Odisha State Board CHSE Odisha Class 11 Sociology Solutions Unit 5 Sociology, Methods and Techniques Short Answer Questions.
CHSE Odisha 11th Class Sociology Unit 5 Sociology, Methods and Techniques Short Answer Questions
Answer In One Sentence
Question 1.
What are three stages of August Comte?
Answer:
Three stages of August Comte are:
1. Theological or fictious.
2. The metaphysical or abstract.
3. The scientific or positive.
Question 2.
When the law of three stages appeared and where?
Answer:
This law appeared in the year 1822 in his book positive philosophy.
Question 3.
What is theological or fictious stage?
Answer:
The theological stage is the first and it characterised this would prior to 1300. Hence all theoretical conceptions whether general or special bear a supernatural impress.
At this level of thinking there is a marked lack of logical and orderly thinking. Overall theological thinking implies belief in supernatural power.
Question 4.
What is Fetishism?
Answer:
This is one of three stages of August ‘fetish’ means inanimate and ‘ism’ means philosophy. This is a philosophy which believes that super natural power dwells in inanimate object.
Question 5.
What is polytheism?
Answer:
This is the second stage of three stages of August Comte ‘Poly’ means many. So the belief in many Gods is called polytheism. Human beings received variety or diversity of natural phenomenon.
Each phenomenon was kept under the disposal of one God. One God was believed to be-in charge of one particular natural phenomenon.
Question 6.
What is Monolthcism?
Answer:
It means we belief in one single God. He is all in all. He controls everything in their world. He is the maker of human destiny. Monotheism is the climax of the theological stage of thinking. The monoltheistic thinking symmblics the victory of human intellect.
Question 7.
What is metaphysical?
Answer:
‘Meta’ means beyond and physical, means material world. So metaphysical means beyond physical word.
Question 8.
What are two main societies?
Answer:
Comte identified by his three stages. Comte identified two major types of societies they are, theological-mility society and scientific-industrial society.
Question 9.
Who has written the book suicide?
Answer:
French Sociologist Emile Durkheim in 1897 was written suicide.
Question 10.
Name the three types of suicide of Durkheim?
Answer:
Three types of suicide are anomic suicide, Altruistic suicide and Egoistic suicide.
Question 11.
What is Anomic suicide?
Answer:
Anomic suicide happens when the deint engrating forces in the society make individuals feel lost or alone. Teenage suicide is usually cited as an example of this type of suicide, as is suicide committed by those who have been sexually abused as children or whose parents are alcoholic.
Question 12.
What is Altruistic suicide?
Answer:
Altruistic suicide happens when there is excessive regulation of individuals by social forces. An example is someone who commits suicide for the sake of religious or political cause.
Question 13.
What is Egoistic suicide?
Answer:
Egoistic suicide happens when people feel totally detached from society. Ordinarily people are entegrated into society by work roles, ties to tamely and community, and other social bonds.
When these bonds are weakened through retirement or loss of family and friends, the livelihood of egoistic suicide increases.
Question 14.
What is Sanskritization?
Answer:
Sanskritization is the process by which a low Hindu caste or tribal or other group changes its customs, rituals, ideology and way office in the direction of a ‘high’ and frequently a twice-born caste.
Question 15.
What is Applied Research?
Answer:
Applied research is focussed up on areal life problem requiring an action or policy decision.
Question 16.
Write the types of Action Research?
Answer:
Types of action Research are:
- Classical design
- Interdependence of action and research.
- Evaluate research built into action programme.
- Action for research.
Question 17.
Write four characteristics of observation research?
Answer:
It is physical and mental activity. It is selective and purposeful. It is a scientific tool of research. It is a direct study of situation or phenomenon.
Question 18.
What are the five sequential steps of observation method?
Answer:
They are:
- Preparation and tracing.
- Entry into the study of environment.
- Initial interaction.
- Observation and training.
- Termination of fieldwork.
Question 19.
Write types of observation?
Answer:
- Participant observation.
- Nonparticipant observation.
- Controlled observation.
- Uncontrolled observation.
- Direct observation.
- Indirect observation.
Short Type Questions And Answers
Question 1.
What is August Comte’s law of three stages? Discuss?
Answer:
The Law of three stages is the comer stone of Auguste Comte’s approach. Comte’s ideas relating to the law of three stages reveal that man is becoming more and more rational and scientific in his approach by gradually giving up speculations, imagination etc.
He has shown that there is a close association between intellectual evolution and social progress.
