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A person may have status of a daughter, wife, mother, student, worker, church member and a citizen. The term "status set" was coined by Robert K. Merton in 1957. He made a clear distinction between a "role set" and a "status set". [1] Merton stated that status set is the set of statuses in a society while role set is the set of roles in a society
In a society, the relative honor and prestige accorded to individuals depends on how well an individual is perceived to match a society's values and ideals (e.g., being pious in a religious society or wealthy in a capitalist society). Status often comes with attendant rights, duties, and lifestyle practices. [6]
Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally related groups or sets of roles, with different functions, meanings, or purposes. Examples of social structure include family, religion, law, economy, and class. It contrasts with "social system", which refers to the parent structure in which these various structures are embedded.
According to Parsons, social systems rely on a system of language, and culture must exist in a society in order for it to qualify as a social system. [4] Parsons' work laid the foundations for the rest of the study of social systems theory and ignited the debate over what framework social systems should be built around, such as actions ...
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.
A social class (or, simply, class), as in class society, is a set of subjectively defined concepts in the social sciences and political theory centered on models of social stratification in which people are grouped into a set of hierarchical social categories, [5] the most common being the upper, middle, and lower classes.
Robert K. Merton describes "role set" as the "complement of social relationships in which persons are involved because they occupy a particular social status." [2] For instance, the role of a doctor has a role set comprising colleagues, nurses, patients, hospital administrators, etc. The term "role set" was coined by Merton in 1957.
In capitalist society movement between classes is a possibility. Hence the use of the term "The American Dream" to show the ability of people to ascend to a higher class through hard work and ingenuity. "Class composition is forever changing, to the point where there may be a completely new set of families". [15]