KSLU Solved Question Papers
Sociology I
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) · Sem 1
2023 Mar Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 1 Sociology I 2023 Mar Question Paper with Solutions
First published on munotes.in on 2 November 2026.
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The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by Karnataka State Law University at the 2023 Mar examination.
Contents
The questions below are the paper as Karnataka State Law University set it at the 2023 Mar examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2023 Mar 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 80 · 20 questions answered
Instructions printed on the paper
- N.B. (1) Answer all five Units. (2) One essay type question and short note is compulsory from each Unit. (3) Figures to the right indicate marks. (4) Answer should be written either in English/Kannada completely.
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 1
(a)Define sociology. Explain conflict and feminist perspective.[10]
Answer
For full marks, cover: a definition of sociology; what a sociological perspective is; the conflict perspective (assumptions, Marx, Weber, Dahrendorf, application to India, criticism); the feminist perspective (meaning of patriarchy, the waves, the strands, Indian feminism, application to law, criticism); how the two relate; a conclusion.
Definition of sociology
Sociology is the scientific study of society. The word was coined by Auguste Comte in 1838. MacIver and Page described sociology as the study of social relationships, whose network makes up society. Max Weber defined it as the science that seeks the interpretive understanding of social action in order to explain its course and effects.
What a perspective is
Sociologists look at society through different perspectives, broad frameworks that shape the questions they ask. The conflict and feminist perspectives both focus on inequality and power, which the functionalist perspective tends to overlook.
The conflict perspective
Its assumptions. Society contains groups with unequal access to wealth, power and prestige. Their interests clash. Conflict is therefore a normal and permanent feature of social life. What looks like order is often the result of one group's domination, kept in place by power and by ideas that make inequality seem natural. Change comes through conflict.
Karl Marx placed class at the centre. The owners of the means of production exploit those who own only their labour. The economic base shapes law, politics and religion, which form the superstructure.
Max Weber widened the picture. Inequality arises not only from class but also from status (social honour) and party (organised power).
Ralf Dahrendorf traced conflict to the unequal distribution of authority in every organisation. Modern societies, he said, manage conflict through institutions such as collective bargaining and courts.
In India. The conflict perspective helps explain struggles between landowners and landless labourers, the Dalit movement against caste domination and conflicts over forests and water. Many reforms, such as land reform and reservation, were won through organised struggle.
Criticism. It overstates conflict and neglects cooperation and shared values. In Marx's version, it reduces every issue to economics.
The feminist perspective
Its central idea. The feminist perspective studies society from the standpoint of gender inequality. Its key concept is patriarchy, a social system in which men dominate women. Kate Millett, in Sexual Politics (1970), described patriarchy as the arrangement by which males rule females. Feminists argue that differences between men and women in power and opportunity are mainly social, not natural. Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) put it in one line: one is not born a woman but becomes one.
The waves. The first wave, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fought mainly for women's right to vote. The second wave, from the 1960s, campaigned for legal and social equality and challenged women's confinement to the home. A third wave, identified around 1992, stressed diversity among women.
The strands. Liberal feminists seek equal rights through law and education. Marxist and socialist feminists link women's oppression to capitalism and unpaid domestic work. Radical feminists see patriarchy as the root of all oppression. Black and intersectional feminists, following Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term intersectionality in 1989, show how gender combines with race, class and caste.
Indian feminism. Indian women raised these questions early. Tarabai Shinde published Stri Purush Tulana ("A Comparison Between Women and Men") in Marathi in 1882, attacking the double standards applied to women. Savitribai Phule opened schools for girls. Today the perspective highlights dowry, domestic violence, the low share of women in paid work and the burden of unpaid care.
Law. Feminist ideas have shaped Indian law. In Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, (1997) 6 SCC 241, decided on 13 August 1997, the Supreme Court laid down guidelines against sexual harassment at the workplace. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 reached into the private sphere of the family.
Criticism. Feminism was once accused of speaking only for educated, urban women. The intersectional strand arose largely in response.
How the two perspectives relate
Both reject the picture of society as a harmonious system. The conflict perspective focuses on class, power and authority; the feminist perspective focuses on gender. Socialist feminists combine them, arguing that class and gender oppression reinforce each other.
The perspectives applied to the workplace
Take a factory. The conflict perspective sees owners and workers with opposed interests over wages, hours and safety. Strikes and bargaining are signs of that conflict. The feminist perspective asks further questions. Why are women paid less, or kept in lower grades? Why does their unpaid work at home make it harder to take promotions? The two perspectives together reveal inequalities of both class and gender.
Conclusion. Sociology, named by Comte in 1838, is the scientific study of social relationships. The conflict perspective, developed by Marx, Weber and Dahrendorf, sees society as a contest between unequal groups. The feminist perspective places gender inequality and patriarchy at the centre. Both reveal inequalities that a harmony model hides, and both have influenced reform in India.
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