AIR 131 · CSE 2021 · Sociology I · 50 pages

Atulesh Jha: Sociology I answer copy

7 answers by Atulesh Jha, as written in the test. Each question opens a page with how other toppers answered it.

The questions

  1. Q1(a)Comparative Method in sociology: Importance and limitations. 1(b) Positivism and its contestations: How these enriched sociology?
  2. Q1(c)The emergence of sociology as a distinct social science is a recent phenomenon.
  3. Q3(c)The scope of sociology has evolved over time to respond to the changing needs of social research. Discuss.
  4. Q5(c)The emergence of factory system led to separation of house and workplace; factories became unit of production while houses remained unit of consumption. Thus, women who were confined to their houses were not considered to be contributing economically as only men earned money. The unpaid labour which women perform amounts to nearly 40% of world's GDP in a report by Oxfam. Most of it falls under care economy eg. nursing, cooking, etc. Women even if working have to bear brunt of 'second shift' as identified by Arlie Hoschchild since they manage households too even if they have helper. Linear theories of social change. Family has largely been considered as functional and universal by functionalists.
  5. Q6(b)Media has evolved over years from print and TV media to social media and mass media as well. 6(c) 'Cultural lag' refers to desynchronisation between material (e.g. tech.) and non-material (e.g. values) dimensions of society - Ogburn. 7(a) Capitalist society is largely denoted by a motive of shareholder capitalism where labours sell their skills and owner of Means of production own the resulting goods.
  6. Q7(b)Digital Education:
  7. Q7(c)World System Theory of Immanuel Wallerstein has been formulated to explain the differences in development of various nations.

The answers

Question 1(a) · 321 words written

Comparative Method in sociology: Importance and limitations. 1(b) Positivism and its contestations: How these enriched sociology?

Opening · a definition

1(a) Comparative Method in sociology is used to analyse two separate data-sets and evaluate hypothesis on the outcomes. Comparative methods can be:-

Body · points

  1. Historical eg. Marx study of slave, feudal and capitalist societies.
  2. Longitudinal eg. Giddens study of marriage and divorce over time in Britain.
  3. Cross-cultural eg. Webers study of rise of capitalism in various religions.

Importance of comparative method:- → Helps to understand sociological theories in the context of history and time. → Social change theories are evaluated based on comparative understanding. → Helps to provide ready-made data sets for quantitative analysis eg. Durkheim's suicide study & reference points eg. Ideal type of Weber.

However, comparative methods are also criticized on following grounds: → Phenomenologists say that such studies ignore individual motivation for action. → Value-biasness creeps in as in case of Webers study of Protestant Ethics.

It cant however, be ignored that social anthropological researches own a lot to comparative methods for their development.

1(b) Positivism refers to the sociological method for research which espouses fact-value dichotomy; subject-object methodological dualism; objectivity; causal explanation; quantitative data; generalisation; verification and reductional analysis.

Contestations against it are: → Phenomenologists like Peter Berger, state that data is misnomer to understand social reality. → Post modernists like Foucault, state that causal explanations are misplaced and ignored individualism. → Neo-marxist and Feminists like Ann Oakley state it to be status-quoist; pro-establishment and ignores conflict. → Anti-positivists like Alvin W Gouldner say that value-neutrality is intellectual dishonesty. → Karl Popper states Falsification is ultimate test. → Thomas Kuhn criticises it as being ignorant of paradigmatic shift.

How these enriched sociology? → Rise epistemological anarchism in critical theory by Paul Feyerabend. → Qualitative research opens new paradigm in critical and feminist reseach. → Methodological Pluralism e.g. Triangulation as suggested by post-modernists.

Close

Positivism played an important role when it freed sociology from clutches of church and tried to establish it as a rational study of science.