Sociology Mock Test - 3

The correct answer is Option 3.

Key Points

• Social survey is the most commonly used research technique in Sociology.
  • It is a methodical gathering of social data from a sample of the target population through standardized interviews or questionnaires. The data thus collected is collated and systematically analyzed quantitatively.
  • It provides descriptive information about the variables studied, correlations between two or more variables, and causal analysis.
• Characteristics of the social survey:
  • Study of social phenomena and problems
  • A methodology of Social research
  • Relating to a specific geographical area
  • Use of Scientific method
  • Cooperative process
  • Study and treatment of problems. Hence, Option 3 is the correct answer.

The correct answer is Option 1.

Key Points

• India's caste system is among the world's oldest forms of surviving social stratification.
• The exact origin of the caste system cannot be traced. The system is said to have originated in India. The records of the Indo-Aryan culture contain the first mention and continuous history of the factors that make up caste.
  • The people, who are known as Indo- Aryans belong linguistically to the larger family of peoples designated either as Indo-Europeans or as Indo-Germans.
• Some of the main theories regarding the origin of caste system in India are: (i) racial theory, (ii) political theory, (iii) occupational theory, (iv) traditional theory, (v) guild theory, (vi) religious theory and (vii) evolutionary theory.
• Hocart and Senart are the two main advocates of religious theory. Hence, Option 1 is the correct answer.
  • According to Hocart, social stratification originated on account of religious principles and customs. In ancient India, religion had a prominent place. The king was considered the image of God. The priest-kings accorded different positions to different functional groups.
  • Senart has tried to explain the origin of the caste system on the basis of prohibitions regarding sacramental food.
    • He holds that on account of different family duties there grew up certain prohibitions regarding sacramental food.
    • The followers of one particular deity considered themselves the descendants of the same ancestor and offered a particular kind of food as an offering to their deity.
    • Those who believed in the same deity considered themselves as different from those who believed in some other deity.

The correct answer is Option 1.

Key Points

• An ascribed status is a social position, which a person occupies because of birth, or assumes involuntarily.
  • The most common bases for ascribed status are age, caste, race and kinship.
• Simple and traditional societies are marked by ascribed status.
• In a caste stratification system an individual’s position totally depends on the status attributes ascribed by birth rather than on any which are achieved during the course of one’s life.
  • In traditional India different castes formed a hierarchy of social precedence. Each position in the caste structure was defined in terms of its purity or pollution relative to others.
  • The underlying belief was that those who are most pure, the Brahmin priestly castes, are superior to all others and the Panchamas, sometimes called the ‘outcastes’ are inferior to all other castes.
  • The traditional system is generally conceptualised in terms of the four fold varna of Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. In reality there are innumerable occupation-based caste groups, called jatis.

Additional Information

•  An achieved status refers to a social position that a person occupies voluntarily by personal ability, achievements, virtues and choices.
  • The most common bases for achieved status are educational qualifications, income, and professional expertise.
  • Modern societies are characterised by achievements. Its members are accorded prestige on the basis of their achievements.

The correct answer is Option 4.

Key Points

• The caste system is a distinct Indian social institution that legitimises and enforces practices of discrimination against people born into particular castes.
• India's caste system is among the world's oldest forms of surviving social stratification. The caste system divides Hindus into four main categories - Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras.
• Historically, the caste system classified people by their occupation and status.
• Every caste was associated with an occupation, which meant that persons born into a particular caste were also ‘born into’ the occupation associated with their caste – they had no choice.
• Each caste also had a specific place in the hierarchy of social status. In strict scriptural terms, social and economic status were supposed to be sharply separated. However, in actual historical practice economic and social status tended to coincide. There was thus a fairly close correlation between social (i.e. caste) status and economic status – the ‘high’ castes were almost invariably of high economic status, while the ‘low’ castes were almost always of low economic status. 

Additional Information The most commonly cited defining features of caste are the following:

• Caste is determined by birth – a child is “born into” the caste of its parents. Caste is never a matter of choice. One can never change one’s caste, leave it, or choose not to join it, although there are instances where a person may be expelled from their caste.
• Membership in a caste involves strict rules about marriage. Caste groups are “endogamous”, i.e. marriage is restricted to members of the group.
• Caste membership also involves rules about food and food-sharing. What kinds of food may or may not be eaten is prescribed and who one may share food with is also specified.
• Caste involves a system consisting of many castes arranged in a hierarchy of rank and status. In theory, every person has a caste, and every caste has a specified place in the hierarchy of all castes. While the hierarchical position of many castes, particularly in the middle ranks, may vary from region to region, there is always a hierarchy.
• Castes also involve sub-divisions within themselves, i.e., castes almost always have sub-castes and sometimes sub-castes may also have subsub-castes. This is referred to as a segmental organisation.
• Castes were traditionally linked to occupations. A person born into a caste could only practice the occupation associated with that caste, so that occupations were hereditary, i.e. passed on from generation to generation. 

The correct answer is Option 4.

Key Points

• Role expectations refer to the set of actions that are expected from a person playing a certain role.
  • For instance, each profession has a specific set of roles that are expected from them.
• Role expectations include both actions and qualities: a teacher may be expected not only to deliver lectures, assign homework, and prepare examinations but also to be dedicated, concerned, honest, and responsible.
• Individuals usually occupy several positions, which may or may not be compatible with one another: one person may be husband, father, artist, and patient, with each role entailing certain obligations, duties, privileges, and rights vis-à-vis other persons.

The correct answer is Option 3.

