Sociology

SOE-101: Introduction to Sociology

Short Questions ( 2 marks )

1. Sociology emerged as a response to the forces of change which took place during which century/centuries in Europe?

Ans: During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe.

2. Is sociology a science?

Ans: Sociology is a scientific discipline in the sense that it involves systematic methods of investigation, the analysis of data, and the assessement of theories in the light of evidence and logical argument.

3. Defined society? (Choose any one definition)

Ans: Mac Iver and Page, say that “Society is a system of usages and procedures of authority and mutual aid of many groupings and divisions of controls of human behaviour and liberties.”

F. H. Giddings is of the view that “Sociology is the union itself the organisation the sum of formal relations in which associating individuals are bound together.”

M. Ginsberg defines “Society as a collection of individuals united by certain relations or modes of behaviour which mark them” off from others who do not enter into these relation or who differ from them in behaviour.”

Lapier thinks that to them “Society refers not–to group of people but to the complex pattern of the norms of interaction that arises among and between them.”

G. D.H. Cole describes “Society as the complex of organist association and institution within the community.”

Leacock says that “Society includes not only the political relations by which men are bound together but the whole range of human relations and collective activities.”

In the view of A.W. Green “A society is largest group to which any individual belongs. A society is made up of a population organisation, time, place and interest.”

4. What is the distinction between two types of social groups best known for?

Ans: Ferdinand Tönnies was a major contributor to sociological theory and field studies. His two distinction between social groups are Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.

5. Define sociology? (Choose any one definition)

Ans: Auguste Comte: Sociology is the science of social phenomena ‘subject to natural and invariable laws, the discovery of which is the object of investigation’.

Max Weber: ‘Sociology… is a science which attempts the interpretative understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects.’

Morris Ginsberg: ‘In the broadest sense, sociology is the study of human interactions and interrelations, their conditions and consequences.’

Henry Fairchild: ‘Sociology is the study of man and his human environment in their relations to each other.’

6. What is the basis of community, according to MacIver?

Ans: According to MacIver, the basis of community is locality and community sentiment

7. What is/are the integral elements of community sentiments

Ans: We-feeling, Role-feeling and Dependence-feeling

8. What do you understand by 'We-feeling'?

Ans: We-feeling: This is the feeling that leads men to identify themselves with others so that when they say ‘we’, there is no thought of distinction and when they say ‘ours’, there is no thought of division.

9.What do you understand by 'Role-feeling'?

Ans: Role-feeling: This involves the subordination to the whole on the part of the individual.

10. What do you understand by 'Dependence-feeling'?

Ans: Dependence-feeling: This refers to the individual’s sense of dependence upon the community as a necessary condition of his own life.

11. Who first term primary group and taken from which book?

Ans: The concept of primary group was first coined by a sociologist from the Chicago School of Sociology, Charles Cooley in his book Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind

12. Defined culture according to Edward Tylor?

Ans: According to Edward Tylor, ‘Culture is that complex entirety which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and other capabilities and habits, that are acquired by man, as a member of society.’

13. What is Folkways?

Ans: Willam Graham Sumner, in his book, Folkways (1906), defined folkways as the usual, established, routine and regular way in which a group performs its activities. For example, it range from shaking hands, eating with knives and forks, driving in the left side of streets, and so on.

14. What is Ethnocentrism?

Ans: The word ethno is derived from a Greek terminology which means, people, country and cultural bonding;centric is derived from a Latin word, which means centre. Thus, ethnocentrism means the inclination of every society to place its own culture patterns at the centre of things. Ethnocentrism is the act of evaluating other cultural practices in terms of one’s own and obviously rating them as inferior

15. Defined family? (Choose any one definition)

Ans: As Mack and Young say, “The family is the basic primary group and the natural matrix of personality.”

According to Maclver and Page, “Family is a group defined by a sex relationship, sufficiently precise and enduring to provide for the procreation and upbringing of children.”

According to Burgess and Locke, “Family is a group of persons united by the ties of marriage, blood or adoption; consisting a single household, interacting and intercommunicating with each other in their social roles of husband and wife, mother and father, son and daughter, brother and sister creating a common culture.”

As a K. Davis defines, “Family is a group of persons whose relations to one another are based upon consanguinity and who are, therefore, kin to one another.”

According to Elliot and Meril, “Family is the biological social unit composed of husband, wife and children.”

Biesanz writes, “The family may be described as a woman with a child and a man to look after them.”

16. Who has coin the term terms ‘ascribed status’ and ‘achieved status’? Describe in brief their differences?

Ans: The anthropologist Ralph Linton first coined the terms ‘ascribed status’ and ‘achieved status’ in his book The Study of Man. Ascribed status is the social status which is assigned to a person on his birth and remains fixed throughout his life. Thus, in societies which are based on ascription groups, people have little freedom to move to another group or status, whereas, in a society based on achievement, an individual can work his way up the social ladder through his talents, abilities and skills.

