Karnataka SSLC Sociology (KSEAB) cheat sheet

Sociology is the systematic, empirical study of human social life, groups, and societies; the term was coined by Auguste Comte in 1838 from Latin socius (companion) and Greek logos (study).

Comte's law of three stages holds that human thought passes through theological, metaphysical, and positive (scientific) stages; sociology belongs to the positive stage.

Nature: sociology is a social science, not a natural science; it is empirical, theoretical, cumulative, general (not individual-specific), and non-normative (it studies what is, not what ought to be).

Scope is conventionally divided into social morphology (population, structure), social physiology (institutions, processes), and social control; special sociologies include family, education, religion, and rural/urban sociology.

Emile Durkheim established sociology as an academic discipline with rules of sociological method (1895) and the concept of social facts as external, constraining, and general.

Max Weber introduced verstehen (interpretive understanding) and defined sociology as the science of social action; his ideal type is a methodological tool, not a moral ideal.

Distinguish sociology from psychology (individual mental processes), social psychology (interaction of individual and group), history (past particulars), and anthropology (often small, preliterate societies).

Sociology is a pure science seeking knowledge and an applied science when used for social planning, welfare policy, and social engineering; both aspects coexist.

Indian sociology's early figures include G. S. Ghurye (caste and kinship), Radhakamal Mukerjee (social ecology), and M. N. Srinivas (Sanskritization, dominant caste).

Society is the widest web of social relationships among human beings; it is abstract (relationships), whereas community and association are more concrete.

Community is a territorial, relatively permanent group with shared living, e.g., a village; association is a deliberately formed group with a specific purpose, e.g., a cooperative or trade union.

Institution is an established pattern of norms and procedures (family, marriage, education); an organization is a concrete group carrying out institutional functions.

Social group: two or more interacting persons with shared expectations and a sense of belonging. Primary groups (family, play group) are small, face-to-face, and personal; secondary groups (office, city) are large, impersonal, and goal-oriented.

In-group (we) and out-group (they) are defined by the member's identification; reference group is the group used as a standard for self-evaluation.

Culture is the total way of life: material culture (tools, buildings) and non-material culture (beliefs, values, norms). Symbols, language, values, norms, and sanctions are its elements.

Norms are shared expectations of behavior; folkways are everyday customary norms, mores are strongly held moral norms, and laws are formally codified and enforced norms.

Ethnocentrism judges other cultures by one's own standards; cultural relativism holds that a culture must be understood in its own terms; culture lag is the delay of non-material culture behind material change.

Status is a position in a group (ascribed by birth, achieved by effort); role is the expected behavior attached to a status; role conflict arises when demands of two roles clash.

Social structure is the relatively stable pattern of positions, roles, groups, and institutions that organizes social relationships in a society.

Elements include statuses and roles, groups, institutions, norms, and the distribution of power, wealth, and prestige.

Status set is all statuses held by one person; master status is the one that overrides others in social interaction.

Institutions perform functions (manifest and latent); manifest functions are intended and recognized, latent functions are unintended consequences (Merton).

Dysfunction is an element that reduces adaptation or stability of a system; function and dysfunction are assessed relative to a given structure.

Structural functionalism (Durkheim, Parsons, Merton) sees society as a system of interdependent parts contributing to equilibrium; conflict theory (Marx, Dahrendorf) sees structure as shaped by unequal power and group conflict.

Social structure is not the same as social organization: structure is the underlying pattern, organization is the arrangement of activity for a goal.

Structure constrains but does not determine action; agency and structure are interrelated, so structures persist through reproduction in everyday practice.

Social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of individuals and groups in a society according to unequal access to valued resources: wealth, power, and prestige.

Four classical systems: slavery (ownership), estate (feudal legal orders), caste (closed, birth-ascribed, endogamous), and class (open, achieved, economically based).

Characteristics of stratification: it is social (not biological), ancient, universal, variable across societies, and consequential for life chances.