Key Points

• Ralf Gustav Dahrendorf (1 May 1929 – 17 June 2009) was a German-British sociologist, philosopher, political scientist, and liberal politician.
• A class conflict theorist, Dahrendorf was a leading expert on explaining and analysing class divisions in modern society.
• Dahrendorf wrote multiple articles and books, his most notable being Class Conflict in Industrial Society (1959) and Essays in the Theory of Society (1968).
• In developing his conflict theory, Dahrendorf recognised consensus theory was also necessary to fully reflect society.
  • Consensus theory focuses on the value integration into society, while conflict theory focuses on conflicts of interest and the force that holds society together despite these stresses.
• In the past, structural functionalism was the commanding theory in sociology, until the conflict theory came along as its primary challenger.
• However, both structural functionalism and the conflict theory have received major criticisms.
• In fact, Dahrendorf asserted that there has to be consensus to have conflict, as he said that the two were prerequisites for each other.
  • The opposite is also true, he believed –– conflict can result in cohesion and consensus. However, Dahrendorf did not believe the two theories could be combined into one cohesive and comprehensive theory.
  • Instead, Dahrendorf's thesis was "the differential distribution of authority invariably becomes the determining factor of systematic social conflicts." Hence Option 3 is the correct answer. 
  • In the end, conflict theory should be seen as a litte more than a transitional development in the history of sociological theory. Although the theory failed because it didn't go far in the direction of Marxian theory, it was still early in the 1950s and 1960s for American sociology to accept a full-fledged Marxian approach. However, conflict theory was helping in setting the stage for the beginning of the acceptance by the late 1960s". 

The correct answer is Option 4.

Key Points

• Society is classified based on numerous parameters and these different ways of classification of society is generally referred to as Systems of stratification.
  • The stratification systems vary based on the degree of vertical mobility/ social mobility.
  • The major systems of stratification are slavery, estate systems, caste systems, and class systems.
• The class system is a universal phenomenon denoting a category or group of persons having a definite status in society that permanently determines their relation to other groups.
  • General characteristics of the class system include:
    • The social classes are de facto groups (not legally or religiously defined and sanctioned) they are relatively open not closed.
    • Their basis is indisputably economic but they are more than economic groups.
    • They are characteristic groups of the industrial societies which have developed since the 17th century.
    • The relative importance and definition of membership in a particular class differ greatly over time and between societies, particularly in societies that have a legal differentiation of groups of people by birth or occupation.
  • The class system is associated with class consciousness. It is a sentiment that characterizes the relations of men towards the members of their own and other classes. It consists of the realization of similarity of attitude and behavior with members of other classes.
    • Sociologists have given a three-fold classification of classes which consists of-upper class, middle class, and lower class. 
  • In a class system of stratification, a person is born into a social ranking but can move up or down from it much more easily than in caste systems or slave societies. 
• Hiller observed that when a class system becomes closed to vertical mobility, it becomes a caste.

The correct answer is Option 4.

Key Points

• Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economist regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society.
  • His ideas profoundly influence social theory and research.
  • While Weber did not see himself as a sociologist, he is recognized as one of the fathers of sociology along with Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, and Émile Durkheim.
• Max Weber famously defined Sociology by saying: “Sociology is a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects. Action is social insofar as, by virtue of the subjective meaning attached to it by the acting individual (or individuals), it takes account of the behaviour of others and is thereby oriented in its course.”
  • Thus, sociology attempts to explain and interpret social structures by breaking down social processes into meaningful individual elements (in the form of actions).

The correct answer is Option 3.

Key Points

• The population or universe represents the entire group of units which is the focus of the study.
  • Thus, the population could consist of all the persons in the country, those in a particular geographical location, or a special ethnic or economic group, depending on the purpose and coverage of the study.
  • A population could also consist of non-human units such as farms, houses, or business establishments.

The correct answer is Option 2.

Key Points

• Stratified random sampling is a method of sampling that involves dividing a population into smaller groups–called strata.
  • The groups or strata are organized based on the shared characteristics or attributes of the members in the group. The process of classifying the population into groups is called stratification.
  • Organizing a population into groups with similar characteristics helps researchers save time and money when the population being studied is too large to analyze on an individual basis. 
  • Stratified random sampling can be used, for example, to study the polling of elections, people that work overtime hours, life expectancy, the income of varying populations, and income for different jobs across a nation.
• Types of Stratified Random Sampling:
  • Proportionate Stratified Sampling: In proportional stratified sampling, researchers try to sample strata that are proportionate to how they appear in the overall population.
    • For example, you have three sub-groups with a population size of 150, 200, 250 subjects in each subgroup respectively. Now, to make it proportionate, the researcher uses one specific fraction or a percentage to be applied on its subgroups of population. The sample for first group would be 150*0.5= 75, 200*0.5=100 and 250*0.5= 125.
  • Disproportionate Stratified Sampling: In disproportionate sampling, the strata are not proportional to the occurrence of the population. This is done if the researcher or analyst wants strata of an equal number of respondents, or if they wish to oversample a particular demographic or variable.

The correct answer is Option 1.

Key Points

• Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other social divisions such as in race, class, and sexual orientation.
• The ideology and movement emerged in the 1960s.
• Radical feminists view society as fundamentally a patriarchy in which men dominate and oppress women.
• Radical feminists seek to abolish the patriarchy as one front in a struggle to liberate everyone from an unjust society by challenging existing social norms and institutions.
  • This struggle includes opposing the sexual objectification of women, raising public awareness about such issues as rape and violence against women, challenging the concept of gender roles, and challenging what radical feminists see as a racialized and gendered capitalism that characterizes the United States and many other countries.
• Radical feminists locate the root cause of women's oppression in patriarchal gender relations, as opposed to legal systems (as in liberal feminism) or class conflict (as in Marxist feminism).

The correct answer is Option 1.

Key Points

The four feminist approaches to educational intervention are socialization theory, gender difference (also "difference" or, sometimes, "caring") theory, structural theory, and deconstructive theory. These four categories offer a way to acknowledge the liberal debate within feminist educational theory while also bringing to bear feminist challenges to liberalism.

• Socialization theory: Socialization theory refers to the educational dimension of liberal feminist theory, which demands equal treatment of women and men. 
  • Socialization theorists believe that by providing all children with gender-neutral education and eliminating other obstacles to female success, schools would not only ensure fairness but would increase the pool of skilled workers, thereby benefiting society as a whole.
• Gender difference theory: Gender difference theory includes the constellation of cultural, educational, and ethical arguments that describe and defend the feminine culture and the relational orientation associated with women. 
  • Difference theorists reject the argument that successful schooling for girls should be modeled on what has worked for boys. Instead of embracing masculine values as universals, say difference feminists, schools need to acknowledge that the relational values associated with women are at least as important as the rationalistic values associated with men.
• Structural theory: It focuses on more or less stable power arrangements, the systematic consolidation of power and privilege in the hands of a minority.
  • According to such theories, power is something one group exercises over another; it is a kind of possession or property legitimated by-laws, standards, hegemonic practices, and institutional relations. Both gendered and other forms of inequity are organized and sustained by more or less stable (albeit flexible) power arrangements.​
• Deconstructive theory: It focuses on constantly shifting cultural practices. The deconstruction theory of gender and education focuses on the fact that women are not considered as a rational gender of society, and also they don't have excess to quality education as men do.

