Sociology Paper 1

Kyle Wilson
1/22/15
Paper 1
Social Identity: “Who Am I?” ‘Who am I?’ It’s a simple question, yet one people don’t actually give much thought. When presented this question, I was actually slightly stumped, but through the perspective of sociology, I was able to narrow it down and come up with an accurate answer. While the perspective of sociology only captures the surface level answers to this question, it still helped me to quickly and clearly define who I am. Using sociology, I was able to answer this question by using the basic concepts of ascribed and achieved statuses. Looking at my ascribed statuses, I analyzed the statuses given to me by society. I’m an American, I’m white, nineteen years old, a male, brother, cousin, nephew, and son. These things are all true and are all essential parts of who I am but they still don’t really give insight to who I really am. Based off of these ascribed statuses, I really just seem like an average Joe. Nothing special about me, just another one of the multitude of white, American males. What these statuses don’t tell you is that I’m a unique, interesting person with all my own little quirks. I have passions and hobbies and things that make me who I am. From an ascribed point of view, I’m an American. But if you look deeper into that, you’ll find that yes, I’m an American, but I’m also a very proud, patriotic citizen, who puts great value on his American citizenship. Yes, I’m white, but that status didn’t tell you that my mother and her parents immigrated to America from England, which resulted in my rich English heritage. Yes, I’m nineteen, but that didn’t tell you that I was born with a life threatening condition and barely made it out of my first three days of life, which resulted in me being a very grateful person who takes nothing for granted. On the surface, these ascribed statuses wouldn’t tell you any of this. But once you dig deeper, you’d discover a vast array of information about me. Next I analyzed my achieved statuses, which really say a lot more about who I am. Since these are all statuses I took on voluntarily, they really speak volumes about what kind of person I am. My first and most important achieved status is that I’m Christian. This speaks for itself, and gives insight into my beliefs, morals, values, and how I live my life. I’m also a Baylor student. Taking on this status shows that I’m an intelligent, driven, and successful person who has a bright career ahead. I’m single which can

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