Caste features: hereditary membership, hierarchy, endogamy, purity-pollution rules, occupational association, and commensality restrictions.

Class is an open stratum defined by economic position; Marx used relation to means of production (bourgeoisie vs proletariat), Weber added class, status, and party.

Social mobility is movement between social positions: vertical (upward/downward), horizontal (change of position at same level), intergenerational (across generations), intragenerational (within a lifetime).

Open societies have higher mobility; closed societies (caste) restrict it. Education, occupation, migration, and marriage are major mobility channels.

Structural mobility results from changes in the occupational structure, not from individual effort; exchange mobility is circulation among positions.

Family is the universal, kinship-based institution rooted in marriage; functions include reproduction, socialization, economic support, emotional security, and care of the aged.

Types by residence: patrilocal (with husband's family), matrilocal (with wife's family), neolocal (new household). By descent: patrilineal, matrilineal, bilateral.

Types by composition: nuclear (two generations, parents and children) and joint or extended (three or more generations, shared property and authority).

Marriage is a socially approved union that legitimizes sexual relations, children, and mutual obligations; it is a social institution, not merely a private contract.

Forms of marriage: monogamy, polygyny (one man, several wives), polyandry (one woman, several husbands); endogamy (marriage within group) and exogamy (outside group); cross-cousin and levirate forms.

Dowry is property given by the bride's family; bride price (kanyadan-related payments reversed) is paid by the groom's family; both are marriage transactions, not definitions of marriage.

Kinship is the network of relationships based on blood (consanguineal) and marriage (affinal); it includes descent, residence, and terminology systems.

Kinship terms are classificatory (grouping several relatives under one term) or descriptive (distinguishing each relative); lineage is a unilineal descent group tracing descent from a known ancestor.

Changes in Indian family: rising nuclear households, urbanization, female education and employment, declining fertility, and legal reform such as the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.

Socialization is the lifelong process by which individuals learn the norms, values, and skills of their society and develop a self and personality.

Primary socialization occurs in childhood within the family; secondary socialization occurs later in school, peer groups, and workplace.

Agencies: family (first and strongest), school, peer group, mass media, religious institutions, and workplace.

Cooley's looking-glass self: we imagine how others see us, imagine their judgment, and develop self-feeling accordingly.

Mead: the self develops through play and games; the 'I' is the spontaneous aspect, the 'me' is the internalized social expectations; the generalized other is the internalized attitude of the community.

Freud's model: id (instincts), ego (reality-oriented), superego (internalized morality); personality forms through resolution of psychosexual stages.

Piaget: cognitive development proceeds in stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational); Kohlberg described stages of moral reasoning.

Nature vs nurture: heredity sets potentials, environment and social interaction shape their expression; isolation and feral cases show that social contact is essential to normal development.

Re-socialization is learning new norms that replace earlier ones (e.g., total institutions); anticipatory socialization is preparing for a future role.

Social change is alteration in social structure, institutions, and patterns of behavior over time; it may be evolutionary, revolutionary, or cyclical.

Factors of change: technological innovation, economic change, ideology, education, social movements, demographic shifts, and diffusion of culture.

Theories: evolutionary (Comte, Spencer), cyclical (Spengler, Toynbee), conflict (Marx), and functionalist equilibrium models (Parsons).

Cooperation is joint effort toward shared goals; it may be direct (face-to-face) or indirect (mediated by institutions), and is the most basic of social processes.

Competition is a struggle for scarce goods (wealth, status, power) governed by norms; it is impersonal and continuous, whereas conflict is personal and aims at neutralizing or injuring the opponent.

Conflict may be in-group or inter-group, violent or non-violent; Simmel and Coser note that conflict can also integrate groups and produce change.

Accommodation is the adjustment that ends open conflict without removing underlying differences: arbitration, mediation, compromise, toleration, and conversion.

Assimilation is the fusion of groups into a common culture and identity; amalgamation is biological mixing, assimilation is cultural; assimilation is slower and often incomplete.

