Status Group

The German sociologist Max Weber formulated a three-component theory of stratification in which he defines status group (also known as status class or status estate) as a group of people (part of a society) that can be differentiated on the basis of non-economical qualities like honour, prestige and religion. Since Max Weber, the issue of status inconsistency has been the object of many studies, particularly in the post-industrial societies and also because of an intervening factor: religion, particularly in emerging nations.

Weber writes that status groups emerge out of "the house of honor."

Such status honor is contrasted with:

• social class, based on economically determined relationship in the house of the marketplace.
• party, based on affiliations in the political domain, or the house of power.

Weber's discussion of the relationships between status groups, social class, and political parties is found in his essay "Class, Status, Party" which was written in German before World War I. The first English translation was done by Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills and published in the 1940s. This version has been republished many times since. A new English translation called "The distribution of power within the community: Classes, Stände, Parties" and translated by Dagmar Waters and her colleagues was recently published in the Journal of Classical Sociology (2010).