Status Passage

The French writer Arnold van Gennep first called attentionto the phenomena of status passages in his Rites ofPassage one hundred years ago. In Status Passage, firstpublished in 1971, the movement of individuals andgroups in contemporary society from one status to anotheris examined in the light of Gennep’s original theory.Glaser and Strauss demonstrate that society emerges as acomparative order. In this order, every organized action,collective or individual, can be seen as a form of statuspassage.From one status to another-from childhood to adolescenceto adulthood, from being single to being married,movement from one income group, social class or religionto another-there are passages that entail movement intodifferent parts of a social structure and loss or gain inprivileges. Types of status passage are described by theirproper ties. The authors present a formal theory of statuspassage in the form of a running theoretical discussion.The concepts and categories discussed in Status Passageare illuminated by a large number of examples chosenfrom a wide range of human behavior, and the applicabilityof the theory to still other examples is made apparent.The result is a stimulating and provocative book that willinterest a wide range of sociologists, social psychologists,and other social scientists, and will be useful in a varietyof courses.