Contemporary articles citing Ridgeway C (1991) Soc Forces

status, theories, states, characteristics, contributions, include, account, second, understanding, would

Shiao, Jiannbin, Thomas Bode, Amber Beyer & Daniel Selvig. 2012. "The Genomic Challenge to the Social Construction of Race." Sociological Theory. 30:2 67-88. Link
Recent research on the human genome challenges the basic assumption that human races have no biological basis. In this article, we provide a theoretical synthesis that accepts the existence of genetic clusters consistent with certain racial classifications as well as the validity of the genomic research that has identified the clusters, without diminishing the social character of their context, meaning, production, or consequences. The first part of this article describes the social constructionist account of race as lacking biological reality, its main shortcomings, and our proposed solution: the concept of clinal classes. The second part discusses the character of the group differences that would be consistent with clinal classes and introduces the concept of genomic individualism, which extends an emerging model for understanding biosocial causation to include the genetic effects of ancestry. The third part develops the argument for a ``bounded nature'' reformulation of racial constructionism that reconceptualizes racial and ethnic categorization as the social perception of ancestry. The final part summarizes the article's contributions and outlines implications for future research.

Kurzman, Charles, Chelise Anderson, Clinton Key, Youn Lee, Mairead Moloney, Alexis Silver & Maria Van. 2007. "Celebrity Status." Sociological Theory. 25:4 347-367. Link
Max Weber's fragmentary writings on social status suggest that differentiation on this basis should disappear as capitalism develops. However, many of Weber's examples of status refer to the United States, which Weber held to be the epitome of capitalist development. Weber hints at a second form of status, one generated by capitalism, which might reconcile this contradiction, and later theorists emphasize the continuing importance of status hierarchies. This article argues that such theories have missed one of the most important forms of contemporary status: celebrity. Celebrity is an omnipresent feature of contemporary society, blazing lasting impressions in the memories of all who cross its path. In keeping with Weber's conception of status, celebrity has come to dominate status ``honor,'' generate enormous economic benefits, and lay claim to certain legal privileges. Compared with other types of status, however, celebrity is status on speed. It confers honor in days, not generations; it decays over time, rather than accumulating; and it demands a constant supply of new recruits, rather than erecting barriers to entry.

Jasso, G. 2004. "The Tripartite Structure of Social Science Analysis." Sociological Theory. 22:3 401-431. Link
The goal of sociology, and all social science, is to produce reliable knowledge about human behavioral and social phenomena. To reach that goal, we undertake three kinds of activities: theoretical work, empirical work, and, even more basic, we develop frameworks that assemble the fundamental questions together with the fundamental tools that will be used to address them. This article examines the three sets of activities and their interrelations. Both deductive and nondeductive theory are highlighted, as are three kinds of empirical work-testing the predictions of deductive theories, testing the propositions produced by nondeductive theories, and extratheoretical measurement and estimation. Illustrations are drawn from the fields of status, justice, and migration.

Berger, J, CL Ridgeway & M Zelditch. 2002. "Construction of Status and Referential Structures." Sociological Theory. 20:2 157-179. Link
Beliefs about diverse status characteristics have a common core content of performance capacities and qualities made up of two features: hierarchy (superior/inferior capacities) and role-differentiation (instrumental/expressive qualities). Whatever the status characteristic, its more-valued state tends to be defined as superior and instrumental, and the less-valued state tends to be defined as inferior but expressive. We account for this in terms of the typification of differences in behavioral inequalities and profiles that emerge in task oriented social interaction. Status construction theory argues that new configurations of the states of a nonvalued discriminating characteristic, status values, and status typifications of actors possessing these states arise from a similar process. The theory we present here makes new predictions on the construction and institutionalization of status characteristics and generalized beliefs about the relation of status characteristics to social rewards, called referential structures. This theory, we argue, integrates micro and macro elements in a way that may be applicable to explaining the social construction of cultural objects more generally.

Berger, J. 2000. "Theory and Formalization: Some Reflections on Experience." Sociological Theory. 18:3 482-489. Link
I describe in this paper some of my efforts in developing formal theories of social processes. These include work on models of occupational mobility, on models to describe the emergence of expectations out of performance evaluations, and on the graph theory formulation of the Status Characteristics theory Not all models have been equally significant in developing theory. However, the graph theory formulation has played a central role in the growth of the Expectation States program. It has been involved in the generalization of theories, the integration of theories, and in the construction of highly sensitive tests of theories that would be impossible without the inferential capacities of formalization.

Sauder, Michael. 2006. "Third Parties and Status Position: How the Characteristics of Status Systems Matter." Theory and Society. 35:3 299-321. Link
For organizations, as for individuals, status position governs access to a variety of valued rewards. To uncover the causes of status position, recent research has focused on the relationship between the attributes of individual organizations and their standing in a status hierarchy. Although this research has made valuable contributions to our understanding of both the consequences of status to organizations and the determinants of status, its emphasis on organizational attributes has not addressed how the characteristics of status systems shape the nature and distribution of these positions. Drawing on data from 134 in-depth interviews with law school administrators and faculty, this article investigates how variations in the characteristics of status systems influence status processes. Concentrating on the theoretically underdeveloped role that third parties play in status systems, I examine how a third party change - the emergence and increasing popularity of the U.S. News and World Report's law school rankings - has had powerful effects on the shape of the status hierarchy of legal education as well as the values that underlie this hierarchy. These changes have, in turn, transformed the landscape of positions that are available to actors, the process by which these positions are allocated among various actors, and the bases upon which this allocation is carried out.