The Challenges of Unity in Diversity Test - 1

The correct answer is Radcliffe Brown.

Key Points

• Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown (born 17 January 1881; died 24 October 1955) was an English social anthropologist who pioneered structural functionalism and coadaptation theory.
• He considered institutions as the key to preserving a society's global social order, akin to the organs of a body, and his studies of social function study how conventions contribute in maintaining a society's general stability.
• He was greatly influenced by Émile Durkheim's work and observed that sociology is in its extreme infancy. Hence option 1) is correct.
• He reasoned that this would at the very least necessitate that other practises do not conflict with them excessively; and that in some situations, practises may grow to support one another, a concept he coined as 'coadaptation,' after the biological term.
• The 'purpose' of a practice, insofar as there existed a stable social framework, was simply its part in sustaining it (Radcliffe-Brown 1957).

The correct answer is Norms.

Key Points,

• The normative dimension consists of folkways, mores, customs, conventions and laws.
• These are values or rules that guide social behavior in different contexts. Hence option 1) is correct.
• We most often follow social norms because we are used to doing it, as a result of socialization. 
• All social norms are accompanied by sanctions that promote conformity. 
• While norms are implicit rules, laws are explicit rules.
• Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist has reminded us that when we try to understand another culture’s norms, we must remember that there are certain implicit understandings.
• For example, if a person wants to show gratitude for something s/he has been given, s/he should not offer a return gift too quickly, or it seems like an attempt to get rid of debt, not a friendly gesture.

The correct answer is In time.

Key Points

• The social position of an individual in a given community and culture is defined as: A single job title (for example, priest) may be held by people.
•  Social positions an individual may hold fall into the categories of
  • occupation (medical doctor, academic lecturer),
  • profession (member of associations and organizations),
  • family (parent, sibling, etc.
  • hobby (member of various clubs and organizations), among others.
• An individual is likely to create a personal hierarchy of such positions, where one will be in a central position while the rest are in peripheral positions people.
• Families have varying ‘locations’ within the overall institutions of a society.
• In most traditional societies, the family into which a person is born largely determines the individual’s social position for the rest of his/her life, which may often change with time. Hence option 2) is correct.

The correct answer is Polygyny and polyandry.

Key Points

• Polygamy is the practice of marrying multiple spouses.
• When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny.
• When a woman is married to more than one husband at a time, it is called polyandry. Hence option 3) is correct.
• Monogamy, in contrast to polygamy, is a marriage between just two people.
• The term "polygamy," like "monogamy," is frequently utilized in a de facto meaning, regardless of whether a state acknowledges the partnership.
• Polygamy is most frequent in a region of West Africa and Central Africa known as the "polygamy belt," with Burkina Faso, Mali, Gambia, Niger, and Nigeria thought to have the greatest polygamy frequency in the world.
• Polyandry is believed to be more common in societies with scarce environmental resources, as it is believed to limit human population growth and enhance child survival.
• It is a rare form of marriage that exists not only among poor families but also among the elite.

The correct answer is It is not without its virtue.

Key Points

• Disadvantages of Private Property:
  • Greed for Property: Private property makes man greedy. He wants to earn more and more money by any means. He does not care even for morality. Private property thus leads to moral degeneration also. 
  • Destruction of Human Values: In a private property system, everything is measured in terms of money. All values of human life such as love, sympathy, benevolence and affection are evaluated in terms of silver coins. Every person wants to get the maximum. The sole criterion is property not value. 
  • Basis of Capitalism: The institution of private property is the basis of capitalism. In capitalism every person has the right to earn and maintain property. The right to property is considered sacred. Capitalism is injurious to both the individual and society. 
  • Inequality: Private property is a source of inequality. It creates wide gap between the haves and have-not’s. The ownership of private property gives power to direct the lives of those who have no property. 
  • Economically Inadequate: The system of private property is economically inadequate because it fails to distribute the wealth it creates as to offer the necessary conditions of health and security to those who live by its processes. It has lost the allegiance of the vast majority of the people.

Important Points

• Nurse of Virtues: It has also been argued by some thinkers that private property creates social virtues like love of one’s family, generosity, energy, philanthropy etc. The man who has private property has a great stake in the country lest his property may be looted by foreign invaders. It is on this account that some political thinkers have suggested that the right to vote should be given only to those who have some property.

The correct answer is According to social customs.

