Inequality, Status, and the Construction of Status Beliefs

Abstract

This chapter examines status construction theory. This theory argues that when people on opposite sides of a social difference boundary regularly interact in regard to shared goals, the terms on which they interact, which will be shaped by structural conditions such as resources differences, affect the hierarchies of influence and esteem that emerge in the encounters. The core of status construction theory is a deceptively simple set of assumptions abut how interactional contexts induce people to form and spread status beliefs