I. Definition of Social Status: The term status, like the term culture, has come to be used with a double significance. A status, in the abstract, is a position in a particular pattern. It is thus quite correct to speak of each individual as having many statuses, since each individual participates in the expression of a number of patterns. However, unless the term is qualified in some way, the status of any individual means the sum total of all the statuses which he occupies. It represents his position with relation to the total society.

A status, as distinct from the individual who may occupy it, is simply a collection of rights and duties. Since these rights and duties can find expression through the medium of individuals, it is extremely hard for us to maintain a distinction in our thinking between statuses and the people who hold them and exercise the right and duties which constitute them.

II. Social Role: The concept of status is related to the concept of "role" that is what Linton calls the more dynamic aspect of status that we shall discuss both in this context and in relation to reference groups. It is impossible to fully dissociate them. Thus, a role is the dynamic or the behavioural aspect of status. It is the dynamic aspect of status and is a combination of rights and duties.

III. The inter-relationship between social status and role:

(i) There are no roles without statuses or statuses without roles. Just as in the case of status, the term role is also used with double significance. Every individual has a series of roles deriving from the various patterns in which he participates and at the same time a role in general, which represents the sum total of these roles and determines what he does for his society and what he can expect from it.

(ii) Each status typically includes a number of roles. A person who holds the status of teacher behaves one way with students, another way with other faculty members and still another way with the principal. The collection of roles that goes with a given status is termed a roles set.

(iii) Social roles regulate and organize behaviour. In particular they provide means for accomplishing certain tasks. It can be argued, for example, that teaching can be accomplished more effectively if teacher and student perform their appropriate roles. This involves the exclusion of other areas of their lives in order to concentrate on the matter in hand.

(iv) Roles provide social life with order and predictability. Interacting in terms of their respective roles, teacher and student know what to do and how to do it. With knowledge of each other's roles they are able to predict and comprehend the actions of the other. As an aspect of culture, roles provide an important part of the guidelines and directives necessary for an ordered society.