UGC NET Sociology Sociological Theory Syllabus

Sociological Theory syllabus — full chapter and topic list

Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics. This is the whole examinable outline for Sociological Theory in UGC NET Sociology, not a summary of it.

1. 1

   Classical Sociological Traditions

   3 topics

   • Emile Durkheim
   • Max Weber
   • Karl Marx
2. 2

   Structure- Functionalism and Structuralism

   5 topics

   • Bronislaw Malinowski
   • A.R. Radcliffe- Brown
   • Talcott Parsons
   • Robert K. Merton
   • Claude Levi Strauss
3. 3

   Hermeneutic and Interpretative Traditions

   6 topics

   • G.H. Mead
   • Karl Manheim
   • Alfred Schutz
   • Harold Garfinkel
   • Erving Goffman
   • Clifford Geertz
4. 4

   Post Modernism, Post Structuralism and Post Colonialism

   6 topics

   • Edward Said
   • Pierre Bourdieu
   • Michel Foucault
   • Jurgen Habermas
   • Anthony Giddens
   • Manuel Castells
5. 5

   Indian Thinkers

   6 topics

   • M.K. Gandhi
   • B.R. Ambedkar
   • Radha Kamal Mukherjee
   • G. S. Ghurye
   • M.N. Srinivas
   • Irawati Karve

Sociological Theory flashcards for UGC NET Sociology

21 of 50 cards from the Sociological Theory deck — real questions with worked answers.

1. According to Emile Durkheim, what is a 'social fact'?

   A way of acting, thinking, or feeling that is external to the individual and exercises a constraining/coercive power over them; it is general throughout society and exists independently of any individual. Durkheim said social facts must be treated 'as things' (Rules of Sociological Method, 1895).

2. Distinguish Durkheim's 'mechanical solidarity' from 'organic solidarity'.

   Mechanical solidarity: found in simple/traditional societies, based on likeness/similarity and a strong collective conscience, enforced by repressive (penal) law. Organic solidarity: found in complex societies, based on the division of labour and interdependence of differentiated individuals, enforced by restitutive law.

3. Name and define the four types of suicide in Durkheim's 'Suicide' (1897).

   Egoistic (too little social integration), Altruistic (too much integration), Anomic (insufficient regulation, e.g., during rapid change/crisis), and Fatalistic (excessive regulation/oppression). The two key variables are integration and regulation.

4. What does Durkheim mean by 'anomie'?

   A state of normlessness or breakdown of social regulation in which norms governing aspirations and conduct become weak or absent, typically during rapid social change; it leaves individuals without moral guidance and is linked to anomic suicide and abnormal division of labour.

5. List Max Weber's four types of social action.

   (1) Instrumentally rational (zweckrational) - means-ends calculation; (2) Value-rational (wertrational) - action for an intrinsic value/belief; (3) Affectual - driven by emotions/feelings; (4) Traditional - guided by habit/custom.

6. What is the central thesis of Weber's 'The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism' (1905)?

   Ascetic Protestantism, especially Calvinism's doctrine of predestination, produced a 'this-worldly asceticism' in which disciplined, methodical work and reinvestment of profit became a religious calling, unintentionally providing the cultural 'spirit' that fostered modern rational capitalism.

7. Name Weber's three types of legitimate authority (domination).

   (1) Traditional authority - legitimacy from age-old custom/inheritance; (2) Charismatic authority - based on exceptional personal qualities of a leader; (3) Rational-legal authority - based on legally enacted rules and impersonal offices (basis of modern bureaucracy).

8. What are the key features of Weber's 'ideal type' of bureaucracy?

   Hierarchy of offices, fixed jurisdictional areas governed by written rules, specialization/division of labour, impersonality (rules applied without favour), appointment on technical qualifications, full-time salaried career officials, and written records (files).

