Quick-revision summary of Chapter 2: Terms, Concepts and their Use in Sociology (Introducing Sociology, Class 11). For full explanations, read the complete notes.
1 Key definitions
Key definitions
AggregatePeople in the same place at the same time, no definite connection (bus stop passengers, cinema audience)
Quasi groupLacks structure or organisation; members unaware or less aware of the grouping (classes, age and gender groups, crowds)
Social groupContinuously interacting persons sharing common interest, culture, values and norms
Social stratificationStructured inequalities between groups in access to material or symbolic rewards
Status / rolePosition with defined rights and duties (occupied) / its behavioural aspect (played)
Role conflictIncompatibility among roles of one or more status
Social controlMeans to bring recalcitrant or unruly members back into line
SanctionMode of reward or punishment reinforcing expected behaviour
DevianceAction not conforming to the norms or values held by most members
2 Why special terms
- Familiar subject matter: we cannot see institutions clearly (Berger 1976); living in families is not knowing families.
- Concepts map the shift from pre-modern to modern: primary/secondary, community/association; stratification maps structured inequality.
- Marx: class, conflict. Durkheim: social solidarity, collective conscience. Functionalists (post World War II): harmony, organism. Conflict theorists: conflict ridden.
- Micro (status, role) vs macro (social control, stratification). Concepts are keys, not final answers; society itself is diverse.
3 Social groups
- Two facts: groups exist in every society; their types differ.
- Quasi groups become groups: class and caste → political parties; anti-colonial struggle → nation; women’s movement → women’s groups.
- Six features: persistent interaction, stable pattern, sense of belonging, shared interest, common norms and values, definable structure.
- Primary (small, intimate, person-oriented: family, village, friends) vs secondary (large, impersonal, goal oriented: schools, offices, hospitals).
- Community (personal, enduring) vs association (impersonal, contractual). A complete contrast is probably not accurate.
- In-group (“we”) vs out-group (“they”; migrants). Srinivas, Rampura 1948: nenne monne bandavartu vs arsheyinda bandavaru, khadeem kulagalu.
- Reference group: emulated, not belonged to (colonial middle class and the English; gendered). Peer group: primary group of age or profession; peer pressure.
4 Stratification
- Like layers of rock; affects health, longevity, security, education, work, political influence.
- Four systems: slavery (Greece and Rome; Southern USA, 18th and 19th centuries; bonded labour today), caste, estate (feudal Europe), class.
- Caste: ascribed by birth; purity and pollution; Brahmin top, Panchamas bottom; four fold varna, innumerable jatis; endogamy.
- Desai 1975: city hotels, trains and buses mixed all castes, but caste had not vanished. Parmar in the mill: private discrimination. Democracy: castes as interest groups.
- Class: Marx (relation to means of production); Weber (life-chances; economy, prestige, power); functionalism (no classless society; most qualified fill important positions).
- Caste fixed and rigid vs class open; K. R. Narayanan; perfect mobility not reached.
5 Status and role
- Status set (many at once: student, customer, passenger, sibling, patient); status sequence (son → father → grandfather → great grandfather).
- Ascribed (age, caste, race, kinship; traditional) vs achieved (education, income, expertise; modern). Ascribed status still matters.
- Prestige: value attached to a position (doctor vs shopkeeper); varies by society and period.
- Role conflict: working woman; Khasi matriliny, natal house vs wife and children (Nongbri 2003). Role stereotyping: breadwinner vs homemaker.
- Roles are negotiated; socialisation allows agency; violations are punished.
6 Social control
- Functionalist: force and values for order and stability. Conflict theorists usually: control by dominant classes; law as writ of the powerful.
- Berger: violence the oldest means, used as a last resort; control often rests on fraudulent claims (the invented big brother).
- Formal: codified; law and state. Informal: smiles, frowns, ridicule; family, religion, kinship.
- Honour killing report: identify the agencies (model answer: family informal, Panchayat community pressure; police, i.e. law, formal).
- Sanctions positive and negative. Deviance varies by culture and time (woman astronaut).
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