SOCIOLOGY

Three factors bring change in the culture of a society. These are: Inventions: The process of creating new cultural elements out of the existing elements. Since the modern man has a comparatively richer reservoir of cultural elements at his disposal, therefore he creates more inventions than the man in the olden times. The modern man does not have to reinvent the wheel; he has to use this wheel, improve uponit and bring something new. Discovery: It is the process of finding that already exists. Diffusion: It means the spread of cultural traits from one society to another. It is the borrowing of culture by one group from another. For purposes of diffusion contact between the two groups or societies is necessary. In the olden times, due to the lack development of means of transportation and communication, contact between different societies was limited. Therefore the diffusion was also limited. Whatever the diffusion took place it was more a result of physical contact. But...

Values: Culturally defined standards of desirability, goodness, and beauty that serve as broad guidelines for social living. What ought to be. Examples of values: Equal opportunity, Achievement or success, Material comfort, Activity and work. Science, Freedom, Physical fitness, Health, Punctuality. Wealth, Education, Competition and Merit. Honesty, Dignity of labor, Patriotism. Justice and Democracy. Environmental protection, Charity and Development. Sometimes there could be inconsistency in the values which can lead to conflict. Beliefs: Specific statements that people hold to be true. Values are broad principles that underlie beliefs. Values are abstract standard of goodness, while beliefs are particular matters that individuals consider to be true or false. Norms: Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members. These are the shared expectations of the people that govern their behavior. Proscriptive norms: Mandating what we should not do. Fo...

Culture is people’s way of life. It is their pattern of behavior, which has been created by human beings. Culture includes: Intangible(non-material) items like values, beliefs,norms, language, and ideas (ideologies: perception of reality) thatgovern the way of life. The way we play our roles. + Tangible things – material objects. Human beings have created this way of life, which includes both material and non-material objects. Hence some Anthropologists call it as man- made part of the environment. Culture is the patterns of behavior and the products of the patterns of behavior. Some specific features of culture: •  Universality: Culture is universal. There is no society without culture. As part of the cultures there are many aspects that are found in almost all the societies. For example the institutions like marriage and family, religion, education, polity, economy, and sports are found all over the world. Societies have developed values, norms, beliefs, and other p...

Bureaucracy is an organizational model rationally designed to perform complex tasks efficiently. In a bureaucratic business or government agency, officials deliberately enact and revise policy to make the organization as efficient as possible. Characteristics of Ideal-Typical Bureaucracy  1.  Specialization .There is division of labor in the bureaucracy and each member has a specific task to fulfill. All the tasks are coordinated toaccomplish the purpose of the organization. 2.  Hierarchy of offices. Bureaucracies arrange the personnel in a vertical ranking. Each person is supervised by ‘higher ups’ and in turn supervising others in lower positions. Usually with fewer people in higher positions, the structure takes the form of a bureaucratic ‘pyramid’. In this hierarchy  assignments flow downward and accountability flowing upward. Each level assigns responsibilities to the level beneath it, while eachlower level is responsible to the level above for ful...

Formal organizations are large, secondary groups that are organized to achieve their goals efficiently. They are the product of rationalizationof society, which means the acceptance of rules, efficiency, and practical results as the right way to approach human affairs.Past is the best guide for the present i.e. traditional orientation tends to be abandoned. Rationality was a totally different way of thinking that came to permeate society. This new orientation transformed the way in which society is organized. As a result, formal organizations,secondary groups designed to achieve explicit objectives, have become a central feature of contemporary society. Examples can be business corporations, government departments, colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, and military organizations. Such organizations are deliberately created ‘social machines with human parts’. In these organizations social relations are impersonal, formal, and planned. These organizations have major in...

Different meanings of group: 1.  Any physical collection of people. Group shares nothing but physical closeness. It is just an aggregation, a collectivity. 2.  Number of people who share some common characteristic – which is often called as category. 3.  Number of people who share some organized pattern of recurrent interaction. It can be an educational institution where people comeand work, study, play. 4.  Number of people who share consciousness of membership together and of interaction.  Two essentials of social group  social interaction and consciousness of membership. A social group is two or more people who identify and interact with each other.Human beings come together in couples, families, circles of friends, neighborhoods, and in work organizations. Whatever it form, a group is made up of people with shared experiences (through social interaction), loyalties, and interests . Not every collection of individuals can be called a social ...

Social act  is the goal directed (oriented) activity of human beings.  Social interaction is the reciprocal influencing of the acts of persons and groups. Reciprocal social relationship is that situation in which the actual or expected behavior of one person affects the behavior of others. As a result there is an exchange of acts between or among individuals. In this way social interaction is the process by which people act and react in relation to each other. Through interaction we create the reality. Understanding what reciprocal social relationships are is vital to understanding human society and what it means to be a participant in it. Awareness of the people with whom you interact is a necessary component of any social relationship. People interact in some expected way and try to follow it in their day-to-day activities. In this way the styles of interaction get established, hence we social interaction gets patterned. People tend to behave and act toward one ...

The research process requires a sequence of steps. By and large, the following steps are undertaken in a sociological investigation. 1.  Broad Area of Interest Identified: Broad problem area refers to the entire situation where one sees a possible need for research and problem solving. The specific issues that need to be researched within this situation may not be identified at this stage. For example the broad area of interest may be the entire field of education, or within education could be the examination system, student teacher relations, the extra-curricula activities, course contents, and so on. Within the broad area of education, look at one observation about the mass failure of students in their graduate examination of different universities. Such identification may be based on ones experiences and or on general observations in which one may have sensed that certain changes are occurring or certain changes need to take place for the improvement of the situation...

