Basic Concepts in Sociology
What the exam tests
This domain requires precise distinctions among basic concepts and the ability to apply them to Indian social life. Definition alone is not enough; you must show how concepts relate.
Core rules
- Society: the widest web of social relationships and institutions. It is not just a collection of people.
- Community: a group sharing territory, identity and face-to-face relations (village, neighbourhood). Association: a deliberately formed group with specific aims and rules (cooperative society, trade union). Institution: established norms and procedures around a basic need (family, education, religion).
- Social group: two or more people in interaction with shared expectations; primary (intimate, face-to-face) vs secondary (formal, instrumental).
- Culture: learned, shared ways of life-knowledge, beliefs, norms, values, symbols, material objects. Social structure: relatively stable pattern of roles, statuses and institutions.
- Status and role: status is a position (ascribed or achieved); role is the dynamic performance of expectations attached to it. Norms are specific rules; values are broad ideals. Socialisation is lifelong learning of culture and roles.
Worked example
A village has a gram panchayat, a milk cooperative and families. Classify. The village is a community: territory, identity and everyday interaction. The milk cooperative is an association: voluntary membership, specific economic aim, written rules. The family is an institution and a primary group; the panchayat is a formal organisation exercising local governance. Reasoning: classification depends on the criterion-territory, purpose, intimacy or institutional function.
Traps
Do not use society, community and association interchangeably. Do not reduce culture to dance and music. Do not treat socialisation as only childhood or one-way; adults and peers also socialise. Do not confuse status (position) with role (performance).