Review and critique of the main conceptions of social position, status, or situation

Abstract

In sociological literature, very different conceptions have emerged regarding concepts that, in some sense, express the location of the given individual or group in society and that are typically referred to by the terms social position, social status, or social situation. In empirical sociological research, these concepts are often used as independent or dependent variables, and the different conceptions that apply to them partly determine the appropriate methodology for conducting the research. In this article, on the one hand, I review the main conceptions of the concepts of social position, status, or situation and, on the other hand, I point out the main interpretation problems of these conceptions. From the points of view of sociological perspectives, I distinguish (1) theoretically neutral or weakly structuralist, (2) traditional class theoretical, conflict theoretical in a narrower sense, centre-periphery theoretical, elite theoretical and capital theoretical conceptions, which are typical of the structuralist perspective, as well as (3) normativist, (4) creativist, (5) rationalist and rationalist-phenomenalist, (6) network theoretical and relationship conceptions of these concepts. I point out the main interpretation problems of these conceptions from a general sociological theoretical point of view and, in general, I regard the insufficiency and/or inadequacy of the theoretical grounding of these conceptions as the most significant problem.