The correct answer is Option 2.

Key Points

• Charismatic authority is a concept of leadership developed by the German sociologist Max Weber.
  • It involves a type of organization or a type of leadership in which authority derives from the charisma of the leader. This stands in contrast to two other types of authority: legal authority and traditional authority. Each of the three types forms part of Max Weber's tripartite classification of authority. 
  • According to Max Weber, Charismatic authority is unstable and temporary.
• Weber defines the term charisma as a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are the ones that are not accessible to the ordinary person but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them, the individual concerned is treated as a leader. How the quality in question would be ultimately judged from an ethical, aesthetic, or another such point of view is naturally indifferent for the purpose of definition.
• In contrast to the current popular use of the term charismatic leader, Weber saw charismatic authority not so much as character traits of the charismatic leader, but as a relationship between the leader and his followers.

The correct answer is Option 1.

Key Points

• In sociology, mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity are the two types of social solidarity that were formulated by Émile Durkheim, introduced in his Division of Labour in Society (1893) as part of his theory on the development of societies.
• According to Durkheim, the type of solidarity will correlate with the type of society, either mechanical or organic society.
• The two types of solidarity can be distinguished by morphological and demographic features, type of norms in existence, and the intensity and content of the conscience collective.
• In a society that exhibits mechanical solidarity, its cohesion and integration come from the homogeneity of individuals—people feel connected through similar work; educational and religious training; and lifestyle.
  • Mechanical solidarity normally operates in traditional and small-scale societies (e.g., tribes).[2] In these simpler societies, solidarity is usually based on kinship ties of familial networks.
• Organic solidarity is social cohesion based upon the interdependence that arises between people from the specialization of work and complementarianism as a result of more advanced (i.e., modern and industrial) societies.
  • Although individuals perform different tasks and often have different values and interests, the order and very solidarity of society depend on their reliance on each other to perform their specified tasks. Thus, social solidarity is maintained in more complex societies through the interdependence of its component parts.
  • Farmers, for example, produce the food that feed the factory workers who produce the tractors that allow the farmers to produce the food.

The correct answer is Option 1.

Key Points

• A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, (January 17, 1881 - October 24, 1955, London), is an English social anthropologist of the 20th century who developed a systematic framework of concepts and generalizations relating to the social structures of preindustrial societies and their functions.
  • He is widely known for his theory of functionalism and his role in the founding of British social anthropology.
• Radcliffe-Brown explains that the the components of social structure are human beings, the structure itself being an arrangement of persons in relationships, institutionally defined and regulated.
• According to Radcliffe-Brown the concept of structure refers to an arrangement of parts or components related to one another in some sort of larger unity.
  •  Thus, the structure of the human body at first appears as an arrangement of various tissues and organs. If we go deeper, it is ultimately an arrangement of cells and fluids.
  • Similarly, in social structure, the basic elements are human beings or persons involved in social life. The arrangement of persons in relation to each other is the social structure.
    • For instance, persons in our country are arranged into castes. Thus caste is a structural feature of Indian social life. The structure of a family is the relation of parents, children, grandparents etc. with each other.
  • Hence, for Radcliffe-Brown, structure is not an abstraction but empirical reality itself. 
• Radcliffe Brown says we must look out for social groups of all kinds, and examine their structure. Within groups, people are arranged in terms of classes, categories, castes etc.
  • A most important structural feature, in Radcliffe Brown’s opinion, is the arrangement of people into dyadic relationships or person-to-person relationships, e.g. master-servant or mother’s brother, sister’s son.
  • A social structure is fully apparent during inter-group interactions, and interpersonal interactions.

The correct answer is Option 1.

Key Points

• Auguste Comte (19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term.
  • Comte's ideas were also fundamental to the development of sociology; He is therefore considered the founder of modern sociology.
  • He coined the phrase “social physics” back in the 19th century.
    • Comte and others in that era aspired to explain social reality by developing a set of universal laws—the sociological equivalent of physicists’ quest to create a theory of everything. 
    • Comte's aim was to create a naturalistic science of society, which would both explain the past development of mankind and predict its future course. In addition to building a science capable of explaining the laws of motion that govern humanity over time, Comte attempted to formulate the conditions that account for social stability at any given historical moment. 
• Social physics or sociophysics in general is a field of science which uses mathematical tools inspired by physics to understand the behavior of human crowds. In a modern commercial use, it can also refer to the analysis of social phenomena with big data.

The correct answer is Option 3.

Key Points

• An expanded family is a conjugal family in which single relatives, such as unmarried or widowed brother, sister, or the cousin of the husband or wife, live with the family.
• A conjugal family is a nuclear family that may consist of a married couple and their children or a couple who are unmarried or underage. Conjugal means there is a marriage relationship.
  • The family relationship is principally focused inward and ties to extended kin are voluntary and based on emotional bonds, rather than strict duties and obligations.
  • The spouses and their children are considered to be of prime importance, and other more distant relatives less important. The marriage bond is important and stressed.
  • Since the notion of "family" has changed over time, the meaning of the term "nuclear family" became muddled. To combat the ambiguity, the term "conjugal family" was created.

Additional Information

•  A compound family is a family consisting of three or more spouses and their offspring.
  • In societies where polygamy is permitted, all spouses may be involved in a marriage relationship. This also occurs in polyamory relationships where the partners are only allowed a single legal marriage.
  • Additionally, this can include families where two members are married but are divorced from the other members and create a family with stepchildren involved.
• An extended family is a family that extends beyond the nuclear family, consisting of parents like father, mother, and their children, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, all living in the same household. Particular forms include the stem and joint families.

The correct answer is Option 2.

Key Points

• A compound family is a family consisting of three or more spouses and their offspring.
  • In societies where polygamy is permitted, all spouses may be involved in a marriage relationship. This also occurs in polyamory relationships where the partners are only allowed a single legal marriage.
  • Additionally, this can include families where two members are married but are divorced from the other members and create a family with stepchildren involved.