The law of three stages is the three stages of mental and social development. It is the coordination of feeling, thought and action in individuals and society. There are three important aspects of our nature. Such as our feelings, our thought and our actions.
Our feelings:
The emotions and impulses which prompt us.
Our thought:
Which are undertaken in the service of our feelings but also helps to govern them.
Our actions:
Which are undertaken in the service of our feelings and thought. For the continuity and existence of society there must be some order of institutions, valiles, beliefs and knowledge which can successfully correlate the feelings, thought and activity of its members.
In the history of mankind during which the social order bringing these elements into relation with each other has been worked out three types,of solution, three, stages of development can be distinguished.
According to Comte, each of our leading conceptions-each branch of our knowledge passes successively through different theoretical conditions’.
1. The Theological or fictitious,
2. The Metaphysical or abstract,
3. The Scientific or positive.
Question 2.
Discuss the Comte’s three stages of observation?
Answer:
Comte considered his law of Three stages based upon belief in social evolution to be the most important. There has been an evolution in the human thinking, so that each succeeding stage is superior to and more evolved than the preceding stage.
It can hardly be questioned that Comte’s law of three stages has a strong mentalist or idealistic bias. He co-related each mental age of mankind with its characteristic accompanying social organisation and type of political dominance. This law appeared in the year 1822 in his book Positive Philosophy.
The Theological or Fictitious stage:
The theological stage is the first and it characterised the world prior to 1300. Here all theoretical conceptions, whether general or special bear a supernatural impress. At this level of thinking there is a marked lack of logical and orderly thinking. Overall the theological thinking implies belief in super natural power.
Metaphysical or Abstract Stage: The metaphysical stage started about 1300 A.D. and was short lived roughly till 1800. It forms a link and is mongrel and transitional. It is almost an extension of theological thinking. It corresponds very roughly to the middle Ages and Renaissance.
It was under the sway of churchmen and lawyers. This stage was characterised by Defence. Here mind pre-supposes abstract forces. ‘Meta’ means beyond and physical means material world.
Supernatural being is replaced by supernatural force. This is in form of essences, ideas and forms. Rationalism started growing instead of imagination.
The Positive or Scientific stage: Finally in 1800 the world entered the positivistic stage. The positive stage represents the scientific way of thinking. Positive thought ushers in an industrial age.
The positive or scientific knowledge is based upon facts and these facts are gathered by observation and experience. All phenomena are seen as subject to natural laws that can be investigated by observations and experimentation.
Question 3.
What is The Theological or Fictitious stage?
Answer:
The theological stage is the first and it characterised the world prior to 1300. Here all theoretical conceptions, whether General or special bear a supernatural impress.
At this level of thinking there is a marked lack of logical and orderly thinking. Overall the theological thinking implies belief in super natural power.
This type of thinking is found among the primitive races. In theological stage, all natural phenomena and social events were explained in terms of super natural forces and deities, which ultimately explaining everything as the product of God’s will. This stage is dominated by priests and ruled by military men.
Human mind is dominated by sentiments, feelings and emotions. Every phenomenon was believed to be the result of immediate actions of super-natural beings. Explanations take the form of myths concerning spirits and super natural beings.
Man seeks the essential nature of all beings, first and final causes, origins and purposes of all effects and the overriding belief that all things are caused by super natural beings. Theology means discourse in religion. Religion dominates in this state of development.
This state is characterised by conquest. The theological—military society was basically dying. Priests were endowed with intellectual and spiritual power, while military exercised temporal authority.
It has three sub-stages:
Fetishism:
‘Fetish’ means inanimate and ‘is’m’ means philosophy. This is a philosophy which believes that super natural power dwells in inanimate object. Fetishism as a form of religion started which admitted of no priesthood.
When everything in nature is thought to be imbued with life analogous to our own, pieces of wood, stone, skull etc. are believed to be the dwelling place of super natural powers, as these objects are believed to possess divine power.
But too many fetishes created confusion for people. Hence they started believing in several gods. Thus arose polytheism.
Polytheism:
‘Poly’ means many. So the belief in many Gods is called polytheism. Human being received variety or diversity of natural phenomena. Each phenomenon was kept under the disposal of one God.
One God was believed to be in charge of one particular natural phenomenon. In polytheism, there is an unrestrained imagination person the world with innumerable Gods and spirits.
People created the class of priests to get the goodwill and the blessings of these gods. The presence of too many gods also created for them mental contradictions. Finally they developed the idea of one God, i.e. monotheism.
