KSLU Solved Question Papers
Sociology I
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) · Sem 1
2024 Aug Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 1 Sociology I 2024 Aug 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 2024 Aug examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2024 Aug 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) Answers 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 I
(a)Explain the subject matter and scope of sociology.[10]
Answer
For full marks, cover: what "subject matter" and "scope" each mean; the subject matter listed under its main heads (units, institutions, processes, culture and control, change, problems, methods); Durkheim's three divisions; the two schools on scope in brief; the branches of sociology today; a conclusion.
Subject matter and scope: two different questions
The subject matter of sociology is what it studies: the topics and objects of its enquiry. The scope of sociology is how far it extends: whether it has a narrow field of its own or covers the whole of social life. The two are linked, but an examiner expects a student to keep them apart.
Sociology, a word coined by Auguste Comte in 1838, is the scientific study of society. MacIver and Page described it as the study of social relationships, whose network we call society.
The subject matter of sociology
1. Social units. Sociology studies the groups in which people live. These include the family, kin groups, and village and city communities. They also include caste and class, associations such as trade unions and clubs, and crowds and publics.
2. Social institutions. It studies the established ways a society meets its lasting needs: marriage and the family, religion, education, the economy, property, the state and law.
3. Social processes. It studies the ways people interact: cooperation, competition, conflict, accommodation and assimilation.
4. Social structure. It studies statuses and roles, norms and values, and the ranking of people into strata such as caste, class and gender.
5. Culture and socialisation. It studies how a way of life is created, shared and learned, and how a child becomes a member of society.
6. Social control and deviance. It studies how society keeps order through custom, religion, public opinion and law, and why some people break its norms.
7. Social change. It studies how and why societies change: through technology, population, ideas, law and movements, and with what results.
8. Social problems. It studies crime, poverty, unemployment, dowry, communalism and other problems that disturb social life.
9. Methods of research. It develops the tools for all this study: observation, surveys, interviews, case studies and statistics.
An example of sociology's subject matter at work
Take a single village in Mandya district. A sociologist might study its social units, such as families, castes and self-help groups. He might study its institutions, such as marriage customs and the temple. He might trace its processes, such as cooperation in irrigation and conflict over land. He might look at its control, through elders, the panchayat and the police, and at its change, through migration to Bengaluru and new crops. Every heading of the subject matter appears in one village.
Durkheim's three divisions
Emile Durkheim organised the subject matter into three parts:
- Social morphology: the material base of society, such as the size, density and distribution of population;
- Social physiology: the working of institutions, studied through branches such as the sociology of religion, law, morals and the economy;
- General sociology: the search for general social laws drawn from the branches.
The scope of sociology: two schools
The formalistic school was led by Georg Simmel, with Tonnies, Weber, von Wiese and Vierkandt. It held that sociology should study only the forms of social relationships, such as cooperation and conflict, apart from their content. Simmel likened sociology to geometry, which studies shapes whatever their material.
The synthetic school was led by Durkheim, with Hobhouse, Ginsberg and Sorokin. It held that sociology is a general science of society, bringing together the findings of the special social sciences.
The first school gave sociology a sharp identity but made it too narrow. The second kept it close to real life but made it very wide. Most sociologists today accept elements of both.
Branches of sociology today
The subject matter has grown into many branches. Among them are the sociology of law, criminology, rural and urban sociology, and industrial and political sociology. Others are the sociology of religion, education and the family, medical sociology and demography.
Why this matters to a law student
The sociology of law studies how law works in society. It asks who uses courts, why some laws are obeyed and others ignored, and how law changes social practice. A law student who knows sociology's subject matter can see law as one institution among many. Law is shaped by the family, religion, economy and caste around it.
Conclusion. The subject matter of sociology is social units, institutions, processes, structure, culture, control, change, problems and methods. Durkheim grouped it as social morphology, social physiology and general sociology. On its scope, the formalistic school limits it to the forms of social relationships, while the synthetic school makes it a general science of society. Today sociology covers a wide field through many specialised branches.
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