Status passage

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A status passage is understood to be a transition from one age, employment, career, family or social status to another. These transitions in the course of the biography can be planned or unplanned, desired or compulsory. They can go sooner or later than expected, or they can not occur at all. They are promising or risky (e.g. migration ), repeatable or non-repeatable (e.g. marriage and divorce ), reversible (e.g. entry into gainful employment) or irreversible (e.g. permanent disability). A status change can be associated with higher or lower prestige and a gain or loss in power or income. It is usually associated with typical changes in individual and social identity .

In the case of multi-dimensional status passages, several transitions take place at the same time or in close proximity, e.g. For example, when transitioning into adulthood, moving out of the parental home, starting studies or working. In the case of migration, there is a change from one nation state to another, from one social or educational status to another and / or from one activity to another. Complex status passages such as migration or advancement to another social class can take place across generations and still affect the status of children ( intergenerational status passage ).

Requirements and evaluation of status passages

Status passages are often linked to the successful completion of certain requirements and development tasks (e.g. certain skills, social maturity, adolescence , work experience, entrance exams). Their success or failure is evaluated by the individual, but also by his or her environment, who generally assess the early achievement of desirable goals positively, the average "age-appropriate" achievement neutral, but the delayed or non-achievement of the goals or even the refusal of passage negatively . So z. B. the competence acquired in the education system is evaluated by the employer in the process of status passage, and this evaluation gives the employee cause to make adjustments and improvements if necessary. Sometimes the first steps of a status passage already decide whether and how the later steps will be carried out. Under competitive conditions, e.g. B. on the job market or when admitting to subjects with numerus clausus , the status transitions are not only simply "run through", but it is clear from the start that not all applicants will achieve the status they want.

Hen party : ritual on the eve of the wedding - breaking porcelain or earthenware is said to bring good luck

Formalized status passages (e.g. access to social rights) often include a minimum age or a temporal entitlement to a certain status (e.g. service periods, insurance periods, length of stay) and public or private rituals (e.g. confirmation , acquittal) of trainees in handicrafts, civil marriage , wedding celebrations , naturalization ), sometimes also associated with appropriate ritual clothing or disguise. Sometimes the accompanying rituals are themselves degrading or even life-threatening, such as the initiation rites of young members of groups who defy legal regulations.

Vest of a candidate for full membership of the Spanish chapter of the rocker club Gunfighters MC (still without the coat of arms in the middle)

If the risks associated with status passage are high, they can be cushioned through social policy measures (e.g. unemployment benefits ). Society is permanently defining new social boundaries, the crossing of which requires effort; other boundaries disappear so that passages that were previously difficult are socially accepted, work effortlessly or are barely noticeable.

International comparison

The “assumptions of normality”, i.e. average social expectations with regard to status passages in the fields of labor market, vocational training and social policy, differ significantly internationally and culturally. These assumptions of normality are also accompanied by the idea of ​​a “ normal biography ”, which is no longer the rule today.

In continental Europe, status transitions are often standardized institutionally or through assumptions of normalcy. The time and sequence (e.g. when you retire, career paths in the public service based on the principle of seniority or (especially in southern) European companies, the duration of receipt of unemployment or parental benefit, etc.) are often predictable and formalizes the requirements for entry; but standardized transition patterns lose more and more of their normative power with increasing individualization of society. So z. B. the age range of the first higher education qualification, the marriage and the birth of the first child in the USA as in Europe.

In less regulated market societies like the USA, the job and career-related status passages are more subject to the dynamics of the market and individual decisions; they are less formalized.

The naturalization is a form of status passage, which is structurally very limited in many countries, including Israel, the Gulf States and in Japan. It is easier in Sweden or the Netherlands.

Conceptual and research history

As a precursor of the concept of the term can rites of passage or passages rites (French: rites of passage) apply. This originally ethnological concept was introduced in 1909 by the French Arnold van Gennep , who examined the ritualized transitions of a person between two stages of life or social conditions (e.g. initiation or separation rites).