Monotheism:
It means belief in one single God. He is all in all. He controls everything in this world. He is the maker of human destiny. Monotheism is the climax of the theological stage of thinking.
The monotheistic thinking symbolizes the victory of human intellect and reason over non-intellectual and irrational thinking. Slowly feelings and imaginations started giving place to thinking and rationality.
In monotheism a simplification of many gods into one God takes place, largely in the service of awakening reason, which qualifies and exercises constraint upon the imagination.
In theological stage, soldiers, kings, priests etc. were given respect in the society. Everything was considered in terms of family welfare. Love and affection bonded the members of a family together.
In this stage social organisation is predominantly of a military nature. It is the military power which provides the basis of social stability and conquest which enlarges the bounds of social life.
| Intellectual phase | Material phase | Type of social unit | Type of Order | Prevailing sentiment |
| Theological phase | Military | The Family | Domestic Order | Attachment & Affection |
| Mcta-physical Phase | Legalistic | The State | Collective Order | Veberation (Awe or Respect) |
| Positive Phase | Industrial | Race(Humanity) | Universal Order | Benevolence |
(a) Progress is observable in all aspects of society: physical, moral, intellectual and political.
(b) The intellectual is the most important. History is dominated by the development of ideas leading to changes in other areas.
(c) Auguste Comte says on the “Co-relations” between basic intellectual stages and stages of material development, types of social units, types of social order and sentiments.
Question 4.
What is Metaphysical or Abstract Stage?
Answer:
The metaphysical stage started about 1300 A.D. and was short lived roughly till 1800. It forms a link and is mongrel and transitional. It is almost an extension of theological thinking. It corresponds very roughly to the middle Ages and Renaissance.
It was under the sway of churchmen and lawyers. This stage was characterised by Defence. Here mind pre-supposes abstract forces. ‘Meta’ means beyond and physical means material world.
Supernatural being is replaced by supernatural force. This is in form of essences, ideas and forms. Rationalism started growing instead of imagination.
Rationalism states that God does not stand directly behind every phenomenon. Pure reasoning insists that God is an Abstract being. Under metaphysical thinking it is believed that an abstract power or force guides and determines the events in the world.
Metaphysical thinking discards belief in concrete God. It is characterised by the dominance of “ratiocination.”
In metaphysical stage speculative thought is unchecked by any other principle. Human body was considered to be the spark of divinity. This kind of thinking corresponded with the legal type of society; and law, lawyers and churchmen dominated the society; Law remained under the control of the state.
Question 5.
What is The Positive or Scientific stage?
Answer:
Finally in 1800 the world entered the positivistic stage. The positive stage represents the scientific way of thinking. Positive thought ushers in an industrial age.
The positive or scientific knowledge is based upon facts and these facts are gathered by observation and experience. All phenomena are seen as subject to natural laws that can be investigated by observations and experimentation.
The drawn of the 19th Century marked the beginning of the positive stage in which observation predominates over imagination. All theoretical concepts have become positive.
The concept of God is totally vanished from human mind. Human mind tries to establish cause and affect relationship. Mind is actually in search of final and ultimate cause.
The scientific thinking is thoroughly rational and there is no place for any belief or superstition in it. This stage is governed by industrial administrators and scientific moral guides. At this stage of thought, men reject all supposed explanations in terms either of Gods or essences as useless.
They cease to seek ‘original causes’ or ‘final ends’. This stage is dominated by the entrepreneurs, technologists etc. Unit of society was confined to the mankind as a whole, vision of mind was broad and there is no parochial feeling. Kindness, sympathy etc to the cause of the humanity prevailed.
This is the ultimate stage in a series of successive transformations. The new system is built upon the destruction of the old; with evolution, come progress and emancipation of human mind.
Human history is the history of a single man, Comte, because the progress of the man mind gives unity to the entire history of society. For Comte, all knowledge is inescapably human knowledge; a systematic ordering of propositions concerning our human experience of the world.
Corresponding to the three stages of mental progress; Comte identified two major types of societies. The theological-military society which was dying, the scientific-industrial society which was being born during his life time.
Flere the main stress is on the transformation of the material resources of the earth for human benefit and the production of material inventions. In this positive or scientific stage the great thought blends itself with great power.
Question 6.
Comte’s law of three stages have been criticized by different philosophers and sociologists. Discuss?
