KSLU Solved Question Papers
Sociology I
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) · Sem 1
2015 Dec Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 1 Sociology I 2015 Dec Question Paper with Solutions
First published on munotes.in on 21 October 2026.
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The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by Karnataka State Law University at the 2015 Dec examination.
Contents
The questions below are the paper as Karnataka State Law University set it at the 2015 Dec examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2015 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 · 13 questions answered
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.
Q1Define Sociology. Bring out the nature and scope of sociology.[16]
Answer
For full marks, cover: the word and its coining; three or four definitions; the nature of sociology through its main characteristics, briefly explained; whether it is a science; what "scope" means; the formalistic school (Simmel and others) and its weakness; the synthetic school (Durkheim's three parts, Ginsberg) and its weakness; how the two views are combined today; the main branches; why nature and scope matter to law; a conclusion.
Definition of sociology
Auguste Comte, the French thinker often called the father of sociology, gave the subject its name in 1838. The word combines the Latin socius, a companion or associate, with the Greek logos, meaning study or science. Sociology is therefore the systematic study of human society and social life.
- Comte wanted a positive science of society, built on observation, like the natural sciences.
- MacIver and Page said sociology is about social relationships, whose network makes up society.
- Max Weber treated it as the science that seeks an interpretive understanding of social action in order to explain its causes and effects.
- Emile Durkheim saw it as the science of social facts: ways of acting, thinking and feeling that exist outside individuals and constrain them.
Part one: the nature of sociology
The nature of a subject describes the kind of knowledge it gives. Textbooks summarise sociology's nature in a set of paired contrasts, usually traced to Robert Bierstedt.
- Independent. Sociology has its own field, concepts, methods and theories. It no longer depends on philosophy or history.
- Social, not natural. It deals with people in groups, not with physical or biological processes.
- Categorical, not normative. It reports what happens in society and why, without judging what should happen. Moral and legal judgments are for ethics and law.
- Pure, not applied. It seeks understanding first. Social workers, planners and lawmakers apply its findings.
- Abstract, not concrete. It studies recurring patterns, such as stratification or conflict, rather than single events.
- Generalising, not particularising. It aims at statements true of many cases.
- General, not special. It studies the social aspect common to all activities, not one slice of life such as the economy.
- Rational and empirical. It combines reasoning and theory with evidence from observation.
Is it a science? Sociology uses the scientific method: it frames hypotheses, gathers data, tests ideas and generalises. Durkheim's study of suicide in 1897 showed that even the most personal act follows social patterns. Its limits are real: few experiments, risk of bias, and the changing nature of human conduct. It is best called a social science, systematic but less exact than physics.
Part two: the scope of sociology
Scope means the range or boundaries of a subject: what it covers and where it stops. On this question sociologists formed two schools.
The formalistic or specialistic school
This school wanted sociology to have a narrow, clearly marked field of its own. That field is the forms of social relationships, kept apart from their contents.
Georg Simmel compared sociology to geometry. Geometry studies shapes, such as a circle, without caring whether the circle is drawn in chalk or made of metal. Likewise, sociology should study forms such as domination, competition, imitation, cooperation and conflict. Whether these forms appear in a market, a family or a parliament is a matter for other sciences.
Others who shared this approach include Ferdinand Tönnies, who contrasted community and association. Leopold von Wiese tried to classify the forms of social relationships, and Alfred Vierkandt also belonged to this school. Max Weber is often placed here too, because he wanted sociology to interpret and classify types of social action.
Weakness. Critics say form and content cannot be separated. Two brothers fighting over land and two states fighting over a border both show "competition". Yet studying them only as a form tells us little. The approach also makes sociology too narrow and leaves out burning questions such as caste, poverty and crime.
The synthetic school
This school wanted sociology to study society as a whole. It should bring together, or synthesise, the partial views of economics, politics, law, religion and psychology. It should also study how the parts of social life affect one another.
Emile Durkheim divided its scope into three parts.
- Social morphology: the physical basis of social life, such as population size, density and settlement patterns.
- Social physiology: the working of institutions, studied through branches such as the sociology of religion, of law, of the economy and of language.
- General sociology: the search for general social laws that emerge from these branches.
Morris Ginsberg divided the field into social morphology, social control, social processes and social pathology. Others in this school include L. T. Hobhouse and Pitirim Sorokin.
Weakness. If sociology studies everything social, critics ask, what is left as its own subject? A synthesis also demands knowledge of many fields, which risks shallowness.
Combining the two views
Today most sociologists see the schools as complementary. General concepts, the formalists' contribution, let us compare different cases. Concrete study of whole institutions, the synthesists' contribution, keeps those concepts tied to real life. Modern sociology does both. A study of dowry, for example, uses general concepts such as exchange and status. It also examines the economy, religion, kinship and law of the families involved. Neither approach alone would explain why dowry persists despite a ban.
Branches within its scope
The scope now includes many specialised fields.
| Field | What it studies |
|---|---|
| Rural and urban sociology | Village and city life |
| Sociology of the family | Marriage, kinship, household change |
| Sociology of religion | Belief, ritual, religious groups |
| Sociology of education | Schools, learning, opportunity |
| Sociology of law | How law and society shape each other |
| Criminology | Crime, punishment, deviance |
| Field | What it studies |
|---|---|
| Industrial sociology | Work, workers, organisations |
| Political sociology | Power, parties, voting |
| Sociology of gender | Roles and inequality of men and women |
New fields, such as the sociology of the internet, keep appearing. This growth shows that the synthetic view of a wide scope has largely prevailed.
Why nature and scope matter to law
Because sociology is categorical and empirical, its findings can serve as evidence about how laws work in practice. Because its scope includes the family, religion, caste, crime and the legal profession, it covers almost every field a lawyer meets. The sociology of law studies how law shapes society and how society shapes law. It is the bridge between this subject and every other paper in the law course.
Conclusion. Sociology, named by Comte in 1838, is the systematic study of society. In nature it is an independent, social, categorical, pure, abstract, generalising and general science, both rational and empirical. On its scope, the formalists confined it to the forms of social relationships, while Durkheim and the synthesists extended it to society as a whole. Modern sociology combines both views and reaches into every field of social life, including law.
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