Additional Information

• The atomistic family is the type in which the individual is very largely freed from the family; it is essentially the one found in societies where law and custom bring the individual, as far as possible, out from family obligations and make him the agent of the government, the one responsible directly to the law.
• Bilateral family/ descent is a system of family lineage in which the relatives on the mother's side and father's side are equally important for emotional ties or for transfer of property or wealth. It is a family arrangement where descent and inheritance are passed equally through both parents.
• An extended family is a family that extends beyond the nuclear family, consisting of parents like father, mother, and their children, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, all living in the same household. Particular forms include the stem and joint families.

The correct answer is Option 1.

Key Points

• Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas (16 November 1916 - 30 November 1999) is universally acknowledged to be the architect of modern Sociology and Social Anthropology in India. ​
• He is mostly known for his work on caste and caste systems, Social stratification, Sanskritisation and Westernisation in southern India, and the concept of 'Dominant Caste'. 
• He wrote several books on these and related subjects, including The Remembered Village, which has become a classic of sociological literature.
• Some of his writings include:
  • 1942, Marriage and Family in Mysore
  • 1952, Religion and Society among Coorgs of South India
  • The Oxford India Srinivas
  • 1955, India’s villages
  • 1962, Caste in Modern India and Other Essays
  • 1966, Social Change in Modern India
  • 1976, the Remembered Village
  • 1980 India: Social structure

The correct answer is Option 1.

Key Points

• Claude Levi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. 
• Besides sociology, his ideas reached into many fields in the humanities, including philosophy. Structuralism has been defined as "the search for the underlying patterns of thought in all forms of human activity."
• He won the 1986 International Nonino Prize in Italy.
• Claude Levi-Strauss has given a graphic account of unmarried individuals in primitive societies when he writes of the spectacle of a young man in a village in Central Brazil. The man is seen rouching for hours in end in the corner of a hut, gloomy, ill-cared for, terribly thin, and seemed most to be in a state of dejection.

The correct answer is option 1.

 Key Points

Association:

• Meaning of Association:
  • An association is a group of people organized for a particular purpose or a limited number of purposes.
  • It represents the human aspect. Hence option 1 is correct.
  • To constitute an association there must be, firstly, a group of people; secondly, these people must be organized, i.e., there must be specific rules for their conduct in the groups, and thirdly, they must have a common purpose of a specific nature to pursue.
    • Thus, family, church, trade union, and music club all are instances of association.
  • Associations may be formed on several bases, for example, on the basis of duration, i.e. temporary or permanent like Flood Relief Association which is temporary and State which is permanent; or on the basis of power, i.e. sovereign like state, semi-sovereign like university and non-sovereign like club, or on the basis of function, i.e. biological like family, vocational like Trade Union or Teachers’ Association, recreational like Tennis Club or Music Club, Philanthropic like charitable societies.

Institutions:

• Meaning of Institutions:
  • In Sociology, recognized usage and procedures are known as institutions.
  • These come up as social expedients in the interest of harmony.
  • They operate as the springs and shock absorbers in the social mechanism.
  • It is recognised and established rules, usage and traditions. There exist to discipline and control individual behaviour.
  • Institutions are established ways of doing things.
  • The institution is an abstract thing which refers to those rules and regulations, norms and values which come into being through social interaction and subsequently regulate the behaviour pattern of the members of the society.
  • The conventional ways of doing things not only bring unity among the members of the society but also help the members to predict the behaviour of others.

The correct answer is option 4.

Key Points

• A social institution is an interrelated system of social norms and social roles that are organized and provide patterns of behaviors that contribute to meeting the basic social needs of society.
  • For example, societies need laws, education, and an economic system.
• Social institutions are interdependent, and one typically functions with the other; therefore, when a change to one social institution happens, it can affect the other social institutions.
  • For example, family, which is a social institution, is closely connected to the education of another social institution. If school is shut down for a pandemic, the family social institution will be impacted.
• Social institutions have shared features
  • Defined objectives
  • Procedures
  • Customs
  • Rules to shape their citizens
  • Provide for basic needs.

Functions of social institutions

• To Preserve Human Race
• To Transmit Culture
• To Satisfy Basic Needs
• To Maintain Social Solidarity
• Set up social norms
• Regulation social activity of an individual
• Welfare. Hence option 4 is correct.

The correct answer is Manifest

Key Points

Robert Merton's Theory of Manifest Function

• American sociologist Robert K. Merton laid out his theory of manifest function (and latent function and dysfunction too) in his 1949 book Social Theory and Social Structure.
• According to him, manifest functions are those that are intended, unplanned and recognized. Hence option 3 is correct.
• These are functions which people assume and expect the institutions to fulfil.
• Manifest functions stem from all manner of social actions but are most commonly discussed as outcomes of the work of social institutions like family, religion, education, and the media, and as the product of social policies, laws, rules, and norms.
• Eg: social institution of education.
  • The conscious and deliberate intention of the institution is to produce educated young people who understand their world and its history and who have the knowledge and practical skills to be productive members of society.
  • Similarly, the conscious and deliberate intention of the institution of media is to inform the public of important news and events so that they can play an active role in democracy.

The correct answer is Action.

Key Points

•  Broadly defined, social relationships refer to the connections that exist between people who have recurring interactions that are perceived by the participants to have personal meaning.
• The root cause of social relationships is actions and they help in developing social structure.
• This definition includes relationships between family members, friends, neighbours, coworkers, and other associates but excludes social contacts and interactions that are fleeting, incidental, or perceived to have limited significance (e.g., time-limited interactions with service providers or retail employees).
• Scientists interested in behavioural medicine often emphasize the informal social relationships that are important in a person’s life, or the person’s social network, rather than formal relationships, such as those with physicians, lawyers, or clergy.
• Relationship phenomena of interest to scientists encompass both the specific interactions that individuals experience with members of their social networks and the global community.
• Social structure is sometimes defined simply as patterned social relations—those regular and repetitive aspects of the interactions between the members of a given social entity.
• Even on this descriptive level, the concept is highly abstract: it selects only certain elements from ongoing social activities. Hence option 4 is correct.

The correct answer is option 1.