9. Explain Karl Marx's concept of historical materialism (base and superstructure).

   The economic base (forces + relations of production) shapes the legal, political, and ideological superstructure. History progresses through modes of production (primitive communism, ancient/slave, feudal, capitalist, communist), with class struggle as the motor of change driven by contradictions between forces and relations of production.

10. What is Marx's concept of 'alienation' and its four forms?

    Under capitalism the worker is estranged in four ways: (1) from the product of labour, (2) from the act/process of production, (3) from species-being (human creative essence/Gattungswesen), and (4) from fellow human beings.

11. Define 'surplus value' in Marx's theory.

    The value created by the worker over and above the value of their labour-power (wages); it is appropriated by the capitalist as the source of profit. The rate of exploitation = surplus value / variable capital (wages).

12. What does Marx mean by 'class-in-itself' versus 'class-for-itself'?

    Class-in-itself: a class defined objectively by its common relation to the means of production but lacking awareness. Class-for-itself: a class that has developed class consciousness and organizes to pursue its collective political interests.

13. What is Bronislaw Malinowski's theory of functionalism (biological/needs functionalism)?

    Every cultural institution exists to satisfy human needs. Malinowski identified basic (biological) needs (e.g., nutrition, reproduction), derived (instrumental) needs, and integrative needs; institutions are the cultural responses that meet these needs.

14. What ethnographic method and concept is Malinowski famous for, based on his Trobriand Islands fieldwork?

    Participant observation as the foundation of modern fieldwork (Argonauts of the Western Pacific, 1922), and the analysis of the 'Kula ring'—a system of ceremonial exchange of armshells (mwali) and necklaces (soulava) among Trobriand islanders.

15. How does A.R. Radcliffe-Brown's 'structural functionalism' differ from Malinowski's functionalism?

    Radcliffe-Brown focused on social structure and how institutions contribute to maintaining the social system (social needs/'necessary conditions of existence'), drawing on Durkheim, whereas Malinowski emphasized individual biological/psychological needs. R-B's approach is sometimes called 'structural-functionalism'.

16. What did Talcott Parsons mean by the AGIL functional prerequisites of a social system?

    Four functions every system must meet: Adaptation (economy), Goal-attainment (polity), Integration (legal/community institutions), and Latency/pattern maintenance (family, religion, education). Together they form the 'functional imperatives' of the social system.

17. What are Talcott Parsons's 'pattern variables'?

    Five dichotomous choices orienting action: (1) Affectivity vs Affective neutrality, (2) Self-orientation vs Collectivity-orientation, (3) Universalism vs Particularism, (4) Ascription (quality) vs Achievement (performance), (5) Specificity vs Diffuseness. Traditional societies lean to the first poles, modern to the second.

18. Distinguish Robert K. Merton's 'manifest' and 'latent' functions, and define 'dysfunction'.

    Manifest functions: intended and recognized consequences of social action. Latent functions: unintended and unrecognized consequences. Dysfunction: consequences that reduce the adaptation or adjustment of a system. Merton also stressed 'net balance' of functional consequences.

19. Outline Robert K. Merton's strain theory typology of modes of adaptation.

    Based on acceptance/rejection of cultural goals and institutional means: Conformity (+goals/+means), Innovation (+goals/-means), Ritualism (-goals/+means), Retreatism (-goals/-means), and Rebellion (rejects and substitutes new goals and means).

20. What is Claude Levi-Strauss's structuralism in anthropology?

    The view that cultural phenomena (myth, kinship, totemism) are surface expressions of deep, universal structures of the human mind that operate through binary oppositions (e.g., nature/culture, raw/cooked). He analyzed kinship via the principle of exchange/reciprocity and the incest taboo as the threshold from nature to culture.

21. What is George Herbert Mead's distinction between the 'I' and the 'Me'?

    The 'I' is the spontaneous, creative, unsocialized response of the self; the 'Me' is the organized set of others' attitudes that the individual internalizes (the social self). The self is a dialogue between the two and emerges through social interaction.

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