Sociological Status and Roles Introduction From the moment I was born I was given a status, I had no say in whether I wanted it or not and along the way; growing up I was given the option to become others. There are two types of statuses that I am currently have an ascribed and achieved status. Growing as a Hmong daughter and a student is hard. Having the title Hmong daughter was ascribed to me and the title student was achieved by me. Living with these two statuses, sometimes they are difficult, but someday I hope together they will take me to a much better place, a higher social class than where I am currently. Ascribed Statuses Analysis Growing up I was given an ascribed status of Hmong daughter. An ascribe status is a social position assigned to a person by society without regard’s to a person’s …show more content…
unique talents or characteristics (Dingel, Race). Being a Hmong daughter is an ascribed status, because I didn’t get to give my input in whether this is who I want to be or if I wanted this title. When I was born this was the path that was tossed my way and a role I had to fulfill. With this status it comes with many responsibilities and especially as I grew older I had more responsibilities. Being a girl in a Hmong Household in a Hmong Community means that I must be able to cook and clean. Being a girl; I am viewed as the person that should stay home and raise the kids and take care of the house unless it’s a heavy duty job, then it’s left to the men. An additional factor with the status of a Hmong daughter is that I will grow up and eventually marry a person that shares the same religion and is of the opposite sex. The age range of marriage in the Hmong Community used to be 14 to 17 years old and if you were any older you would be considered an old maid, but in the current day they don’t expect Hmong daughters to get married until after they are in their 20s, when they have started or finished college. Up to this point in life, if I compare my experience to a true traditional Hmong girl, I have accomplished a lot, but not enough because at this point in my life I’m supposed to know how to chop a whole chicken, but I don’t know how. At family gatherings, since I’m older now, I’m supposed to help with cook food, but because the kitchen is always filled with people I leave the room. Growing up my mother was the one that taught me the responsibilities that belong to the girls, but because there are still things that I still don’t know how to do, I receive negative sanctions. Sanctions are rewards for appropriate behavior or penalties for inappropriate behaviors. When I receive the negative sanctions, they are usually in the form of disapprovals stares and gossip among the elderly, but I don’t let it define me because I know myself better than anyone and I know that I can learn everything at my own pace. At my age I should be cooking meals and working hard to find a suitable husband, but I’m not, I’m in college as a student at the University of Minnesota, Rochester. Achieved Statuses Analysis After turning sixteen years old and continuing to get an education I became a student, which is an achieved status. An achieved status is a social position that a person attains largely through his or her own effort (Dingel, Race). Being a student is an achieved status because it’s something I had to work for. I had to work for the title, I couldn’t just put in half the effort. Achieving this goal was not easy, because it required me to attend class, ask for help if I don’t understand, do my homework, and study for exams. After working hard and getting here, I’ve realized that my experience with trying to fulfill the role was not harder than I originally thought. Being a student now is different than what I originally thought because I thought that all you had to do was go to class and I would understand everything I was learning, and all the work was going to be a breeze, but it’s the reality I’m living in; I have to do the homework and in class work and whenever I don’t understand something I have to ask for help because the professors are not like high school teachers, they will not pull me aside in class and re-explain it to me. If I don’t understand something I have to put in the effort and go ask for help. I also now have to study for an exam on my own time, whereas in high school we got a chance to study for it in class. Comparing myself to what is expected of society, I’ve have just started reaching the surface. I’ve just started to slowly rise and understand what it’s like to be a true student, which can lead me to understand higher education and a better societal placement. Societal Placement Analysis After combining my ascribed and achieved status together I hope to start climbing the societal scale of social placements after I graduate.
A social placement is where you fall in each category of social classes. Being a part of the lower class has opened my eyes to see that being a student and achieving beyond that will help me get out of the lower class, especially when I don’t have to depend on anyone to clean and cook for me because I do it all myself. If I didn’t have the ascribed status as a Hmong daughter and the achieved status of a student, I wouldn’t be able to begin to imagine where in life I would be, because growing up in this kind of life style is all I knew. Growing up I have envied other of their intricate life style, but I would never trade my own to have it because there could have been a chance that I would not be happy. The status of being a student can greatly influence my placement in society later on in my life because higher education, leads to better chances of getting an amazing job. These statuses will affect my future privileges because they are things that make me successful, having an education and being able to take care of
myself. Conclusion They’re two different statuses that I currently hold, a Hmong daughter and a student. Having the title Hmong daughter was ascribed and the title student was achieved. Living with these two statuses, sometimes can be difficult, but they can lead me to a better societal placement in the future. There are times when these statuses clash and in times when they do, I have to pick which one is more important, because they both equally take up a lot of time, effort and dedication, but with these statuses that have taught me that I don’t have to be like society and I don’t have to meet their expectation, I only have to meet my own and it will bring me to where I belong in society.
In conversations many people get defensive when someone says, “You have this because of your privilege” they feel as though that the person they are talking with doesn’t understand that they have worked hard for what they have, however that is not the point that anyone is trying to make. What someone in that position is saying is that although you have worked hard to get where you are your journey have been well furnished with privilege on account of your race. It is said to think about that you got somewhere in life due to the color of your skin, but it is also sadder to think that someone got declined a job, got stereotyped, or got overlooked because of their race or
I will be analyzing the essay “Class in America --2012”. The topic of this essay is talking about does it matter what your social and economical standings are, and do they play a role in if you succeed in life. I personally agree with this. If someone is hard working and willing to do the job then I feel that they can be successful. Their background, race, and social and economical standings don’t justify everything that they are.
