Sociology is the systematic study of social behaviour and human groups. It focuses primarily on the social relationships and studies society, human interactions, inter-presonal and intra-personal relations.
- "It is a subject which studies human inter-relationship"
- "Sociology is scietific study of society"
- "Science which attemps imperative understanding of social actions"
- "Sociology is a study first of all the relationship and correlations between various classes, second between the social and non social aspects of life and third it studies general characteristics common to all classes of society"
- "Sociology is concerned with the study of social life and it's relations to the factors of culture, natural environment, heredity and group"
- "It is the science of collective representation"
- "Sociology may be defined as the study of the ways in which social experiences function in developing, maturing and repressing human beings through inter-personal stimulations"
"Sociology is more or less concerned with the working of human beings"
- systematic and without any subjectivty
- scientist should have the ability to record unbiased decisions
- findings should be concluded after verification of data and not on morality of philosophies or ideas
- For
- Sociologists are concerned with hard facts and now with ideal sittuations. They try to analyze facts of social life as they are.
- Sociologists are also concerned with cause effect relationship, they belive theire are many social facts and theories which are universally applicable
- They argue that "sociology is a sciencce which attemps the interpretive understanding of social action in order to arrive at a casual explanation of it's causes and effects"
- Against
- Many believe that the results obtained cannot be generalized and thse also cannot be same under all circumstances and at all places
- Each human being has his/her own limitations, thus he/she provides information keeping those limitations in consideration. Hence, the information provided is not factual.
- Repeat experimentation is almost impossible. They have no labs, and no control over the experimentation subject (humans)
- Each sociologist has a different subject approach to a problem, i.e there is always subjectivity during investigation.
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"Sociology" was named so by the French scholar, Auguste Comte in 1838, making it a product of the early nineteeth century.
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The word has been derived from two words, Latin word "Socius" or "Societus" meaning society, and the Greek word "Logos" meaning study or science.
Etymological meaning -> study of society
Celestin Bougle (French philosopher) finds caste as a system that divides the whole society in large number of hereditary groups, distinguished from one another and connected through three characteristics:
- Separation - matters related to marragie and contact whether direct or indirect
- Division of labour - each groups has in tradition or theory, a profession from which their members can depart to a certain extent
- Heirarchy - whcih ranks the groups as relatively superior or inferior to another another
NOTE: The following are my answers and hence, may not be completely correct.
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Explain how M.N. Srinivas brought additional dimension to understanding of the caste system.
Studies done by M.N Srinivas brought a whole new way of thinking and perceiving of caste system and how a lower caste being dominant led to the non-Brahmin movement and group mobility in a small village as Rampura. The same concept then could be applied to other places with similar situations.
A caste is said to be dominant if it has an advantage be it numerically, educationally, land-wise etc. This leads to the same caste occupying different positions in different villages. The village in which a lower caste is dominant, the lower caste moves up the hierarchy. The peasant caste in Rampura was dominant which led to it enjoying benefits that weren’t possible to peasants of another town.
The results of his studies were helpful in understanding why and how some lower castes participated in the non-Brahmin movement and fought for equal rights and reservation politically etc. They also led to us thinking of whether a caste is dominant or not and not just it’s type while thinking of their situation.
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Difference between two school of thoughts in sociology
The two types of school of thoughts in Sociology are:
Former or Specialist school of thought:
This consisted of sociologists who believed that the scope of sociology should not be generalized, and should be confined to some specific aspects of society.
They believed that Sociology should concern itself with just a few forms of social relationships, because it is the interpretative understanding of socio relationships. George Simmel said that it should confine itself to just explaining the different forms of social relationships and let other social sciences handle the contents of those relationships.
Other supporters of this school of thought were: Max Weber, Alfred Vierkandt.
Synthetic school of thought:
This school of thought believed that sociology should study society as a whole and should not confine itself to just a few types of social relationships as suggested by the people above.
The supporters believe that there’s no need for sociology to isolate itself from other social sciences as they believe the scope of sociology to be very wide and applicable to almost every type of social relationship.
Supporters of this school of thought include Sorokin and Durkheim.
I also find myself to be a supporter of synthetic school of thought as I think the scope of shouldn’t be limited and should be dynamic, this is a study about arriving at a causal explanation of cause and effects of social actions and hence has a huge scope on society of the past, present as well as the future.
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Explain caste system and how it functioned in Rampura village.
The caste system in Rampura wasn’t similar to how it was in the villages surrounding it. Rather than the lower caste facing forms of discrimination by higher caste like Brahmins they enjoyed a rather better hospitality due to them being “dominant” numerically, educationally and land-wise.
The peasants were higher in numbers as a whole when compared to the people from other castes. Most of the Brahmins moved to towns as they understood the importance of western education early, this led to Brahmins selling their lands over time. The peasants then had a dominance even based on land.
All of this meant that now, the same caste of peasants held a different position when compared to different villages, as because of their dominance they moved up the hierarchy of castes in Rampura, this is called group-mobility.
Their being dominant also resulted in them understanding the importance of things like education and hence, their need for acquiring white-collar jobs, western education and politically high positions. This later led to the non-Brahmin movement. Lower castes being dominant led to the faster results, which later resulted in them having similar rights and/or reservation based on castes in different schools/colleges and political institutions.
This whole situation, although not common,led to the addition of another dimension when studying about castes in India, now we don’t just focus on their type of caste but also whether they are dominant or not in their respective locality. This also makes us realize that when a caste enjoys one form of dominance, it is able to acquire the other forms over time.
Also, the peasants being dominant didn’t remove caste discrimination in Rampura. The peasants didn’t like the Untouchables, didn’t want them to use the same temples or have tiled roofs. Thus, untouchables were opposed and discriminated against by dominant castes, whether it’s Brahmins or peasants.j
This course involved 1 group project which involved writing a term paper in a group of 10 and then doing a presentation on the same. There was no necessity for every group member to speak during the presentation, hence few can focus just on the content.
Another writeup was required at the end of the course, this had to be done individually. Both the assignments gave topics to choose among from.
- Everything till scope - Sociology as a Discipline, Kalema Rodgers