17. What is Positivism?

Ans: It is a philosophical system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or which is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and, therefore, rejecting metaphysics and theism.

18. What is amitate?

Ans: Amitate: When a special role is given to the father’s sister, it is known as amitate. The father’s sister gets more respect than the mother.

19. What is kin?

Ans: In common usage, people having ‘common blood relation’ and having a ‘common ancestor’ are known to be kins.

20. Define religion? (Choose any one definition)

Ans: Arnold W. Green defines religion as “a system of beliefs and symbolic practices and objects, governed by faith rather than by knowledge, which relates man to an unseen supernatural realm beyond the known and beyond the controllable.”

According to Maclver and Page, “Religion, as we understand the term, implies a relationship not merely between man and man but also between man and some higher power.”

As Gillin and Gillin says, “The social field of religion may be regarded as including those emotionalized beliefs prevalent in a social group concurring the supernatural plus crest and behaviour, material objects and symbols associated with such beliefs.”

According to James G. Frazer considered religion as a belief in “Powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life”.

According to E. B. Tylor defined religion as “the belief in spiritual beings”.

21. Who first formulated the term totemism?

Ans: The concept of totemism as a form of religion was first formulated by John McLennan, in an article “The Worship of Animals and plants”

22. Define economics? (Choose any one definition)

Ans: Adam Smith was a Scottish philosopher widely considered as the first modern economist. Smith defined economics as a Science of Wealth.

According to Lionel Robbin, another British economist, defined economics in terms of scarcity: “Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.”

British economist Alfred Marshall, on the other hand, emphasis human activities or human welfare rather than on wealth to defines economics as “a study of men as they live and move and think in the ordinary business of life.”

23. Define Social stratification? (Choose any one definition)

Ans: Gisbert is of the view that “Social stratification is the division of society into permanent groups or categories linked with each other by relationship of superiority and subordination.”

According to R.W. Murray, “Social stratification is a horizontal division of society into higher and lower social units.”

Lundberg defined social stratification as, “A stratified society is one marked by inequality and by differences among people that is evaluated by them as being ‘lower’ and ‘higher.”

Melvin M. Tumin, “social stratification refers to arrangement of any social group or, society into a hierarchy of positions that are unequal with regard to power, property, social valuation and psychic gratification.”

Ogburn and Nimkoff, “Social Stratification is the process by which individuals and groups are ranked in a more or less an enduring hierarchy of status. “

Raymond Murray, “Social stratification is a horizontal division of society into ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ social status.”

Sorokin, “Social Stratification means the differentiation of a given population into hierarchically superposed classes. It is manifested in the existence of upper and lower social layers.”

24. What are the four bases of social stratification?

Ans: The division of society into classes forming a hierarchy of prestige and power is a universal feature of social systems. Sociologist have identify four main bases of social stratification namely, slavery, estates, caste and class.

25. Distinguish between sex and gender?

Ans: The term sex differentiates male and female in biological terms whereas gender differentiates male and female in sociological terms.

26. Who opted to “drop the term ‘race’ altogether and speak of “ethnic groups”?

Ans: The United Nations, in a 1950 has opted to “drop the term ‘race’ altogether and speak of “ethnic groups”.

27. Name the four major races which are classified under?

Ans: The world population can be divided into 4 major races, namely white/Caucasian, Mongoloid/Asian, Negroid/Black, and Australoid.

28. The word 'ethnic' means and from which langauge/languages are taken from?

Ans: The word ‘ethnic’ is much older and is derived from the Greek ethnos (which in turn derived from the word ethnikos), which originally meant heathen or pagan.

29. What are the difference between Race and Ethnicity (Choose any two)

Ans: i. Race is used to indicate the legacy that you have acquired by birth; you were naturally introduced to it or with it. Then again, Ethnicity is more about parts of a culture that you have learned after some time or because of standard and consistent introduction.

ii. Race is something you can’t adjust as you are naturally introduced to it. You generally have the decision of modifying and notwithstanding rehearsing redirect social practices and conventions.

iii. Race partitions individuals on the premise of the physical qualities they were conceived with. Then again, ethnicity alludes to an arrangement of individuals who embrace a similar arrangement of social practices.

iv. Race is a term that is spawned by the general public and gives a feeling of division. Ethnicity, then again, is embraced by individuals readily and is utilized to make a feeling of having a place.

30. Define social change? (Choose any one definition)

Ans: 1. As Kingsley Davis says, “By Social change is meant only such alternations as occur in social organization – that is, the structure and functions of society”.

2. According to Maclver and Page, “Social change refers to a process responsive to many types of changes; to changes the man in made condition of life; to changes in the attitudes and beliefs of men, and to the changes that go beyond the human control to the biological and the physical nature of things”.

3. Morris Ginsberg defines, “By social change, I understand a change in social structure, e.g., the size of the society, the composition or the balance of its parts or the type of its organization”.

