Status

Personally, things which have been ascribed to me are those that I have had no choice in: such as being Scottish, white and of a certain class and being female,but some could argue that female attibutes are achieved, for example, my level of knowledge and ability to understand others in society. For me, a thing I can think of that is achieved is being a school pupil as I have personally made the choice to return to school to complete my sixth year.

A certain status which can be either ascribed or achieved is a social class as some people are born into families of a lower class and are therefore more likely to underachieve at school due to the imitation of parents and peers who did not achieve much at school and therefore did not get well paid jobs so cannot afford for the child to go to university. This can cause the child to underachieve as they feel there is no point in doing well at school if they cannot use these grades to get anywhere career-wise. Whereas, this can also be described as achieved as students can choose to take advantage of the free school system and try to achieve the best grades possible and it is true that people do not necessarily need to go to university to get a well paid job.

I also think that 'norms' are an important thing to recognise when thinking about status as it is true that people of certain classes act in ways which are seen as the normal way to act and in the way that is most accepted, but the norm can differ from class to class and also in different situations. For example, it is seen as the norm to wear ball gowns at a very formal event but it would not be the norm to wear a ball gown to go to the supermarket to do the shopping. Also, it can be said that the norm changes in different situations as there is a certain way in which people act, for example, at an informal party, but they would not normally act in such a way in a school setting rather than a party situation.