In Indian sociology, Sanskritization (M. N. Srinivas) and Westernization describe cultural mobility and change; modernization and urbanization are structural changes.

A social problem is a condition widely regarded as harmful and requiring collective action; it is defined by public perception and values, not by objective harm alone.

Major Indian social problems: poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, caste and gender discrimination, dowry, child marriage, alcoholism, drug abuse, crime, and communalism.

Social control is the sum of means by which society enforces conformity: informal (customs, folkways, mores, public opinion, gossip, ridicule) and formal (law, police, courts, codes).

Agencies of social control: family, kinship, religion, education, peer group, mass media, state, and law.

Theories of social control include Durkheim's view of crime as normal and functional (marking boundaries), and Hirschi's social bond theory (attachment, commitment, involvement, belief).

Deviance is behavior violating significant norms; it is relative to time, place, and group; not all deviance is crime, but all crime is deviance against legal norms.

Sanctions are rewards for conformity and punishments for deviance; they may be positive or negative, formal or informal.

Constitutional and legal safeguards in India: abolition of untouchability (Article 17), prohibition of child marriage (2006 Act), Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, and Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955.

Juvenile justice, rehabilitation, de-addiction, and legal aid are corrective rather than purely punitive responses to social problems.

Indian society is characterized by unity in diversity: linguistic, religious, regional, and ethnic variation with shared civilizational elements.

Varna is a fourfold textual classification (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra); jati is the actual local endogamous birth group; varna and jati are not identical.

Caste has been studied through the concepts of dominant caste (Srinivas), sanskritization, and purity-pollution; caste is changing but persists in marriage and politics.

Tribe (adivasi) is distinguished from caste by distinct language, territory, religion, and community ownership; Scheduled Tribes are constitutionally listed.

Karnataka's social composition includes Lingayat, Vokkaliga, and other communities, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and significant religious minorities; caste and region shape its politics.

Karnataka's tribal groups include Soliga, Jenu Kuruba, Betta Kuruba, Gond, and Koraga; the Soliga live in the Biligiri Rangana Hills (BRT) and are known for forest-based livelihoods.

Rural life is characterized by agriculture, close kinship, face-to-face relations, and jajmani-type interdependence; urban life by occupational diversity, anonymity, secondary relations, and mobility.

Urbanization in Karnataka is concentrated in Bengaluru, which is a major metropolitan centre; migration and the growth of industry and services reshape rural-urban relations.

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments (1992) gave constitutional status to Panchayati Raj and urban local bodies, changing rural and urban governance.

A social movement is an organized, sustained collective effort to promote or resist change in some part of society; it differs from a crowd or a fad by organization and duration.

Types: reform (change specific practices), revolutionary (change the whole order), reactionary (resist change), and expressive or identity movements.

Stages of a movement: emergence, coalescence, bureaucratization, and decline (success, failure, or repression).

Nineteenth-century reform: Raja Ram Mohan Roy (Brahmo Samaj, 1828; sati abolition 1829), Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (widow remarriage), and Dayanand Saraswati (Arya Samaj, 1875).

Jyotirao Phule (Satyashodhak Samaj, 1873) and B. R. Ambedkar led anti-caste struggles; Ambedkar's Mahad Satyagraha (1927) and temple entry movements are landmarks.

Women's reform: Pandita Ramabai, Savitribai Phule, and the reform of marriage and education laws; the Age of Consent Act 1891 and Sarda Act 1929 raised marriage ages.

Backward class and Dravidian movements in South India; in Karnataka, the Lingayat and Vokkaliga movements and the Dalit movement shaped social and political life.

Peasant and labour movements (Kisan Sabha, trade unions) and environmental movements (Chipko, Appiko in Karnataka, Narmada Bachao) represent different bases of mobilization.

Reform and movement outcomes include legislation, education, and changed public opinion; movements often face repression and internal splits.