The German sociologist

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...

formulated a

three-component theory of stratification The three-component theory of stratification, More widely known as Weberian stratification or the three class system, was developed by German sociologist Max Weber with class, status and party as distinct ideal types. Weber developed a multidime ...

that defines a status group (also status class and status estate) as a group of people within a

society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soc ...

who can be differentiated by non-economic qualities such as

honour Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...

prestige Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.) Prestige may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnet ...

ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

, race, and

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...

. The German terms are ''Stand'' (status group) and ''Stände'' (status groups) To date, sociologists study the matter of “status incongruence” — both in post-industrial societies, and in pre-industrial societies. Status groups emerge from "the house of honor", and that such status-honor stands in contrast with: *

social class A social class is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes. Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, inc ...

, based on

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...

ally determined relationship in the house of the marketplace *

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

, based on affiliations in the political domain, or the house of power Status groups, social classes, and political parties are the constituent concepts of the

. Discussion of the relationships among status groups, social class, and political parties occurs in Weber's essay "Class, Status, Party", written before the First World War (1914–18); the first translation into English, by Hans Gerth and

C. Wright Mills Charles Wright Mills (August 28, 1916 – March 20, 1962) was an American sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills published widely in both popular and intellectual journals, and ...

, was published in the 1940s. Dagmar Waters and colleagues produced a newer English translation of the essay, titled “The Distribution of Power within the Community: Classes, Stände, Parties” (2010), published in the “Journal of Classical Sociology”; the title of the new English-language translation includes the German word “Stände” (status groups) in place of the English term. Status groups feature in the varieties of social stratification addressed in popular literature and in the academic literature, such as categorization of people by race,

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

, racial caste, professional groups, community groups, nationalities, etc.Waters, Tony and Dagmar Waters (2016). Are the Terms 'Socioeconomic Status' and 'Class Status' Oxymorons for Max Weber? Palgrave Communications http://www.palgrave-journals.com/articles/palcomms20162 These contrast with relationships rooted in economic relations, which Weber calls "class". Sociologist

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence ...

discusses

cultural capital In the field of sociology, cultural capital comprises the social assets of a person (education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress, etc.) that promote social mobility in a stratified society. Cultural capital functions as a social relatio ...

and

symbolic capital In sociology and anthropology, symbolic capital can be referred to as the resources available to an individual on the basis of honor, prestige or recognition, and serves as value that one holds within a culture. A war hero, for example, may have ...

. Like Weber, he comments on how non-monetary means are used to confer and deny status to individuals and groups.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Status Class Social classes

See also

References