Status is the ranking of groups or individual persons within a certain and specific perspective based on a given criteria. This perspective refers to the hierarchy of esteem and reputation that exists between certain groups. It therefore establishes which group or individual shall interact with which other group and how that shall be done in accordance to the respect disserved from by given group.
Therefore, roles in a given status group can be stratified according to the given expectation of the group, for example, cooks and caregivers or can be got from experience. As a result, functions include the manner a certain group is patterned in order to perform its function for the sake of the other groups as a whole.
The society is made up of various types of groups which have different racial and ethnic backgrounds and have a certain degree of cohesion due to common interests and values in life like race, religion and ethnicity. In the society there are various types of groups which are very different from each other. First we have the primary groups.
This group is usually small in number and the group has members who are very personal and affectionate to each other. Members of this group have a relationship that is usually kinship- oriented for example families. The relation between this group lasts for so many years with a face-to-face communication.
Secondly, we have the secondary groups; they are much larger than the primary groups and include formal and institution type of relations. This group can last as long as the members do not disband it, therefore they are not permanent as the primary group. Roles in this group can be interchanged between members and it is more tenuous and lacks the affection displayed in primary groups.
There are times when the primary group may be represented in a secondary group setting for example attending college represents association to the secondary group while there are relationships that were developed in the primary groups that a person belonged to. On the other hand, there are other organizations in the secondary setting that care affectionately about the welfare of another while a family in a primary setting, individuals may be hostile towards another thus there can be variances in the groups.
Hence from the above groupings of the society, different racial and ethnic groups have shown to see their own social status in a different way from the other. For example in a primary group, some ethnic groups like the Latinos and African Americans have shown to hold in high esteem the role that grandparents perform in the society and therefore they subscribe to that ideology than any other ethnic groupings like the white Americans.
On the other hand the status in a secondary setting, classmates in college have placed less emphasis on the role of ethnicity or race. In this group, the role of the members in the classroom can be interchanged to suit one’s own liking by merit and not based on the ethnicity of the individual.
In addition, the members of this group display different characters that they acquired from their own ethnic and racial primary groups and they tend to believe and act according to the norms of that group. However, they are tolerant to each other which make it possible for secondary group members to in interchange their roles without conflicts.
In a primary setting, an ethnic group like African Americans subscribe to the role that a father has to a family more than white Americans who though believe in the importance of a man to a family, do not subscribe to that norm as depicted by African American families.
In conclusion, it can be held that the status role and groups that an individual or society belongs to influences the type of social interaction that will occur between them and the way they view each other’s culture and way of life.