Answer:
According to Bogardus, Comte failed to postulate a fourth mode of thinking, i.e. socialized thinking, a system of thought which would emphasize the purpose of building the constructive, just and harmonious societies.
Bogardus also says, Comte however, should be credited with opening the way for rise of socialized thinking.
According to Prof. N.S. Timasheff, Comte’s law of three stages could not stand the test of facts. He opines, “Neither the later approaches (metaphysical and scientific) wholly supersedes the religious approach; rather there has been accumulation and often admixture of the three”.
C.E. Vaughan has said, “But its foundation is purely negative and destructive. It is powerless to construct and when credited with the ability to do so, it brings forth nothing but anarchy and bloodshed.”
Question 7.
Discuss the Emile Durkheim Suicide and its stages?
Answer:
Suicide, written by French sociologist Emile Durkheim in 1897, was a groundbreaking book in the field of sociology. It was a case study of suicide, a publication unique for its time that provided an example of what the sociological monograph should look like.
In it, Durkheim explored the differing suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics, arguing that stronger social control among Catholics results in lower suicide rates.
He also found that suicide rates were higher among men than women, higher for those who are single than those who are married, higher for people without children than people with children, higher among soldiers than civilians, and higher at times of peace than in times of war.
Durkheim was the first to argue that the causes of suicide were to be found in social factors and not individual personalities. Observing that the rate of suicide varied with time and place, Durkheim looked for causes linked to these factors other than emotional stress.
He looked at the degree to which people feel integrated into the structure of society and their social surroundings as social factors producing suicide and argued that suicide rates are affected by the different social contexts in which they emerge. Durkheim also distinguished between three types of suicide:
Anomic Suicide: Anomic suicide happens when the disintegrating forces in the society make individuals feel lost or alone. Teenage suicide is usually cited as an example of this type of suicide, as is suicide committed by those who have been sexually abused as children or whose parents are alcoholics.
Altruistic Suicide: Altruistic suicide happens when there is excessive regulation of individuals by social forces. An example is someone who commits suicide for the sake of a religious or political cause, such as the hijackers of the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11/01.
People who commit altruistic suicide subordinate themselves to collective expectations, even when death is the result.
Egoistic Suicide: Egoistic suicide happens when people feel totally detached from society. Ordinarily, people are integrated into society by work roles, ties to family and community, and other social bonds.
When these bonds are weakened through retirement or loss of family and friends, the likelihood of egoistic suicide increases. Elderly people who lose these ties are the most susceptible to egoistic suicide.
Question 8.
What is the Concept of Sanskritisation?
Answer:
The term ‘sanskritisation ’ was conceived by M.N. Srinivas. It helps to describe the process of cultural mobility in the traditional social structure of India. Srinivas found empirical evidence for constructing sanskritisation in his study of religion and society among Coorgs in Mysore.
Caste system in theory is a closed system. Movement upwards or downwards within it is inadmissible, although there is some movement in practice. Despite this limitation of caste system, the concept of ‘sanskritisation’ helps to explain social change within the caste system.
The term ‘sanskritisation’ was conceived by M.N. Srinivas.
It helps to describe the process of cultural mobility in the traditional social structure of India. Srinivas found empirical evidence for constructing sanskritisation in his study of religion and society among Coorgs in Mysore.
He found that “lower castes, in order to raise their position in the caste hierarchy, adopted some customs of the Brahmins and gave up some of their own, considered to be impure by the higher castes.
For instance, they gave up meat-eating, consumption of liquor and animal sacrifice to their deities; they imitated the Brahmins in matters of dress, food and rituals. By doing this, within a generation or so, they could claim higher positions in the hierarchy of caste”. M.N. Srinivas, initially defined sanskritisation to denote Brahminisation.
Later on, he replaced it by sanskritisation. Brahminisation was limited in its scope and did not include other models, of caste mobility. His findings of Coorgs, thus, were of a specific kind and did not include the other non-Brahmin castes, which were twice-born. The concept of sanskritisation redefined by M.N. Srinivas runs as below:
Sanskritisation is the process by which a Tow’ Hindu caste or tribal or other group changes its customs, rituals, ideology and way of life in the direction of a ‘high’ and, frequently, ‘twice-born’ caste.
Generally, such changes are followed by a claim to a higher position in the caste hierarchy than that traditionally conceded to the claimant caste by the local community. The claim is usually made over a period of time, in fact, a generation or two, before the ‘arrival’ is conceded.
Sanskritisation, in fact, is the process of cultural and social mobility within the framework of caste. In this case, the source of social change lies within the caste system. In other words, the source of social change is indigenous.
