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Reading and Study Skills, 7/e

John Langan

Mastery Tests

Textbook Study II

This selection is from a sociology textbook. Complete the study process that follows it.

Statuses

A status is a position an individual occupies in a social structure. In a sense, a status is a social address. It tells people where the individual "fits" in society--as a mother, college professor, senior citizen, or prison inmate. Knowing a person’s status--knowing that you are going to meet a judge or a janitor, a ten-year-old or a fifty-year-old--tells you something about how that person will behave toward you and how you are expected to behave toward him or her. Misjudging status is a frequent cause of embarrassment--as when a woman invites a man she assumes is a bachelor to an intimate dinner and discovers he is married.

Social statuses can be divided into two groups. Some social statuses are achieved, or attained through personal effort. For example, individuals achieve the status of senator or sanitation-man, concert pianist or soccer coach, wife or divorcee, through their own choices and behavior. The statuses of convict, junkie, and high school dropout are also achieved. Other social statuses are ascribed, or assigned to the individual at birth or at different stages in the life cycle. For instance, men and women, blacks and whites, occupy different statuses in American society because of "what they are," not because of anything they do. Age is another ascribed status. Children occupy one position in society, adults another, elderly people still another. Individuals at each level are expected to act their age. It is important to note that while individuals have considerable control over achieved statuses, they have little or no control over ascribed statuses. The Prince of Wales, for example, was born to his position; he is a prince whether he likes it or not; there is almost nothing he can do to change his "social address."


1		Take about fifteen seconds to preview the passage above. The title tells you that the passage is about .



2		How many terms are set off in italics in the passage?

Complete the following study notes on "Statuses":


3		Status --



4		Two kinds of



5		What is the first kind? Give examples.



6		What is the second kind? Give examples.



7		Jot down in the spaces below the recall words that could help you recite the material to yourself.

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