Key Points Talcott Parsons

• Talcott Parsons was the first to formulate a systematic theory of social systems, which he did as a part of his AGIL paradigm.
• He defined a social system as only a segment (or a "subsystem") of what he called action theory.
•  Parsons organized social systems in terms of action units, where one action executed by an individual is one unit.
• He defines a social system as a network of interactions between actors.
• According to Parsons, social systems rely on a system of language, and culture must exist in a society in order for it to qualify as a social system.
• Parsons' work laid the foundations for the rest of the study of social systems theory and ignited the debate over what framework social systems should be built around, such as actions, communication, or other relationships.
• He attempted to develop and perfect a general analytic model suitable for analyzing all types of collectivities. Hence option 1 is correct.
• Unlike the Marxists, who focused on the occurance of radical change, Parsons explored why societies are stable and functioning. His model is AGIL, which represents the four basic functions that all social systems must perform if they are to persist. It was one of the first open systems theories of organizations.

The correct answer is Parsons.

Key Points

• It carries out Pareto's intention by using the "structural-functional" level of analysis.
• It is an attempt to bring together, in systematic and generalized form, the main outlines of a conceptual scheme for the analysis of the structure and processes of social systems.
• In the nature of the case, within the frame of reference of action, such a conceptual scheme must focus on the delineation of the system of institutionalized roles and the motivational processes organized about them.
• Because of this focus and the very elementary treatment of processes of economic exchange and of the organization of political power, the book should be regarded as a statement of general sociological theory, since this is here interpreted to be that part of the theory of the social system which is centred on the phenomena of the institutionalization of patterns of value-orientation in roles.
• The title, The Social System, goes back, more than to any other source, to the insistence of the late Professor L.J.Henderson on the extreme importance of the concept of system in scientific theory, and his clear realization that the attempt to delineate the social system as a system was the most important contribution of Pareto’s great work.
• This book is an attempt to carry out Pareto’s intention, using an approach, the “structural-functional” level of analysis, which is quite different from that of Pareto, and, of course, taking advantage of the very considerable advances in our knowledge at many points, which have accumulated in the generation since Pareto wrote.

Hence option 2 is correct.

The solution is 1,2,3(all of the above)

Key Points

•  it is a system of exchange  in which participants in a transaction directly exchange goods or services for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange such as money.
• Economists distinguish barter from gift economies in many ways; barter, for example, features immediate reciprocal exchange, not one delayed in time. Barter usually takes place on a bilateral basis, but may be multilateral (if it is mediated through a trade exchange  ).
• In most developed countries, barter usually exists parallel to monetary systems only to a very limited extent. Market actors use barter as a replacement for money as the method of exchange in times of monetary crisis, such as when currency becomes unstable or simply unavailable for conducting commerce.
• Bartering allows individuals to get what they need with what they already own.
• If, for example, an individual needs lumber to put an addition onto their home but lacks funds to buy the lumber, then they may be able to use the barter system to supply their needs – for example, exchanging furniture they don’t need for the needed lumber.

The correct answer is Tribal.

Key Points 

• Tribal economy is the one where the usage of monetary transactions do not take place.
• They rely mostly on the Barter system where commodities are exchanged for other commodities.
• Other economies like Post industrial, Industrial, Capitalist uses a monetary system for the trade. It can not be worked on the Barter system.
• Tribal economy is the system where the people do not rely on  the monetary  system to value their commodities. They exchange goods only when they need the other goods for their consumption.

• Any economy without any asset backing can lead to a disastrous stage. But in the tribal economy, people do not carry their business for the profit motive. They only exchange when there is a need.

The correct answer is G.S Ghurye

Key Points

• Govind Sadashiv Ghurye (12 December 1893 – 28 December 1983) was a pioneering Indian academic who was a professor of sociology.
• In 1924, he became the second person to head the Department of Sociology at the University of Bombay.
• And, is widely regarded as the founder of Indian Sociology & Sociology in India.
• However, when Ghurye took it over, it was on the verge of closure.
• The department came alive once again with Ghurye, and now, Ghurye is regarded as the real founder and "shaped" the study of sociology there from then on.
• Ghurye introduced down-to-earth empiricism in Indian sociology and social anthropology. Hence option 4) is correct.
• He was an ethnographer, who studied tribes and castes of India, using historical and Indological data.
• His knowledge of Sanskrit enabled him to study the religious scriptures in the context of Indian society.

The correct answer is Kinship.

Key Points

• Kinship is the most universal and basic of all human relationships and is based on ties of blood, marriage, or adoption.
• There are two different categories of kinship
  • Those that trace descent based on blood
  • those that are connected through marriage, adoption, or other means.
• India it is mostly on kinship based on the blood. Hence option 1) is correct.
• Kinship is a "system of social organization based on real or putative family ties,"
• Kinship can involve a relationship between two people unrelated by lineage or marriage, according to David Murray Schneider, who was a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago who was well known in academic circles for his studies of kinship.
• At its most basic, kinship refers to "the bond (of) marriage and reproduction," says the Sociology Group, but kinship can also involve any number of groups or individuals based on their social relationships.

The correct answer is option 4.

Key Points 

• Civil inattention is the term introduced by Erving Goffman to describe the care taken to maintain public order among strangers and thus to make anonymised life in cities possible.
• Rather than either ignoring or staring at others, civil inattention involves the unobtrusive and peaceful scanning of others so as to allow for neutral interaction.
• Through brief eye contact with an approaching stranger, we both acknowledge their presence and foreclose the possibility of more personal contact or of conversation.
• Civil inattention is thus a means of making privacy possible within a crowd through culturally accepted forms of self-distancing.
• Seemingly (though not in reality) effortless, such civility is a way of shielding others from personal claims in public– an essential feature of the abstract, impersonal relationships demanded by the open society. Hence option 4 is correct.

The correct answer is Karl Popper.

