University Sociology Assignment: Status, Role, and Role Conflict

This assignment is a reflective essay applying sociological concepts of status and role to personal experiences. The essay begins with a statement of purpose, outlining the use of sociological concepts to explain chosen statuses and their associated roles. Five statuses are selected and categorized as master, achieved, or ascribed. The essay then focuses on the master status of being a teacher, detailing the roles associated with it, such as disseminating course material, counseling students, and handling administrative duties. Finally, the essay discusses role conflict, specifically how the roles associated with the master status of a teacher can inhibit the fulfillment of roles related to other achieved statuses, such as being a wife. The essay concludes with a list of references supporting the sociological concepts discussed.

Running head: STATUS AND ROLE
STATUS AND ROLE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1STATUS AND ROLE
Statement of purpose
This essay shall be a reflective account of the application of the sociological concepts of
status and role. The concepts shall be applied to personal life and the examples shall be related to
them for explaining the chosen statuses and the roles that are attached to it. In this essay, the
discussion shall be focusing upon chosen five statuses and they shall be explained against the
background of the sociological conceptual understanding. Having done that, one of the statuses
shall be taken up for discussing the roles associated with it, and the conflicts of role thatare
associated with it.
Role and Status in Sociology
Status in sociological terms refers to the achievements a human being earns as a result of
the work they do. Status could be of three types, master, achieved or ascribed. Master status is
dependent upon the most important achievement of an individual which becomes an important
part of his or her life. It is usually that status which is considered as the most important part of
one’s life and is considered to be having more importance compared to all other statuses of an
individual. The master status is more often than not determined by the profession that one is into
and that becomes a determining factor of one’s position and mark of identity in the society. The
achieved status on the other hand is not fundamentally different from master status. The only
difference is that it is not that important as the master status and is just another status which one
has achieved but does not contribute significantly to the shaping of the identity of an individual
majorly (Stam et al., 2016). The ascribed status is on the other hand not an achievement trough
actions like the previous two statuses, rather this particular status is achieved as a result of one’s

2STATUS AND ROLE
birth or to the community one belongs to. It is a matter of achieving something by means of
default. Role on the other had refers to the set of responsibilities that one is supposed to fulfill by
means of the achievement of the particular status. Thus one conclusively say that with each
status there comes a specific set of roles to be fulfilled in the societal sphere to give the status a
touch of legitimacy (Giddens & Sutton, 2017).
Chosen statuses for discussion
In this section five statuses shall be mentioned of and it shall also be stated whether they
are master status, ascribed status, or achieved status. The chosen five statuses are the status of
being a teacher, which is the master status; the status of being a wife, which is an achieved
status; the status of being a school topper which is an achieved status; the status of being a award
winning singer which is an achieved status and the status of being a Protestant Christian which is
an ascribed status.
Chosen specific status for discussion of the roles
For the purpose of analysis only the master status shall be taken up for analysis. The
master status is that of being a teacher, which is the professional identity and the identity which
is also the mark of social identity. The roles that are attached to being a teacher are that of
disseminating the course material to the students, being their counselors and catering to their
emotional needs, handling of administrative duties of the school, acting as a role model to the
students, and fulfilling the duties of an ideal citizen. These are the specific roles that one is
supposed to play as a result of achieving the master status of being a teacher. These are essential

3STATUS AND ROLE
roles which one is supposed to play in order to do justice to the master status, which is the key
determinant to the dominant position of an individual in the societal sphere.
Role Conflict
Role conflict is a situation whereby the role to be played as result of fulfilling the role of
a particular status gets inhibited by the role of another status. The master status in this regard is
that of being a teacher and the role conflict has been that the fulfilling of the roles of the master
status has inhibited the fulfillment of the roles of the other achieved statuses which is especially
of fulfilling the roles of the achieved status of being a wife. The familial duties which are in
tandem with the traditional bent of thought has been inhibited as a result of the professional
commitment to the master status of being a teacher.

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References
Giddens, A., & Sutton, P. W. (2017). Essential concepts in sociology. John Wiley & Sons.
Stam, K., Sieben, I., Verbakel, E., & de Graaf, P. M. (2016). Employment status and subjective
well-being: The role of the social norm to work. Work, employment and society, 30(2),
309-333.