KSLU Solved Question Papers
Sociology I
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) · Sem 1
2013 Dec Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 1 Sociology I 2013 Dec Question Paper with Solutions
First published on munotes.in on 21 October 2026.
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Contents
The questions below are the paper as Karnataka State Law University set it at the 2013 Dec examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2013 Dec examination, reproduced as Karnataka State Law University set them, in the order it set them. Long reading passages are shortened to their first and last lines and our summary; the original paper prints them in full. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 100 · 20 questions answered
Instructions printed on the paper
- N.B. (1) Answer one essay type and one short note question from each Unit. (2) Figures to the right indicate marks. (3) Answer should be written completely either in English or in Kannada.
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
Q1
Unit I
(a)Define the subject matter of Sociology.[15]
Answer
For full marks, cover: the meaning of sociology; what "subject matter" means and why it was debated; the subject matter set out under nine heads, each with examples (social units, institutions, processes, structure, culture and socialisation, social control and deviance, social change, social problems, methods); Durkheim's and Ginsberg's classifications; the newer areas; the subject matter as it touches law; a conclusion.
Sociology
Sociology, a term coined by Auguste Comte in 1838, is the systematic study of human society. It studies people not as isolated individuals but as members of families, groups, communities and institutions, bound together in a network of relationships.
What "subject matter" means
The subject matter of a discipline is the set of things it studies. Every science has one: botany studies plants, economics studies production and exchange. Because sociology deals with something as wide as society, its early founders debated what exactly belonged to it. Some wanted a narrow field, the forms of relationships; others wanted it to cover social life as a whole. Today most sociologists describe its subject matter under a number of broad heads.
The subject matter under nine heads
1. Social units. Sociology studies the groups through which people live. These include the family, kin groups, peer groups, castes and classes, villages, towns and cities. They also include associations such as trade unions, and crowds and publics. It asks how these groups form, how they are organised and how they change.
2. Social institutions. It studies the established ways in which society meets its basic needs. These include marriage and the family, religion, education, the economy, property, the state, and law. A sociologist asks how each institution works and how it affects the others.
3. Social processes. It studies the ways people interact. Cooperation brings people together for common ends, while competition sets them against one another for scarce rewards. Conflict involves direct struggle. Accommodation adjusts differences, and assimilation merges cultures.
4. Social structure. It studies the lasting framework of society: statuses and roles, norms and values, and the ranking of groups by caste, class, gender and power.
5. Culture and socialisation. It studies how each society creates its own way of life. It also studies how that way of life is passed to the young through the family, school, peers and media.
6. Social control and deviance. It studies how society keeps conduct within its norms, through custom, religion, public opinion and law. It also studies why people deviate, from petty rule-breaking to serious crime.
7. Social change. It studies how and why societies change, through technology, population, ideas, economy and law, and the theories that explain change.
8. Social problems. It studies problems such as poverty, unemployment, communalism, alcoholism, dowry, child labour and the troubles of the aged. It seeks their causes and possible remedies. Such study guides governments and voluntary bodies in designing relief and reform.
9. Methods of social research. It studies how social facts are collected and analysed: observation, interviews, questionnaires, surveys, case studies, sampling and the comparative method.
What makes the subject matter distinctive
Other social sciences also study parts of social life. Economics studies markets, political science studies the state, and psychology studies the mind. What is distinctive about sociology is its focus on social relationships and on the connections between different parts of social life. A sociologist studying a market asks who trades with whom, how caste or kinship networks shape trade, and how trust is built. The same object, the market, becomes a sociological subject when it is seen as a web of relationships.
The subject matter in Indian sociology
Indian sociologists have given special attention to topics rooted in Indian society. G. S. Ghurye wrote on caste. M. N. Srinivas described Sanskritisation in his study of the Coorgs (1952). Irawati Karve compared kinship across regions in Kinship Organization in India (1953). Village studies, the joint family, religion, tribes and the effects of land reform and reservation have all been central themes. These topics show how the general subject matter of sociology takes a particular shape in each society.
Classic classifications
Emile Durkheim grouped the subject matter into three parts. Social morphology covers the material basis of society, such as population and its spread over territory. Social physiology covers the working of institutions, such as religion, law and the economy. General sociology seeks the general laws that emerge from these studies.
Morris Ginsberg proposed four main fields. Social morphology studies the quantity and quality of population and social structure. Social control studies customs, law and morality. Social processes studies forms of interaction. Social pathology studies social maladjustments such as crime and poverty.
Newer areas
As society changes, new topics enter sociology: gender relations, the environment, the media and the internet, globalisation, migration, health and medicine, and human rights. Each of these has grown into a specialised field, with its own research and teaching.
An example of the subject matter at work
Take the question of why many women in Indian cities now marry later than their mothers did. A sociologist studies the family, education and the economy, which are institutions. She also studies norms about marriage age, which belong to social structure, and how these norms change over time. The laws on minimum age and on women's rights bring in social control. One question brings in several heads of the subject matter at once, which shows how connected social life is.
The subject matter and law
Law appears in sociology's subject matter in two ways. It is an institution to be studied, like the family or religion, and it is an agency of social control and change. The sociology of law studies how laws arise, how they are obeyed or evaded, and how they shape society. This is why sociology is taught to law students. A lawyer who understands the family, caste, religion and the economy as social institutions can better understand the disputes that reach the courts.
Conclusion. The subject matter of sociology is human social life in all its forms. It covers social units, institutions, processes, structure, culture and socialisation, social control and deviance, social change, social problems and research methods. Durkheim and Ginsberg gave classic classifications of this field, and new areas keep extending it. Its breadth is its strength, because social life itself is one connected whole.
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