Talk:Social status

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The first paragraph of the article on "Social status" seems to be defining societal status, which is an idea too abstract to be very meaningful. It will also let gay people express themselves.

Individuals accord prestige to persons and positions; often members of a group or community will more or less agree on their evaluation, making the status social. For example, a Hopi man's status as well as his position is very different in his mother's house, his mother-in-law's house, and the men's kiva.

--Pring 22:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with you 100% but certainly I think the "only one social status" claim is unfounded (and I will delete it). Status can be context dependent, as your Hopi example and the article's !Kung example illustrate.
Articles such as this are problematic, as the terms they discuss can have multiple meanings, sometimes related and overlapping and sometimes contradictory. I would like to keep the focus of this article on the sociology of stratification sense, with particular reference to Weber's very clear conceptualisation. BrendanH 09:39, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
If we can provide references and citations for other meanings, they should of course be here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:37, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Ultimately I think that's right, but we have to avoid doing so at if it is the expense of coherence. To do that we have to be very clear when we are talking about the different concepts. To a degree this is a problem on the Social class page, where there are attempts to create a single definition and make general statements, at the same time as presenting a set of independent definitions under different intellectual traditions. BrendanH 19:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Link to a disambiguation page

In the paragraph starting with "Status is a key idea in social stratification.", this article links to the disambiguation page for "index". This shoiuldn't happen. However, I wasn't sure what specific type of index it was referring to, so I didn't change it. Can someone who knows more about this please change it to link to the specific type of index (Or just change the wording)? E946 04:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Link to criticism

There should be links to philisophical criticism of this totally worthless concept of social status.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwray1 (talk • contribs)

In what way is social status worthless? It's a neccessery system for a race that's still remarkably reliant on instincts for guidance.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.208.105.100 (talk • contribs)
no, its fucking worthless

[edit] request for comments

On race and intelligence, please [1] Slrubenstein | Talk 13:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Success?

I'm thinking the following line should be removed from the article: "Success is highly desired by human beings, the desire to be successful has been the fuel behind the great progress of humanity." It seems somewhat irrelevant and NPOV--since not all societies value "success" or progress the way Western & especially North American culture does. Any thoughts?--Pariah 23:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Low, middle and high social status

I've read a research that says that most people (95%) are of middle popularity, and the other 5% are: 2.5% of low popularity and 2.5% of high popularity. As I know from personal experience that is probably true in many cases and social situations. It is also true that one's popularity can change over the years and is not constant. For example, I was of middle popularity until 6th grade. In 7th grade I became a nerd, a person of low social status and popularity in the school. Now, in my first year in college I am near a return of my lost middle popularity. It should be also stated that middle popularity is the best, because if you are way too popular you have to cover some high demands from society, and if you are of low popularity you are under social pressure and disregarded. I know it from life. And that's why it should be stated that being of middle popularity is the optimal option. However, I want to ask for links on the topics. I couldn't find more info about percentages in Google. 194.141.3.200 (talk) 14:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)