The term status passage itself was coined by Glaser and Strauss (1971). Her research did not focus on the social, family or employment status of individuals and groups, but on the processes and mechanisms of transition within a social field or between different fields. Glaser and Strauss take the term very broadly: almost every individual or collective action changes the social status of an individual or a group. Almost every status passage implies a two-way relationship between whoever goes through it ( passagee ) and those who guide, examine, assess etc. this process, i.e. who are responsible for compliance with the "normal", smooth process ( agents of control , e.g. B. Teacher).

However, the phenomenon of status passage had already been the subject of psychological research. Donald E. Super (1957) and Edgar Schein (1978) developed age- and insight-dependent graduation ladders for professional maturity from the first consideration of the topic of work to probation in the profession, whereby certain development requirements have to be successfully solved with each transition .

In the US the term transitions and trajectories (GH Elder 1985) is today at the empirical common life course used -Research: The transitions ( transitions ) longer-term under more or less typical trajectories (paths) are examined, the - z . B. in relation to employment - have the form of career paths with several entry, transition and exit stages, can be associated with increases or losses in income, etc.

In Germany, the term status passage has been spread mainly by Walter R. Heinz since 1988. In German educational research, however, the term was used earlier to describe the requirements for the transition from adolescent to adult status. The phenomenon of extended status passages has been researched more frequently, e.g. B. the extension of the residence times of adolescents in the parental home or the individualization of the residence times in the education system before starting work, so by Werner Fuchs (1983). Günter Schmid (1999) conceived the concept of transitional labor markets for measures to cushion the status passages between gainful employment and inactivity .

In the last few decades, the theory of status passage has often served as a bracket to link various research fields such as the labor market, family, education and upbringing and social policy and thus to integrate macro- and micro-sociological approaches more closely. With regard to the risks associated with status passages due to the dissolution of traditional life (course) patterns, the institutional approaches to regulating them are in the foreground of theoretical efforts.

literature

  • Walter R. Heinz, Victor W. Marshall (Eds.): Social Dynamics of the Life Course: Transitions, Institutions, and Interrelations. New York 2003.
  • Barney G. Glaser, Anselm L. Strauss: Status Passage. New York 2011 (first 1971).
  • GH Elder Jr .: Life course dynamics: trajectories and transitions 1968-1980. Ithaca 1985.
  • Dirk Konietzka: Times of transition: social change of transition into adulthood. Wiesbaden 2010.

Individual evidence

  1. Using the example of the development of the Beethoven family of musicians, cf. Miriam Noa: Popularness and Nationbuilding: On the Influence of Music on the Unification Process of the German Nation in the 19th Century. Münster 2012, p. 305.
  2. Arnd-Michael Nohl (Ed.): Cultural Capital in Migration: Highly Qualified Immigrants on the Labor Market. Berlin / Heidelberg 2010. Foreword by the publisher, p. 11.
  3. Michael Kors: Many deaths in initiation rites. In: Discover Cape Town , January 18, 2016.
  4. Jochen Wittmann: Sex as a rite of acceptance in London gangs. In: derstandard.at , October 27, 2009.
  5. Birgit Reissig: The end of the "normal biography". In: DJI Impulse. The Bulletin of the German Youth Institute 4/2013, No. 104.
  6. ^ Marlis Buchmann: The script of life in modern society: entry into adulthood in a changing world. Chicago 1989.
  7. ^ Arnold van Gennep: Rites of passage. 3rd expanded edition. Frankfurt / New York 2005 (first 1909).
  8. Donald E. Super: The Psychology of Careers. New York 1957.
  9. ^ Edgar H. Schein: Career Dynamics: Matching Individual and Organizational Needs. Addison-Wesley 1978.
  10. Werner Fuchs: Youth status passage or individualized youth biography? In: Soziale Welt 1983, no. 3, pp. 341–371.
  11. ^ Günther Schmid: Transitional labor markets in the cooperative welfare state: Development tendencies of labor market policy in Europe. In: Winfried Schmähl, Herbert Rische (Ed.): Change in the world of work: Consequences for social policy. Baden-Baden 1999, pp. 125-148.
  12. Wolfgang Glatzer (Ed.): 25th German Sociologists' Day 1990. The modernization of modern societies: sections, work and ad hoc groups. Berlin / Heidelberg 2013, therein: Biography Research Section, p. 64 ff.