In learning about different ways that we as a society categorize and divide people, it is essential to understand what about people it is that we feel the need to label and differentiate between. When a person is born into this world, there are certain statuses that they automatically obtain, called ascribed statuses (Henslin 98). These statuses determine each person’s social location in society. This includes gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and ability. Each person has their own unique social location, and is affected in a different way than the next person may be. As a white, queer, cisgender, middle class, female, in relatively good health, I have always been relatively privileged.
Throughout one’s life an individual moves through various phases and within these phases are status passages which are all important in their own right. Status passages can include graduations, weddings, child births as well as other important life events that mark a transition from one particular social status to another. A significant status passage, which is often overlooked, occurs in the latter part of life. This is the act of moving into a nursing home because of physical or mental infirmity, a major status passage in its own right. Notwithstanding that this status passage takes place in late adulthood it is still a very important, influential and, for many, a highly disturbing identity shift. In this essay I will explore the concept of status passages in the context of a social interactionest framework, followed by an examination of the transition into nursing homes as a status passage that is separated into three main phases: separation; transition and reincorporation.
Bobbie Harro states in “The cycle of socialization” (2000), “No one brings us a survey, in the womb, inquiring which gender, class, religion, sexual orientation, cultural group, ability status, or age we might want to be born. These identities are ascribed to us at birth through no effort or decision or choice of our own” (p.16). I was born into a system, just like everyone else, where I was judged and labeled due to the social categories that I identify with. What I have experienced throughout my schooling has shaped and molded my sense of self and the way that I view myself in terms of my gender and race/ethnicity. I live in a world where I have been both praised and ridiculed for these differing characteristics that seem to define me, but
In America, we have such a diverse society. We are made up of people from every country, and thousands of different origins. Every man and women experience this society in a different way, and some experiences are better than others. Every race also experiences it differently. Through this class, we examined these differences, and the downsides, that come with living in this society. There were so many ways this class affected my life on an academic, professional and personal level. It has caused me to think differently in some ways and in others, it enforced the ways that I was thinking prior to this class, and has changed the way I see aspects of the world.
An interesting and compelling idea is discussed in the “Equality, Expectation, and Envy” section of Alain de Botton’s book, Status Anxiety. Botton discusses the way that we as a culture define ourselves among others is based upon how we view the status of others around us. He also argues that we feel a drive to consistently achieve a social status that is equal to or greater than that of our peers. As a whole, Botton uses this chapter of his book to argue that our need for social status, as well as our natural envy, is directly related to who we see as our equals, the social construct that by nature we are all equal, as well as the relationship between expectations and achievements.
To begin, status presents itself because people shouldn’t let others bring them down. Especially in the novel “The Skin I’m In” by Sharon Flake. In the novel status has a very huge impact in Maleeka’s life. Maleeka’s is a young black girl who is constantly getting picked on in school about being too skinny. For example, Maleeka’s is kind of a new girl in school and since she is so skinny and darker than others they just talk and push her around. Maleeka was a very good girl and she didn’t deserve to be called names like that. To continue, not only does status plays a role in Sharon Flake’s novel, it always plays a role in the larger world.
Societies can be divided into different stratas which are made up of a hierarchy of unequal social group; this is known as social stratification. The division depends on an individual 's social importance, wealth and status. Status is an individual’s social importance or prestige. Ascribed status and achieved status are two types of statuses with different meanings. Ascribed status is a status based on something a person was born with and achieved status which is known as
A sociologist will also find this topic interesting because of how the individual believes he is of a higher status than others. Status is defined as a prestige a person or group feels that could be formed through education, money, background, popularity etc. When someone who feels that their better background ...
My ascribed statuses include the fact that I am a 19 year old, white female. My achieved statuses included the fact that I am in college working toward a degree, I work as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) in a nursing home, and that my marital status is single. Currently, my master/dominant status is that I am a Student at the University of North Dakota. I believe this is currently my master status because whenever anybody asks about what I have been up to, the answer is usually school; family members, friends, and acquaintances are usually interested in where I am going to school at and what I intend to major
In conclusion our individual place in society is based on what roles we play. Different roles create a basis for different experiences and different values all from that role, and as a person who plays many roles each experience just builds on your own character. The more you are exposed to different social labels the greater chance that you will be under a social norm category. As a family oriented individual my place in society is more so based off of my family’s standards and most everything comes back to benefits for relatives.
Throughout the progression of our lives we are giving the options to pick the best things that we show interest in, desire or will please us. We pick our friends who share the same interest as us, lovers that our hearts desire, and our careers that will please us. There are very few things that are set in stone for us when we are born, or an ascribed status. Ascribed status is a point in a social system that is beyond a person’s control. It is not received, but rather something people are born with and had no control over. These ascribed statues include our sex, race, national background and of course our family. The ascribed statues that are given to us at birth can have a huge impact on our achieved statues but benefit us as a person.
Ascribed status begins as a social class system. Ascribed status is inherited. A person is assigned to a certain status at birth. Some examples of this include race, sex, gender, family origins, and economic status. Ascribed status ties in with the concept of biological determinism because this is human thoughts and actions that are inherited. Achieved status is a social position that is assigned to an individual without any regard to their personal characteristics. Achieved status is earned and involves skills such as ability and intelligence. Both of these statuses are the foundations to the gender ideology.
All around the world, people have been placed in categories. These types of status placements have effected many individuals. Image having to deal with arrogant people continuously, because of their social class. Or feeling like you’re worthless, because how others view you. Many individuals feel as though social classes strip them of their identity. It makes us feel as not as important as the upper class. Stereotyping has always been a lifelong hassle for certain individuals. People are often automatically judged by the way they look, where they live at, how much money is earned or inherited, etc. The list goes on and on. Although the majority of society tries to end segregation, social class is still considered a form of discrimination.