Key Points

• The jajmani system or yajman system was an economic system most notably found in villages of India in which lower castes performed various functions for upper castes and received grain or other goods in return.
• It was an occupational division of labour involving a system of role-relationships that enabled villages to be mostly self-sufficient.
• Although colonial officials such as Baden Henry Powell had previously recognized the occurrence, William Wiser's village study released in 1936 was the first substantial attempt to explore the links inside India's caste system from an economic perspective.
• Oscar Lewis relied on Wiser's study for his 1958 definition of the jajmani system, saying that "Under this system each caste group within a village is expected to give certain standardized services to the families of other castes".
• While Harold Gould summarised Wiser's explanation of its main features as being that the economic services were "fixed in type, were rendered by one caste to another, and involved primarily and characteristically payments in kind although cash payments might also be made in some circumstances".
• Most significantly, the system applied to agricultural labourers because a primary function of the system was to ensure that the higher-caste, landowning people had a pool of landless menial labour to work their fields.
• It thus acted as a restrictor on the social, economic and geographic movement of the kameens.

The correct answer is Lord Ripon.

Key Points

• Lord Ripon is regarded as India's "Father of Local self-government Self-Government," having instituted local self-government in 1882.
• This is a variation of the Panchayat Raj system, in which local residents elect their leaders and the administration that serves them in their community.
• So, he passed the resolution so that Indians would be able to manage their administrative system.
• Powers were delegated to local people of a particular area and they used to select their candidates for the administration of their local areas whether rural or urban areas but the object behind local self-government is to train Indians effectively for managing administrative systems.
• So, this resolution deals with administrative area powers and functions of the local self government and its finance.
• The composition of local bodies - there must not be more than one-third of official members in the board, and it includes non-official members whose tenure was two years after the election for an appointment - was established for the functioning of local self-government full-stop these local bodies were at urban and rural levels.
• Retired non-commissioned officers can rejoin the system.
• When the Royal Commission on Decentralization was constituted in 1907 under the direction of CEH Hobhouse, a local self-government entity was created for the Chandan.
• However, it began at the village level rather than the district level.
• The Panchayati Raj system has been in India since ancient times, but this Resolution marked a turning point in the history of local self-government in India.self-government

The correct answer is the Supremacy of the ruler.

Key Points

• ​The groups in a government that create, enforce, and implement laws are known as political institutions.
• They frequently resolve conflicts, formulate (governmental) policies affecting the economic and social institutions, and otherwise represent the people.
• Every society must have a type of political system so that it may allocate resources and ongoing procedures appropriately.
• A political institution sets the rules in which an orderly society obeys and ultimately decides and administers the laws for those that do not obey.
• The distribution structure of power and authority used to maintain social order is known as a political institution.
• Politics is the social institution through which some persons and groups obtain and exert power. Hence option 1) is correct.
• Gabriel Abraham Almond and James Smoot Coleman compiled the following three essential functions of a political system in 1960:
  • To sustain societal unity by establishing norms.
  • Adapting and changing social, economic, and religious systems in order to achieve communal (political) aims.
  • To safeguard the political system's integrity against external challenges.

The correct answer is a process illustrates a pattern of change that has taken place in the past and is likely to be repeated in future in other societies.

Key Points

• The process of transitioning from an agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine production in modern history is known as the Industrial Revolution.
• These technological advancements revolutionized civilization by introducing new methods of working and living.
• This procedure began in the 18th century in Britain and extended throughout the world from there.
• The phrase "Industrial Revolution" was used by English economist Arnold Toynbee (1852–83) to describe Britain's economic development from 1760 to 1840, despite the earlier use of French writers.
• Since Toynbee's time, the phrase has been used to describe a process of economic transformation rather than a specific period of time.
• In sociology, social change refers to changes in cultural symbols, standards of behavior, social institutions, or value systems that occur within the social structure.

The correct answer is I. P. Desai.

Key Points

• In the four decades of pursuing sociology I P Desai examined a wide range of topics.
• The significance of his work lies not so much in the fact that he was more critical than his contemporaries both in the methodology he used.
• Whatever be the subject he dealt with he used the inductive analysis in the place of a deduction. 
• Instead of focusing on the insular features of co-residence and commensality, as was the case in the West, he focused on the kinship network of family units in his study of the Indian family.
• His investigation of whether caste should be used to determine backwardness is notable for its thoroughness.
• He had written 'Untouchability in Rural Gujarat'. Hence option 2) is correct.
• In Indian society, he questioned the concept of caste as a unique, essential, or lasting entity.
• When I P Desai looked into the concepts of Sanskritisation and westernization, he discovered that the 'new elite' is the result of a combination of the two.