Key Points

• Falsifiability is the capacity for some proposition, statement, theory or hypothesis to be proven wrong.
  • That capacity is an essential component of the scientific method and hypothesis testing. In a scientific context, falsifiability is sometimes considered synonymous with testability.
• In hypothesis testing, the null hypothesis usually states the contrary of the experimental or alternative hypothesis.
• The null hypothesis provides the basis of falsifiability, describing what the outcome would demonstrate, should the prediction of the hypothesis not be supported by the study. The researcher's hypothesis might predict, for example, that fewer hours of working correlates to lower employee productivity.
• The null hypothesis would be that fewer hours working is correlated with higher productivity, or that there is no change when employees spend less time at work.
• The requirement of falsifiability means that conclusions cannot be drawn from simple observation of a particular phenomenon.
  • The black swan problem is an illustration: If a man lives his life seeing only white swans and never knows that there are any non-white swans, he might assume that all swans are white.
  • For falsifiability, it isn't necessary to know that there are black swans but simply to understand that the statement "All swans are white" would be disproven should a single non-white swan exist.
• The Austrian philosopher and scientist Karl Popper (1902-1994) introduced the concept of falsifiability in his writings on the demarcation problem, which explored the difficulty of separating science from pseudo-science. Hence option 4 is correct.

The correct answer is 2001-2011.

Key Points

• In 1951, 17.29% of India’s population i.e., 62.44 million people, were living in 2,843 towns.
• In 2011, 31.16% of India’s population i.e., 377.10 million people, were living in 7,935 towns.
• This shows a steady increase in terms of absolute numbers, number of UA/towns and the per cent share of the urban population.
• However, the decennial growth rate of the urban population showed a declining trend during 1981–2001, reversed the trend and showed a marginal increase in 2011.
• The decennial growth rate of the urban population in 1951 was 41.42% and in 2011, it was 31.80%.
  • For the first time since Independence, the absolute increase in population is more in urban areas than in rural areas. Hence option 2 is correct.
  • This is due to a sharp decline in the growth rate in rural areas, while the growth rate in urban areas remains almost the same

The corretc answer is Value Orientation.

Key Points 

• Max Weber (1864-1920) was one of the founding fathers of Sociology. Weber saw both structural and action approaches as necessary to developing a full understanding of society and social change.
• For the purposes of A level Sociology we can reduce Weber’s extensive contribution to Sociology to three things:
  • Firstly he argued that ‘Verstehen’ or empathatic understanding is crucial to understanding human action and social change, a point which he emphasised in his classic study ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’;
  • secondly, he believed we could make generalisations about the basic types of motivation for human action (there are four basic types) and
  • thirdly, he still argued that structure shaped human action, because certain societies or groups encourage certain general types of motivation (but within these general types, there is a lot of variation possible).
    • This final point can be illustrated by a quote from one of his most important works ‘Economy and Society’, first published in the 1920s, in which he said ‘Sociology is a science concerning itself with interpretive understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences.’ Hence option 4 is correct.
  • ​ For Weber, ‘social action’ included all human behaviour that was meaningful, that is, action to which actors attached a meaning. 

The corretc answer is option3.

Key Points

• Symbolic interactionism is a social theoretical framework associated with George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) and Max Weber (1864-1920).
• It is a perspective that sees society as the product of shared symbols, such as language.
• The social world is therefore constructed by the meanings that individuals attach to events and social interactions, and these symbols are transmitted across the generations through language.
• A central concept of symbolic interactionists is the Self, which allows us to calculate the effects of our actions.
• Symbolic interactionism theory has been criticized because it ignores the emotional side of the Self as a basis for social interaction.
• Symbolic interactionism theory assumes that people respond to elements of their environments according to the subjective meanings they attach to those elements, such as meanings being created and modified through social interaction involving symbolic communication with other people.
• According to Blumer (1969), social interaction thus has four main principles:
  • Individuals act in reference to the subjective meaning objects have for them. For example, an individual that sees the “object” of family as being relatively unimportant will make decisions that deemphasize the role of family in their lives;
  • Interactions happen in a social and cultural context where objects, people, and situations must be defined and characterized according to individuals’ subjective meanings;
  • For individuals, meanings originate from interactions with other individuals and with society;
  • These meanings that an individual has are created and recreated through a process of interpretation that happens whenever that individual interacts with others. Hence option 3 is correct.

The correct answer is Pelham.

Key Points

• Implicit egotism is the hypothesis that humans have an unconscious preference for things they associate with themselves. In their 2002 paper, researchers Pelham, Mirenberg, and Jones argue that people have a basic desire to feel good about themselves and behave according to that desire.
• These automatic positive associations would influence feelings about almost anything associated with the self.
• Given the mere ownership effect, which states that people like things more if they own them, and the name-letter effect, which states that people like the letters of their name more than other letters,the researchers theorised that people would develop an affection for objects and concepts that are chronically associated with the self, such as their name.
•  Higher the class one belongs the lessen is the pretence because there is less to pretend to.
  • This is chief reason why our manners are better than other persons.
• They called this unconscious power implicit egotism. Hence option 1 is correct.

The corretc answer is Proudhon.

Key Points

•  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French socialist, politician, philosopher, economist and the founder of mutualist philosophy.
• He was the first person to declare himself an anarchist, using that term, and is widely regarded as one of anarchism's most influential theorists.
• Proudhon is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism".
• Proudhon became a member of the French Parliament after the Revolution of 1848, whereafter he referred to himself as a federalist.
• Proudhon described the liberty he pursued as "the synthesis of communism and property".
• "Property is theft!"  is a slogan coined by French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his 1840 book What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government. Hence option 1 is correct.

The correct answer is option 4.

Key Points

• Universally, reciprocal gift giving and hospitality to social intimates plays a vital part in tribal economies.
• According to Herskovits (1952) the process of distribution in tribal societies is part of non-economic relational matrix and takes the form of gift and ceremonial exchange.
• Each group, whether a family, a group of kinsmen, communities, villagers, or the tribe as a whole, implies appropriate norm of reciprocity.
• Another well-known social anthropologist Malinowski (1922) notes that the whole tribal life is permeated by a constant give and take. Hence option 3 is correct.
• Every ceremony, every legal and customary act is done to the accompaniment of material gift and counter gift.   
• Economic anthropologist Dalton (1971) holds that the tribal mode of transaction is that of reciprocity i.e. material gift and counter gift giving induced by social obligations of kinship.

The correct answer is option 4.

