Status group
The German sociologist Max Weber formulated a three-component theory of stratification that defines a status group as a group of people within a society who can be differentiated by non-economic qualities such as honour, prestige, ethnicity, race, and religion. The German terms are Stand and Stände
To date, sociologists study the matter of "status incongruence" in both in post-industrial societies, and in pre-industrial societies. Status groups emerge from "the house of honor", and that such status-honor stands in contrast with:
- social class, based on economically determined relationship in the house of the marketplace
- political party, based on affiliations in the political domain, or the house of power
Status groups feature in the varieties of social stratification addressed in popular literature and in the academic literature, such as categorization of people by race, ethnic group, racial caste, professional groups, community groups, nationalities, etc. These contrast with relationships rooted in economic relations, which Weber calls "class".
Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu discusses cultural capital and symbolic capital. Like Weber, he comments on how non-monetary means are used to confer and deny status to individuals and groups.