Basic, General and Independent Roles
In a now rather ancient, but nevertheless useful introductory text on sociology, Michael Banton (1965) developed the following way of looking at social roles.
They could be seen
as located on a continuum from "basic" through to "independent",
with a "general" zone in the middle for the sake of convenience.
Basic |
General |
Independent |
||
|
Implications for
conduct of all roles to right |
|
No implications for conduct of other roles |
||
|
Ascribed |
|
Achieved |
||
|
"Can't help it" |
|
Can help it |
||
|
Impossible or very difficult to change |
Changeable, |
Easy
to slip into |
||
|
Part of my sense of identity |
|
Trivial for my identity |
||
|
Liberal assumption that such roles are not grounds for discrimination |
|
Liberal assumption that discrimination may be acceptable because roles seen as voluntary |
||
|
Many ways of "playing" them |
|
Manner of "playing" restricted |
||
Some (contestable) examples...
|
Basic |
General |
Independent |
|||
|
Being Alive! |
|
|
Cinema-goer |
||
|
Sex |
|
|
|
Shopper at Tesco |
|
|
"Race" |
|
|
|||
|
Age |
|
||||
This table gives just a few examples
of social roles and how they may be located. Those bracketed
with 
and 
are movable, depending in part on how an individual rates other
roles in relation to them. Thus for some people (martyrs), religious
commitment is more important than being alive itself, whereas for
others it does not figure at all. Occupation may be more important
than marital status, which may lead to divorce, or vice versa
in which case a person may refuse to move her or his job because
it would upset the family arrangements, and so on. Beware of making
conventional judgements about how roles ought to be ordered
based on how your own roles are ordered.
- Having a disability
- Being a supporter of your football team
- Economic status
Note to lecturers: this can be developed as an interesting and revealing exercise. Get the class to suggest a number of potentially controversial roles such as the above, then set up a scale from 1 to 10 where 1=basic, 10=independent, and without conferring to rate each role on that scale. The scale permits relatively easy comparison of the results: the interesting thing is not the absolute score, but the relative scoring of, say, work vs. family roles.
BANTON M (1965) Roles London; Tavistock
See implications for Equal Opportunities
ATHERTON J S (2010) Doceo; [On-line] UK: Available: Accessed:
(Note that if you are using Internet Explorer, and it is doing its "nanny" thing, the full reference will not display. There will be a bar across the top of the screen advising you of "blocked content". Click on it and select "Allow blocked content" and confirm in the pop-up box. I know it's a pain, but we're stuck with it.)
Original material (c) James Atherton: last up-dated overall 8 February 2010
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