In terms of general sociology it is a process of socialisation wherein the lower castes socialise themselves with the customs, rituals and ideology of the higher castes, i.e., the twice-born castes of Brahmins, Rajputs and Banias.
The scope of sanskritisation also extends beyond the cast system. It includes non-caste groups also, such as tribals. For social change, the caste of a local place makes its model of imitation. This imitation model could be any twice-born caste. Yogendra Singh applies the redefined concept of sanskritisation to the ‘varna’ system.
He says that the central idea of Sanskritisation is that of hierarchy in caste system, theoretically represented by varna. There are four names, viz., the Brahmin, the Kshatriya, the Vaishya and the Shudra in the same hierarchical order, and all individual castes or sub-castes, with the exception of the untouchables, can be classified on the basis of varna into a hierarchical order.
The untouchables have traditionally been outside the varna hierarchy and form the lowest rung of the caste stratification.
Question 9.
Discuss the Characteristics of Sanskritisation.
Answer:
When the concept of Sanskritisation emerged in sociological literature in 1952, it created much academic uproar among social anthropologists and sociologists.
It was agreed that the concept is useful to analyse social change among villagers, especially in terms of cultural change.
Both Indian and foreign social anthropologists reacted to the usefulness of the concept on the basis of whatever is available in sociological research material, we give below a few of the basic characteristics of Sanskritisation:
1. It is a cultural paradigm: Ideas, beliefs, traditions, rituals, and things of this kind constitute the culture of a caste. When there is a change in these aspects of social life, it is a change in cultural life. Thus, Sanskritisation is a cultural change among the lower castes and non-caste groups.
2. Sanskritisation is a change directed to twice-born castes: Though, initially, Sanskritisation meant Brahmiriisation, later on, Srinivas included other models of higher castes for imitation.
It was Milton Singer (1964) who had drawn the attention of Srinivas by saying that there existed not one or two models of Sanskritisation but three if not four.
He said that the local version of Sanskritic Hinduism may use the four labels Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra but the defining content of these labels varies with locality and needs to be empirically determined for any particular locality.
For instance, a particular village may ‘ imitate Brahmins as their model of change but looking at the historicity and contextuality, another village may decide on Kshatriya or Vaishya as their model. Brahmins not in all cases are homogeneous. Nor are the Kshatriyas.
There are Brahmins, such as the Kashmiri, Bengali, and Saraswat who are non-vegetarians. Similarly, there is variation among the Kshatriyas and Vaishyas.
It is, therefore, the local history and the contexts which determine the Sanskritic model for the lower castes. However, the Shudras do not make any model for imitation.
3. Sanskritisation also applies to tribals or non-caste groups: In his refined definition, Srinivas has stated that Sanskritisation is not confined to Hindu castes only but it also occurs among tribal and semi-tribal groups, such as the Bhils of western India, the Gonds and Oraons of central India, and the Paradise of the Himalayas.
These tribal groups claim to attain the status of a caste, i.e., to become a Hindu.
4. Sanskritic values, ideology, and beliefs belong to Indian tradition: When Srinivas talks of Sanskritisation of the lower castes, he has in his view the caste-Hindu traditions. Hinduism draws heavily from its scriptures, such as Ramayana, Mahabharata, Upanishads, and Brahmanas.
The values and beliefs held in these scriptures become the content material for the imitation of the lower castes. The Brahmins, i.e., the priestly caste, naturally interpret the traditions and, therefore, become the model of imitation for the lower castes.
Surely, the acquisition of wealth and power makes a group or person belonging to a caste, important. But, only wealth and power do not enhance the status of a caste.
The improvement in the ritual status can only help the lower caste to improve their hierarchy in the caste system. The imitation of the customs and habits of the higher caste, therefore, goes a long way in imparting Sanskritic status to the lower caste, if the latter has wealth and power.
5. Sanskritisation, in other words, also means teetotalism: Srinivas, to be fair to him, has always refined and redefined his understanding of Sanskritisation.
At a later stage, he found that the lower castes in Sanskritisation have a tendency to move higher in the caste hierarchy, and in a generation or two they could improve their status in the caste hierarchy by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism.
Empirically no researcher has reported that a lower caste has improved its rank in the hierarchy despite having three generations.
Though there is no improvement in the rank it must be said that the lower castes have taken to the prohibition of alcoholism and many of the evils which traditionally characterized their caste.