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In this article we will discuss about the two main ways by which individual occupy statuses i.e. by ascription and by achievement.
We may illustrate ascribed status with reference to the status based on sex, age, order of birth, biological relationship to others (such as, father, mother, brothers, sisters, etc.) and birth in a particular family. Sex status is obviously ascribed. One is born a male or a female.
The difference in sex makes a lot of difference in the upbringing of the child inasmuch as a male child is expected by the society to perform a role different from that of a female child. Similarly, age status depends on factors about which we can do nothing, “beyond disguising our age by a few conceits and subterfuges”.
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With the passage of years, one grows old and nothing can be done to check the process of aging. The order of birth is likewise ascribed. One is born the eldest child or the youngest child or a child between these two extremes. This is important from the point of view of society. For example, in societies where primogeniture prevails the eldest son inherits the property of his father.
According to Hindu tradition, the eldest son enjoys a privilege to the exclusion of all his brothers of performing certain religious rites. Besides, in almost all societies the eldest or the youngest child has a special place in the family in terms of parental affection and indulgence.
Similarly, being a brother or a sister is a kinship status and, like all other kinship statuses, is thrust upon the individual without having any choice in the matter. Birth in a particular family is similarly ascribed. One is born a Brahmin or a Sudra and one occupies a high or a low status in Hindu society accordingly.
An individual may be extremely fortunate in being born in a family enjoying an honored place in the society in terms of its scholarly attainments for two or three successive generations.
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The concerned individual naturally basks in the sunshine of family reputation and enjoys a prestigious status in the estimation of the society. An individual, on the other hand, may suffer in terms of social prestige because of his being born in a family having a bad reputation in the estimation of society.
If ascribed status implies membership of involuntary groups, achieved status means membership of voluntary groups. Thus, marital and parental statuses are achieved. One does not have to become a husband or a wife or a parent.
Educational and occupational statuses are also achieved. One has to go through an educational process in order to become a graduate. Similarly, one becomes an engineer by acquiring the necessary qualifications.
Sociological Significance of the Distinction:
From sociological point of view, the distinction between ascribed and achieved statuses is significant. Usually, emphasis in a traditional society is more upon ascription than on achievement.
An individual is evaluated mainly in terms of his kinship connections, caste and family tradition. Emphasis in a modern society, on the other hand, is more on achievement rather than on ascription. An individual is judged by what he is rather than by the group to which he belongs.
We may note, in passing, a very significant comment of Talcott Parsons on the modernisation process in a traditional society. Since merit norms or achievement values are superseded in traditional societies by more dominant values of ascription, the possibilities for economic, political and other forms of socio-cultural development are very much restricted in such societies.
Modification of these societies can begin only after appropriate cultural environment is created, so that achievement values emerge as a dominant force.
Another allied aspect of sociological importance is the fact that ascribed status influences, to a large extent, one’s achievements in life. An individual might be born with in-born talents of a very high order. But if his ascribed status is such as to prevent him from utilizing his talents fully, he may not succeed in bringing into full play his potentialities.
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For instance, a talented boy or girl, born in a poor Harijan family, may be deprived of an opportunity of completing even his primary education. On the other hand, a boy or girl of mediocre calibre may be so favorably circumstanced because of his birth as to be a successful man in life.
It is; therefore, wrong to assume that ascription and achievement are two distinct categories altogether, having no relation with each other.
Kingsley Davis has added another dimension to the debate concerning ascription vs. achievement. In his view, the problem of a simple-stable society, with its emphasis on ascribed status and rigid institutional patterns, “is its lack of adaptability to changing conditions”. He goes further to say that such societies “may pursue ancient custom to the point of ossification and disaster”.
The complex-unstable and specialised society, with its emphasis on achieved statuses and flexible institutional patterns, on the other hand, “runs the risk of uncontrolled individualism with consequent loss of social cohesion”.
He expresses the fear that “intense specialization leads to a failure of society’s members to understand one another”, and that, as a consequence thereof, “social order will disappear” in the absence of some sort of integrating force binding the members together.
The danger inherent in a society in which achievement values emerge as a dominant force is indicated by Davis in unambiguous terms:
“The more a society becomes dependent upon specialization and its statuses become accessible through individual achievement, the more tenuous becomes the integrating principle unless (and this is the difficult part) the realm of sacred common values remains superior to the everyday world of competitive interest”.
Thus, each kind of society—the simple-stable and the complex-unstable—has its peculiar problems.
Davis emphasises that both ascription and achievement are indispensable for the health of the society “in which ascribed status helps to provide the constancy, achieved status the change”.
The way the ascribed status helps to maintain the stability of society is described by him in these words:
“To fix persons in statuses independently of their personal qualities requires a firm system of institutional controls, Ascribed statuses are generally broad ones in which the technical aspect is not complicated; the important things are sentiment, custom, and ritual rather than rational skill. To dispense with ascribed statuses altogether would knock a powerful prop from under the common values and ends which give society its cohesiveness, especially if these were further destroyed by scientific criticism and individualistic motivation”.
Davis argues that apart from societal integration, ascribed status also helps considerably in integrating individual personality. He says that there is every reason to believe that the “the individual could not stand the insecurity, conflict, and turmoil” which would follow in the wake of emergence of achievement value as a dominant force at the cost of ascription value.
“The integration of the personality”, says Davis, “reflects the integration of society, and a regime of pure competition would produce neither the one nor the other.
He further asserts that status ascription should not be regarded “merely as an anachronism from a pre-democratic era”, but rather as “a universal and systematic part of society on which the process of socialization and the maintenance of solidarity are both dependent”.
A society cannot avoid ascribing a status to the uninitiated child and thereby protecting him from competition at a very early age and creating conditions conducive to the transmission of the formal and informal aspects of societal culture.
Ascription enables the child to be familiar with and get the advantages of authoritarian and equalitarian relationships.