops Access to Lucrative Positions -- Learned Effectiveness Provides Control over Lifestyle and Circumstances -- Education Has Pervasive, Cumulative, Self-Amplifying Benefits -- Lack of Education Turns Low Income into Privation -- Structural Amplification Concentrates Problems -- Resource Accumulation and Substitution Imply Structural Amplification -- No One Loses When Someone Gains Control -- Education: The Answer -- 9 Data and Measures -- ASOC: U.S. Nationwide Survey -- CCH: Illinois Statewide Survey