Solved Board Paper For CBSE Class 11 Sociology

The term 'sociological imagination' was coined by C. Wright Mills. The main concern was to make connection between individual and society.

Complex society can be defined as the society where division of labour is more complex than simple society.

An institution is formed on the basis of established rules and customs of a society. It is also confirmed by the law of a society. Family, marriage, religion etc. are the institutions of a society. They vary from society to society.

This kind of a group is formed between individuals of same age or of in similar kind of profession. Interaction wise, it is very similar to the primary group.

Methodology means the study of ‘methods’. It also means the approach or perspective through which one can reach the social reality. Through methodology different types of methods and techniques can be known.

(a) In order to understand the society, Emile Durkheim observed society in terms of ‘collectivity’.

The approach, through which unbiased, neutral and factual knowledge is produced, is known as objectivity. To be ‘objective’ means to become ‘value-free’ or ‘value-neutral’.

Social structure is a systematic planning of society. Structural parts of society consist of different types of social institutions, social groups, pluralities, inequalities etc. The term social structure reflects that society has its own structure depending on space and time.

Ethnocentrism is the application of one’s own cultural values in evaluating the behaviour and beliefs of people from other cultures.

(d) genealogy

Social anthropologists used to prepare the genealogy of primitive communities to study society systematically.

Religious beliefs and norms have helped organise society and changes in these beliefs have helped transform society.

(c). Bogardus.

Bogardus was a renowned sociologist who had described the terms and concepts of sociology in very great detail.

Gentrification is the term used to describe the conversion of a low class (urban) neighbourhood into a middle or upper class neighbourhood.

The release of particular gases like carbon dioxide, methane and others creates a ‘greenhouse effect’ by trapping the sun’s heat and allowing it to dissipate.

Social environments emerge from the interaction between biophysical ecology and human interventions.

Aquifers are natural underground formations in the geology or a region where water gets stored.

Karl Marx was from Germany but spent most of his intellectually productive years in exile in Britain.

Durkheim’s vision of sociology was that, like most of the natural sciences, it was to be an empirical discipline.

Weber suggested that ethics of certain protestant sects within Christianity had a deep influence on the development of capitalism in Europe.

G. S. Ghurye can be considered the founder of institutionalised sociology in India.

Role is the behaviour, obligation and privilege attached to a status. The individual occupies a status but plays a role.

Role stereotyping is a process of reinforcing some specific role for some member of the society.

Power is the ability to make others do what you want regardless of what they themselves want.

When a relationship of power is stable and settled, and the parties involved have become accustomed to their relative positions, we have a situation of domination.

Conflict perspective believes that inequality exists in society and all individuals are not equal. Through social institutions like family, religion, education etc. dominant sections of (class, caste, tribe or gender) society fulfill their ideas and govern the rest of the society.

In matrilocal marriage newly married couple stays with the woman’s parents while in patrilocal form couple lives with the man’s parents.

Cognitive dimension is related to the understanding developed by surroundings or environment. This understanding or knowledge can be achieved by reading books in literate societies or by lores in illiterate societies.

Any neighbourhood with a concentration of people of a particular religion, ethnicity, cast or other common identity is known as Ghetto. Ghettoisation is the process of creation of ghettoes through the conversion of mixed composition neighbourhood into single community neighbourhoods.

Socialization is the process through which an individual learns to behave in a society. Social norms, values, customs, belief etc. are transmitted to the next generation only through this process. Socialization starts from family and continues to the whole life. There are two types of socialization – primary and secondary.

When different methods are used in dealing the same research problem, the process is known as ‘triangulation’. The use of method is based on the choice of researcher and the nature of the research questions.

Sometimes, research question needs both qualitative and quantitative methods to understand and explain the social phenomenon.

A process in which a sociologist or social researcher tries to analyse his/her own work through the eyes of others is known as ‘self-reflexivity’. Self-reflexivity always needs the self-examination of own opinions and ideas.

The concept of organic solidarity was given by Emile Durkheim in the sense of social cohesion. Social cohesion in advanced society is based on the specialisation of work and interdependency of members of a society. One of the main important features of organic solidarity is division of labour.

Social facts are like things. They are external to the individual but constraint their behaviour. Institutions like law, education and religion constitute social facts. Social facts are collective representations that emerge from the association of people. They are not particular to a person but of a general nature, independent of the individual. Attributes like beliefs, feelings or collective practices are its examples.

The ability of a person or a group to fulfill their will even in case of opposition by others is considered as power. The exercise of power can be observed in family or at work place by elder members or seniors respectively.

Authority is a legitimized form of power. People and society accept authority. Authority can be observed in bureaucracy and in other legal institutions like parliament, judicial system, military system etc.

In order to establish itself as a strong and viable social system, every society must be able to reproduce itself over time and maintain its stability.

Stability requires that things continue more or less as they are – that people continue to follow the same rules, that similar actions produce similar results, and more generally, that individuals and institutions behave in a fairly predictable manner.

The scope to sociological studies is extremely wide.

Firstly, the analysis of various institutions, associations and social groups which are results of social relationships of individuals is the concern of sociology. Secondly, Sociology focuses on the social structure of a society. Thirdly, Sociology studies the factors which contribute to social stability and social change. Fourthly, Sociology also explains the trend of the changing pattern and the aftermath of the changes in the society.

In endogamy, an individual is expected to marry within a culturally defined group of which he or she is a member. For example, if someone belongs to a particular caste, he/she should marry to a person of same caste.

Exogamy is defined by the rule of marriage in which an individual is expected to marry out of his or her own group. The example of exogamy can be cited in village exogamy of north India in which it was believed that the daughter of the village should not marry in village itself.

Sociology is the science that studies society as an interconnection of economic, political, familial, cultural and educational institutions as a whole.