Key Points

•  Urbanization leads to a continuous loss of agricultural land, both directly under the form of land take, and indirectly through the use of agricultural land for non-productive rural activities like recreation, horse keeping or hobby farming.
• These urbanization processes put pressure on farmers, making farming activities harder through reduced agricultural land, negative externalities and the competition for land. Hence option 4 is correct.
• To estimate possible future changes, an agricultural agent-based model was combined with spatially explicit urbanization scenarios and with different agricultural subsidizing policies for the case study of Belgium.
• As a result of an aging farming population and low succession rates, simulations until 2035 showed a continuous decline of farmers in all scenarios; a trend that will continue for as long as not every farmer that quits his activities is replaced.
• The results also showed that these declines are expected to be higher in the rural-urban fringe. 

The correct answer is Homogenous.

Key Points

• A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty.
• The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inhabited by impoverished people.
• Although slums are usually located in urban areas, in some countries they can be located in suburban areas where housing quality is low and living conditions are poor.
• While slums differ in size and other characteristics, most lack reliable sanitation services, supply of clean water, reliable electricity, law enforcement, and other basic services. They are often as homogenous as suburbs
• Slum residences vary from shanty houses to professionally built dwellings which, because of poor-quality construction or lack of basic maintenance, have deteriorated.
• Due to increasing urbanization of the general populace, slums became common in the 19th to late 20th centuries in the United States and Europe.
• Slums are still predominantly found in urban regions of developing countries, but are also still found in developed economies. Hence option 1 is correct.

The correct answer is President of India.

Key Points

• The term 'Scheduled Tribes' first appeared in the Constitution of India.
• Article 366 (25) defined scheduled tribes as "such tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this constitution".
• Article 342, which is reproduced below, prescribes procedure to be followed in the matter of specification of scheduled tribes.

Article 342

• The President may, with respect to any State or Union territory, and where it is a state, after consultation with the Governor there of by public notification, specify the tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within tribes or tribal communities which shall, for the purposes of this constitution, is deemed to be scheduled tribes in relation to that state or Union Territory, as the case may be. Hence option 1 is correct.
• Parliament may by law include in or exclude from the list of Scheduled tribes specified in a notification issued under clause(1) any tribe or tribal community or part of or group within any tribe or tribal community, but save as aforesaid, a notification issued under the said clause shall not be varied by any subsequent notification.
• Thus, the first specification of Scheduled Tribes in relation to a particular State/ Union Territory is by a notified order of the President, after consultation with the State governments concerned.
  • These orders can be modified subsequently only through an Act of Parliament. The above Article also provides for listing of scheduled tribes State/Union Territory wise and not on an all India basis.

The correct answer is Emile durkheim.

Key Points

•  Emile Durkheim who has concerned himself with study of religion and social change.
• What is religion?
  • Pioneer sociologist Émile Durkheim described it with the ethereal statement that it consists of “things that surpass the limits of our knowledge” (1915).
  • He went on to elaborate: Religion is “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say set apart and forbidden, beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community, called a church, all those who adhere to them” (1915).
  • Some people associate religion with places of worship (a synagogue or church), others with a practice (confession or meditation), and still others with a concept that guides their daily lives (like dharma or sin).
  • All of these people can agree that religion is a system of beliefs, values, and practices concerning what a person holds sacred or considers to be spiritually significant. Hence option 3 is correct.

The correct answer is option 3

Key Points Transmigration of souls

• Transmigration of souls is a belief common to many cultures, in which the soul passes from one body to another, either human, animal, or inanimate.
  • The Australian aborigines believe that an infant is a reincarnation of deceased ancestors and that the soul is continually reborn.
  • Some Indonesian peoples hold that ancestral souls reside in sacred animals, sometimes in preparation for a new incarnation.
  • Similarly, several tribes in western Amazonia avoid eating certain animals, such as deer, because they believe ancestral souls have entered the animals' bodies.
• Metempsychosis is a fundamental doctrine of several religions originating in India.
• In Hinduism, the individual soul enters a new existence after the death of the body. Hence option 3 is correct.
• The sum total of past moral conduct, or karma, determines the condition of the soul and the quality of its rebirth.
• The cycle of rebirth is eternal unless the soul is released by knowledge or arduous effort .
• This release (moksha or mukti) is a form of salvation, and is possible only for the most devout.
• Buddhist doctrine does not accept the soul or transmigration as such, treating both as illusory.
  • Rather, there is an eternal, undifferentiated stream of being (samsara). Out of this, existences are produced and prolonged according to karma, or past actions.
  • The individual is not a separate entity, but rather a grouping of elements.
  • They revert to the original primal stream when desire, the cause of the transmigratory cycle, ceases. Only devout Buddhists or saints (i.e., those who abandon all desire) are able to realize this oneness.

The correct answer is option 4.

Key Points

•  Belief systems are principles that help us understand and define the world around us.
• They are influenced by several different things in a person's life and change over time.
• A belief system is an ideology or set of principles that helps us to interpret our everyday reality.
  • This could be in the form of religion, political affiliation, philosophy, or spirituality, among many other things.
  • These beliefs are shaped and influenced by a number of different factors.
  • Our knowledge on a certain topic, the way we were raised, and even peer pressure from others can help to create and even change our belief systems.
  • The convictions that come from these systems are a way for us to make sense of the world around us and to define our role within it.
• The study of individual beliefs and belief systems may have the potential to provide valuable insights into the drivers of many conflicts. Hence option 4 is correct.
• Certainly ideological trends which encourage the exclusive development of in and out group identities and promote violence as a tool to resolve inter-group disputes would be a cause of concern for those seeking to promote peace.

The correct answer is McKim Marriott.

 Key Points

• He is Professor in the Department of Anthropology in Social Sciences Collegiate Division of the University of Chicago.
• He has done field work in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, edited Village India, and authored varied studies on rural social organization and change.
• He is concerned with formulating and simulating indigenous sociologies and psychologies in India, Japan, and other countries.

Village India:

• Marriott’s edited Village India: Studies in the Little Community (1955) is one of the most well-known collections of village studies in the fifties, and even today it could be considered eminently relevant. It includes contributions by both foreign and Indian anthropologists.
• The book aims at looking Indian villages from the complexity of Indian civilization.
• The methodology, however, is structural-functional.
  • ​The contributors have re-examined the concept of caste. It has been the effort of the editor to make caste more precise, and less open textured.
• Our main concern here is to discuss the Marriott’s paper entitled “Little Communities in an Indigenous Civilization” (1955), which is contributed in Village India.
• Marriott conducted his study at the village of Kishan Garhi in Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh from December 1950 to April 1952. Kishan Garhi is not like an isolate whole, but a world in itself. Hence option 3 is correct.