4. P. Fairchild defines social change as “variations or modifications in any aspects of social process, pattern or form.

5. B. Kuppuswamy says, “Social change may be defined as the process in which is discernible significant alternation in the structure and functioning of a particular social system”.

6. H. M. Johnson says, “Social change is either change in the structure or quasi- structural aspects of a system of change in the relative importance of coexisting structural pattern”.

7. According to Merrill and Eldredge, “Change means that large number of persons are engaging in activities that differ from those which they or their immediate forefathers engaged in some time before”.

8. Anderson and Parker define, “Social change involves alternations in the structure or functioning of societal forms or processes themselves”.

9. According to M. D. Jenson, “Social change may be defined as modification in ways of doing and thinking of people.”

10. As H. T. Mazumdar says, “Social change may be defined as a new fashion or mode, either modifying or replacing the old, in the life of people or in the operation of a society”.

11. According Gillin and Gillin, “Social changes are variations from the accepted modes of life; whether due to alternation in geographical conditions, in cultural equipment, composition of the population or ideologies and brought about by diffusion, or inventions within the group.

12. According to M. E. Jones, “Social change is a term used to describe variations in or modification of any aspect of social process, social patterns, social interaction or social organization.”

31. Name any two thinkers who developed theories of socialization?

Ans: Theories of Socialization: Some important theories of socialization were developed by American sociologists Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead, and Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud.

32. Define Socialization? (Choose any one definition)

Ans: According to well-known sociologist Robert Morrison Maclver, ‘Socialization is the process by which social beings establish wider and profounder relationships with one another, in which they come closer to each other and build a complex structure of association.’

According to American sociologist Kimball Young, ‘Socialization means the process of inducting the individual into the social and cultural world of making him a particular member of a society and its various groups and inducing him to accept the norms and values of that society. Socialization is definitely a matter of learning and not of biological inheritance.’

33. Name any two sociologists?

Ans: Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim.

34. In which year Sociology was introduced?

Ans: 1839

35. What is the meaning of the word Sociology?

Ans: The word Sociology is a combination of two terms ‘socius’, Latin for society, and ‘logos’, Greek for studying which literally meaning ‘study of society’.

36. How is Sociology distinct from other social sciences?

Ans: Sociology is a generalizing science which deals with the entire society, whereas other social sciences deal with only specific aspect of the society.

37. Briefly distinguish between Sociology and Political Science?

Ans: Sociology is the fundamental social science, which studies man’s social life as a whole. Political science, on the other hand, is concerned with the political life of a man, which is one part of his total life.

38. Who is known as the father of Sociology?

Ans: Auguste Comte

39. What was sociology called before?

Ans: Social Physics

40. What is Sociological Perspective?

Ans: Sociological Perspective enables us to look critically at commonly held assumptions about ourselves and our society. It is a way of looking at events, forms, and processes through the trained eyes of a scientist.

41. How is Sociology related to Political Science?

Ans: All political institutions are conditioned by social relations. All political activity is the result of the social nature of man. Sociology thus contributes to Political Science the knowledge of society.

42. Name the two branches of scope of Sociology?

Ans: Formalistic school and Synthetic school

43. Formalistic school is also known as?

Ans: Specialistic school

44. How Sociology and Anthropology does relate?

Ans: Sociology and anthropology both involves in systematic and empirical study of society in order to understand the causes and consequences of human action. Both sociology and anthropology combines scientific and humanistic perspectives in the study of society.

45. How is Sociology related to Economics?

Ans: Economic factors greatly influence each and every aspects of social life. Some of the important social problems like dowry, suicide etc. cannot be sociologically analyzed without the help of economics because these social problems are mainly of economic crisis.

46. Explain Sociology is abstract and not concrete science?

Ans: Sociology is abstract science because it is not interested in concrete manifestation of human events. It is more concerned with the form of human events and their patterns. For instance, sociology is not specifically concerned with wars and revolutions but in the general social phenomena, as types of social conflict.

47. What is formalistic school of thought?

Ans: The formalistic school supports the idea of giving sociology a suitable subject matter to make it a distinct discipline. It stressed on the study of forms of social relationships and considered sociology as independent social science.

48. What is synthetic school of thought?

Ans: The synthetic school defines sociology as a combination of social sciences. It stresses on widening the range of sociology. They believe in the organic structure, sociology cannot be studied independently. It should be studies along with other social sciences.

49. Give two importance of Sociology?

Ans: i. Sociology makes a scientific study of society: Sociology has made it possible to study society in a systematic and scientific manner. Scientific knowledge about human society is needed in order to achieve progress in various fields.

ii. Sociology throws more light on the social nature of man: Sociology delves deep into the social nature of man. It tells us why man is a social animal and why he lives in groups. It examines the relationships between individuals and the society.

50. Under the agencies of Social Control, Control by Morality is closely related to?

Ans: Control by Morality is an institution that is closely related to religion.