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Status Attainment

Status Attainment: A Sociological Reassessment

Sociologists have for a long time been anxious to understand why some individual achieve success and others fail. As a sub-classification of questions surrounding social mobility, the specific issue of "status attainment" was first formulated by the pioneer work of Blau and Duncan (1967). They asserted that the best question to ask is not "How are people mobile?" but rather "How do people attain their statuses?" (Stark, 1996, p. 280). Their revised question enabled researchers to ascertain "how people acquire a status with or without being mobile" (Stark, 1996, p. 200). Since Blau and Duncan's landmark study and their presentation of an initial research model into this sociological field of inquiry, additional variables have been included to both broaden and intensify the field. One factor which appears to need additional scrutiny is the issue of mentor availability. If status attainment is to be at least partially identified as acquiring a better societal position than one's parents than additional research is needed to show how individuals fare once they are ushered into arenas which can provide access to upward mobility. If individuals are granted access to increased educational opportunities and on-site job opportunities but then blocked from advancement from within these societal structures, then no true alteration of social status can be achieved. To focus on both positive and negative models of mentor patterning might help account for the failure of individuals who should have been able to economically and professionally advance but were held back from doing so.

Although Blau and Duncan's model of status attainment is comparatively new, it still has been formulated in an era of remarkable, if not radical, social change. Review of Blau and Duncan's earliest research indicates that they began with a relatively narrow level of focus. Working with data collected from ...

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Status Attainment. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 20:24, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1692855.html