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An example of ascribed irreversible status is age. His conclusion is based on the fact that an ascribed status within a social structure is indicative of the behavior that one can exhibit but it does not explain the action itself. Ascribed status is an arbitrary system of classifying individuals that is not fixed in the way that most people think.
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Ascribed statuses are fixed for an individual at birth, while achieved status is determined by social rewards an individual acquires during his or her lifetime as a result of the exercise of ability and/or perseverance. [17] Examples of ascribed status include castes, race, and beauty among others. Meanwhile, achieved statuses are akin to one's ...
Marx also described two other classes, the petite bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat. The petite bourgeoisie is like a small business class that never really accumulates enough profit to become part of the bourgeoisie, or even challenge their status. The lumpenproletariat is the underclass, those with little to no social status.
One definition of social transformation is the process by which an individual alters the socially ascribed social status of their parents into a socially achieved status for themselves (status transformation). Another definition refers to large scale social change as in cultural reforms or transformations (societal transformation).
In 1950 sociologist Kingsley Davis proposed that status is ascribed to an infant as a consequence of the position of the socializing agents (usually the parents). Because of such subjective connection of the infant with people who already have a status in the social structure, it immediately gives the child membership in the society and a specific place in the system of social status.
Achieved status is distinguished from ascribed status by virtue of being earned through the set of accomplished tasks and/or goals. Many positions are a mixture of achievement and ascription. For instance, a person who has achieved the status of being a physician is more likely to have the ascribed status of being born into a wealthy family.
Peter M. Blau (1918–2002) and Otis Duncan (1921–2004) were the first sociologists to isolate the concept of status attainment. Their initial thesis stated that the lower the level from which a person starts, the greater is the probability that he will be upwardly mobile, simply because many more occupational destinations entail upward mobility for men with low origins than for those with ...