1.  Empirical  The focus of attention is that phenomenon which is observable by using five senses by the human beings. If one person has observed others can also make that observation which implies that it is repeatable as well as testable. 2.  Verifiable  Observations made by any one researcher could be open to confirmation or refutation by other observers. Others could also use their sensory experiences for the verification of the previous findings. The replicability of the phenomenon is essential for repeating the observation. In this way the intuitions and revelations are out of this process because these are having been the privileges of special individuals. 3.  Cumulative  The knowledge created by this method keeps on growing. The researchers try to develop linkages between their findings and the findings of previous researchers. The new findings may support the previous researches, refutethem, or may modify but certainly there is an addi...

Science is knowledge but every kind of knowledge is not science. Science is a method for the discovery of uniformities in this universe through the process of observation and re-observation; the results are organized, systematized, and made part of the body of knowledge. In this way science is a logical system that bases knowledge on direct, systematic observation. Following this method creates scientific knowledge, which rests on empirical evidence, that is, information that we can verify with our senses. Goals of Science The goals of science can be: • To explain why something happens. • To make generalizations. Discovery of uniformities/principles/laws. • Look for patterns in the phenomenon under observation, or recurring characteristics. • To predict. To specify what will happen in the future in the light of current knowledge. For the attainment of the stipulated goals the procedure followed is to collect information through sensory experiences. Hence we call it observatio...

Critical Evaluation This school of thought has a large following. This paradigm highlights inequality and division in society, but it largely ignores how shared values and interdependence can generate unity among members of a society. To a great extent, this paradigm has political goals, therefore it cannot claim objectivity. Conflict theorists counter that all approaches have political consequences. 3. The Symbolic-Interaction Paradigm The structural-functionalists and social-conflict paradigms share a macro-level orientation,meaning a focus on broad social structures that shape society as a whole. The symbolic interaction paradigm provides a micro-level orientation, meaning a focus on social interaction in specific situations. The symbolic-interaction paradigm sees society as the product of the everyday interactions of individuals. “Society” amounts to the shared realitythat people construct as they interact with one another. Human beings are the creatures who live i...

Theory is a statement of how and why specific facts are related. The job of sociological theory is to explain social behavior in the real world. For example why some groups of people have higher suicide rates than others? In building theory, sociologists face two basic facts: What issues should we study? How should we connect the facts? How sociologists answer these questions depends on their theoretical “road map” or paradigm. (It is pronounced as para-daia-um.) Paradigm is a basic image of society. A theoretical paradigm provides a basic image of society that guides thinking and research.  For example: Do societies remain static? Do they continuously keep changing? What keeps them stable? What makes societies ever changing? Salient Paradigms  Sociology has three major paradigms reflecting different images of society: 1.  The Structural-Functional 2.  The Social-Conflict 3.  The Symbolic-Interaction 1. The Structural-Functional Paradigm: It i...

Applying the sociological perspectives to our daily lives benefits us in four ways: 1.  The sociological perspective helps us to assess the truth of community held assumptions (call it “common sense”). We all take many things for granted, but that does not make them true. A sociological approach encourages us to ask whether commonly held beliefs are actually true and, to the extent they are not, why they are so widely held. Consider for yourself: gender differences; ethnic differences; racial differences; and social class differences. Where do these differences come from? 2.  The sociological perspective prompts us to assess both the opportunities and the constraints that characterize our lives. What we are likely and unlikely to accomplish for ourselves and how can we pursue our our goals effectively? 3.  The sociological perspective empowers us to participate actively in our society. If we do not know how the society operates, we are likely to accept th...

Sociology is a reasoned and rigorous study of human sociallife, social groups, and societies. At the heart of sociology is a distinctive point of view called “the sociological perspective”. Thus sociology offers a perspective, a view of the world. For example: why do human lives seem to follow certain predictable pattern? The truth is that: •  Our lives do not unfold according to sheer chance, •  Nor do we decide for ourselves how to live, acting on what is called ‘free will’. We make many important decisions everyday, of course, but always within the larger arena called “society”. The essential wisdom ofsociology is that: Our social world guides our actions and life choices just as the seasons influence our activities and  clothing.  This is sociological perspective. Perspective means a view or an outlook or an approach or an imagination (of the world). Hence sociological perspective means an approach to understanding human behavior by placing it withi...

Sociology is the scientific study of human social life, groups and societies. There was no sociology as a distinctdiscipline before the advent of 19thcentury. As a distinct discipline it emerged about the middle of the 19thcentury when European social observers began to use scientific methods to test their ideas. Itlooks that three factors led to the development of sociology. The first was the Industrial revolution. •  By the mid 19thcentury Europe was changing from agriculture to factory production. There was the emergence of new occupations as well as new avenues of employment away from the land. •  Masses of people migrated to cities in search of jobs. Pull and push factors were instrumental in such migrations. In the countryside, due to the nature of agricultural society, there were no occupations that could be alternatives to agriculture. Hence people got pushed to look for new places whereas the urban/industrial places with new job opportunities provided a pull...