Philosophical knowledge of ‘society’ is based on the moral and immoral behavior of an individual and a desirable way of living in a society. Philosophy also considers about ethical issues of a society. Common sense knowledge is based on the naturalistic explanation of behaviour of an individual or a group. Sociological knowledge is different from both in sense of methodological part. Sociological knowledge is based on observation and proper investigation of facts about society. Most importantly, sociological knowledge is always based on questions like why, how, when etc.

Social stratification is a system in which people are divided on the basis of power, property and prestige. It refers to the large ranking of people rather than individuals. It is also considered as a hierarchy of positions with regard to the economic production.

Two main perspectives on social stratification are conflict and functionalism. Conflict theory believes that stratification in the society exist because some people own the means of production and they exploit the worker class. Functionalism supports the stratification in the society. It believes that no society of the world is classless.

According to Emile Durkheim, an individual is not free from society. Society exerts social constraints over its members. An individual is forced to follow established social rules and regulations. The social structure of a society is meant for the well-functioning of society.

Karl Marx was also of the opinion that social structure creates pressure on its members. But, he opposed the view that an individual is forced to follow the rules and regulations of society. According to him, an agency or actor has the capability of changing society and social structure as well.

Social solidarity is the social cohesion between different members of society. According to Emile Durkheim, social solidarity correlates with the types of society. In mechanical solidarity, social cohesion and integration come from the homogeneity of individual. In other words, people feel connected through work. Mechanical solidarity is found in traditional or in small scale societies. Organic solidarity exists in advanced or modern societies. The key features of organic solidarity are the interdependency among members of society, specialisation of work, division of labour etc.

The first attempt was made by a British anthropologist Edward Tylor to define culture. According to him , “ Culture or civilization taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, morals, law , custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a man as a member of society”.

An anthropologist, Bronislaw Malinowski defined culture as “Culture comprises inherited artifacts, goods, technical process, ideas, habits and values.

Clifford Geertz understood culture in the sense of human actions. According to him human actions can be interpreted in the same manner as we interpret the meanings from the book. He emphasized on the “interpretative explanation” of culture rather than the “causal explanation” of it.

Leslie White interpreted culture “as a means of adding meaning to the objective reality”. In other words, objective reality is same for all the people of different societies but the interpretations of that reality will be different according to their cultural backgrounds.

Karl Marx propounded the concepts of ‘class’ and ‘conflict’. For Karl Marx society is divided into two classes-Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. Bourgeoisie means the capitalist class who own the means of production. Capitalists exploit the worker class and do not provide their appropriate share in the process of production. In this way, Marx observed the society with the perspective of conflict between these two classes.

Emile Durkheim discussed about the social solidarity and collective conscience in the society. The concept of social solidarity is based on social harmony. According to this perspective, every function of the parts of the society is important to maintain the order of the society. He denies the concept of ‘conflict’ in the society.

State can be defined as the given territory ruled by political organization or government. According to the functionalist perspective, state represents the interests of all sections of society without any discrimination. On the contrary, conflict perspective perceives that through state dominant sections of society govern over rest of the societies.

Main features of modern state include sovereignty, citizenship and nationalism. Sovereignty is defined by total control of the state on a specific territory. Citizenship provides right to the citizens of the state for political participation. Besides, Citizenship rights also include the civil, political and social rights of an individual in the state. Nationalism is considered as the set of beliefs and symbols which develops the sense of belongingness towards one political identity.

A method, in which a ‘guided conversation’ takes place between the ‘researcher’ and the ‘respondents’, is known as an ‘interview’.

Interview is very helpful in getting knowledge in detail. Though it is based on structured questionnaire, it has possibility of becoming flexible. Flexibility of questionnaire provides the facility of asking questions according to the social circumstances to the researcher.

Interview method also provides the platform for detailed interaction with people who are being studied.

One of the major disadvantages of this method is that the awaited response from the respondents is not sure especially in the cases of questionnaires sent by mail or by post. Further, it is also possible that respondents who are facing face to face interview may change their opinion or may react differently which may affect the quality of data. Therefore interview method has the possibility of getting mix data which may be authentic or not.

G. S. Ghurye offered a comprehensive definition of caste. His definition emphasises six features.

(i) Caste is an institution based on segmental division. This means that caste society is divided into a number of closed, mutually exclusive segments or compartments. Each caste is one such compartment. It is closed because caste is decided by birth — the children born to parents of a particular caste will always belong to that caste. On the other hand, there is no way other than birth of acquiring caste membership. In short, a person’s caste is decided by birth at birth; it can neither be avoided nor changed.

(ii) Caste society is based on hierarchical division. Each caste is strictly unequal to every other caste, that is, every caste is either higher or lower than every other one. In theory (though not in practice), no two castes are ever equal.

(iii) The institution of caste necessarily involves restrictions on social interaction, specially the sharing of food. There are elaborate rules prescribing what kind of food may be shared between which groups.

These rules are governed by ideas of purity and pollution. The same also applies to social interaction, most dramatically in the institution of untouchability, where even the touch of people of particular castes is thought to be polluting.

(iv) Following from the principles of hierarchy and restricted social interaction, caste also involves differential rights and duties for different castes. These rights and duties pertain not only to religious practices but extend to the secular world. As ethnographic accounts of everyday life in caste society have shown, interactions between people of different castes are governed by these rules.

(v) Caste restricts the choice of occupation, which, like caste itself, is decided by birth and is hereditary. At the level of society, caste functions as a rigid form of the division of labour with specific occupations being allocated to specific castes.

(vi) Caste involves strict restrictions on marriage. Caste ‘endogamy’, or marriage only within the caste, is often accompanied by rules about ‘exogamy’, or whom one may not marry.