NEGOTIATING STATUS

Abstract

The clergy of the Church of England are members of an ancient and elite profession. although the legal privileges enjoyed by the Established Church have dwindled, its cultural influence remains extensive. The Church is central to national and civil religion; bishops enjoy high social status, which diffuses to rank-and-file clergy; and clergy themselves have high professional autonomy. In this article, conventional studies of social mobility—which have accorded significantly lower status to clergymen than to university academics—are criticized for conceptualizing social status in a manner that misses its fluid, multivalent, and context-dependent character. In their historical development, the clerical and academic professions in England have been highly congruent, so that clergy typically see themselves as members of the same professional milieu as university faculty. This taken-for-granted assumption profoundly influences the research relationship between social scientists and clergy. Gaining access, achieving rapport, and adopting an appropriate research methodology to elicit high-quality responses from informants involve the researcher in negotiating the status relationship to achieve a mutually agreed mix of acceptance and deference.