The correct answer is option 3.

Key Points

• Dahomey, kingdom in western Africa that flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries in the region that is now southern Benin.
• According to tradition, at the beginning of the 17th century three brothers vied for the kingdom of Allada, which, like neighbouring Whydah (now Ouidah), had grown rich on the slave trade.
  • When one of the brothers won control of Allada, the other two fled.
  • One went southeast and founded Porto-Novo, on the coast east of Whydah.
  • The other, Do-Aklin, went north to found the kingdom of Abomey, core of the future Dahomey.
• They all paid tribute to the powerful Yoruba kingdom of Oyo to the east.
• The kingdom was a form of absolute monarchy unique in Africa.
• The king, surrounded by a magnificent retinue, was the unchallenged pinnacle of a rigidly stratified society of royalty, commoners, and slaves.
• He governed through a centralized bureaucracy staffed by commoners who could not threaten his authority. Each male official in the field had a female counterpart at court who monitored his activities and advised the king.
• They held property on a feudal basis.
• Conquered territories were assimilated through intermarriage, uniform laws, and a common tradition of enmity to the Yoruba.
• Dahomey was organized for war, not only to expand its boundaries but also to take captives as slaves.

• Slaves were either sold to the Europeans in exchange for weapons or kept to work the royal plantations that supplied food for the army and court. Hence option 3 is correct.

The correct answer is option 4.

Key Points

•  The development of agricultural about 12,000 years ago changed the way humans lived.
• They switched from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to permanent settlements and farming.
• Taking root around 12,000 years ago, agriculture triggered such a change in society and the way in which people lived that its development has been dubbed the “Neolithic Revolution.”
• Traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles, followed by humans since their evolution, were swept aside in favor of permanent settlements and a reliable food supply.
• Out of agriculture, cities and civilizations grew, and because crops and animals could now be farmed to meet demand, the global population rocketed—from some five million people 10,000 years ago, to more than seven billion today. Temples became place of God.
• There was no single factor, or combination of factors, that led people to take up farming in different parts of the world.
  • In the Near East, for example, it’s thought that climatic changes at the end of the last ice age brought seasonal conditions that favored annual plants like wild cereals. Elsewhere, such as in East Asia, increased pressure on natural food resources may have forced people to find homegrown solutions.
• But whatever the reasons for its independent origins, farming sowed the seeds for the modern age. Hence option 4 is correct.

The correct answer is option 2.

Key Points 

• Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and writer.
• As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation.
• He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual repression, and he embodied various aspects of this counterculture with his views on drugs, sex, multiculturalism, hostility to bureaucracy, and openness to Eastern religions.
• Ginsberg is best known for his poem "Howl", in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States.
• Ginsberg: Social Morphology studies the quality and quantity of population, social group, social structure and social institutions.
  • Social control studies the mechanisms i.e. both formal and informal by which society controls the behaviour of its members. Hence option 2 is correct.

The correct answer is K. Davis

Key Points

• Kingsley Davis, American sociologist and demographer who coined the terms population explosion and zero population growth.
• His specific studies of American society led him to work on a general science of world society, based on empirical analysis of each society in its habitat.
• Davis led and conducted major studies of societies in Europe, South America, Africa and Asia, coined the term "population explosion", and played a major role in the naming and development of the demographic transition model.
• He was also one of the original scholars in the development of the theory of overurbanization.
• He is also credited with coining the term "zero population growth" although George Stolnitz claimed to have that distinction.
• Davis also published an influential article with Wilbert E. Moore entitled "Some Principles of Stratification,"which was a very influential functionalist account of the reasons for social inequality.
• Davis and Moore synthesize Durkheim and Parsons to argue for the "functional necessity" of some positions over others: those that are highest paid go to the most deserving individuals; at the same time, the differential rewards motivates individuals to work to fill positions they might otherwise not.
• Thus, from this perspective, illness is a deviant state because it means that the individual may not be able to fill their role.
  • Sociologists see this article as a paradigmatic case of functionalist logic, and indeed, Davis came to be a leading figure in this school of sociology.
• According to him, community is the smallest territorial group that can embrace all aspects of social life.
• As a demographer, Davis was internationally recognized for his expertise in world population growth and resources, the history and theory of international migration, world urbanization, demographic transition and population policy. Hence option 2 is correct.

The correct answer is option 1.

Key Points

• In a good social structure each group and institution is expected to perform specific function.
• social structure, in sociology, the distinctive, stable arrangement of institutions whereby human beings in a society interact and live together.
• Social structure is often treated together with the concept of social change, which deals with the forces that change the social structure and the organization of society.
• Although it is generally agreed that the term social structure refers to regularities in social life, its application is inconsistent.
  • For example, the term is sometimes wrongly applied when other concepts such as custom, tradition, role, or norm would be more accurate.
• Studies of social structure attempt to explain such matters as integration and trends in inequality.
• In the study of these phenomena, sociologists analyze organizations, social categories (such as age groups), or rates (such as of crime or birth).
  • This approach, sometimes called formal sociology, does not refer directly to individual behaviour or interpersonal interaction.
• Therefore, the study of social structure is not considered a behavioral science; at this level, the analysis is too abstract.
• It is a step removed from the consideration of concrete human behaviour, even though the phenomena studied in social structure result from humans responding to each other and to their environments.
• Those who study social structure do, however, follow an empirical (observational) approach to research, methodology, and epistemology.
• Social structure is sometimes defined simply as patterned social relations—those regular and repetitive aspects of the interactions between the members of a given social entity.
• Even on this descriptive level, the concept is highly abstract: it selects only certain elements from ongoing social activities.
• The larger the social entity considered, the more abstract the concept tends to be.
• For this reason, the social structure of a small group is generally more closely related to the daily activities of its individual members than is the social structure of a larger society.
• In the study of larger social groups, the problem of selection is acute: much depends on what is included as components of the social structure. Various theories offer different solutions to this problem of determining the primary characteristics of a social group. Hence option 1 is correct.