Definitions

Question 1

Caste

Answer 1

Caste is a “collection of families, bearing a common name, claiming a common descent, from a mythical ancestor, human and divine, professing to follow the same hereditary calling and regarded by those who are competent to give an opinion as forming a single homogeneous community.”
Gisbert

Question 2

Social Class

Answer 2

A social class is "a category or group of persons having a definite status in society which permanently determines their relation to other groups."
Gisbert

Question 3

Nuclear Family

Answer 3

Nuclear family can be defined as “a small group composed of husband and wife and immature children which constitutes a unit apart from the rest of the community.”
Duncan Mitchell

Question 4

Joint Family

Answer 4

Joint family can be defined as “a group of people who generally live under one roof, who eat food cooked at one hearth, who hold property in common, and who participate in common family worship and are related to each other as some particular type of kindred.”
Irawati Karve

Question 5

Education

Answer 5

Education is “the socialisation of the younger generation.”

Durkheim

Question 6

Secularism

Answer 6

“Belief that morality, education, etc. should not be based on religion.”

Question 7

Secularisation

Answer 7

“Secularisation is the process by which traditional religious beliefs and institutions lose their influence in society.”

Ian Robertson

Question 8

Social Change

Answer 8

“Social change may be defined as a new fashion or mode, either modifying or replacing the old in the life of a people or in the operation of society.”

Majumdar

Question 9

Social Movement

Answer 9

“A social movement is a collective effort to promote or resist change.”

Horton and Hunt

Question 10

Race

Answer 10

“A race is a group of people somewhat different from other groups in its combination of inherited physical characteristics, but race is also substantially determined by popular social definition.”

Horton and Hunt

Question 11

Ethnicity

Answer 11

Ethnicity comes from Greek “ethnics” meaning people or nation.

Ethnicity is a sense of peoplehood or nationhood.

Question 12

Ethnic Group

Answer 12

Ethnic group is “any kind of group, racial or otherwise, which is socially identified as different and has developed its own subculture.”

Horton and Hunt

Question 13

Racism

Answer 13

Racism is a phenomenon in which a group that is seen as inferior or different is exploited and oppressed by a dominant group.

Blauner

Question 14

Prejudice

Answer 14

Prejudice is “a judgement based on group membership or racial status.”

Wallace and Wallace

Question 15

Discrimination

Answer 15

“Discrimination involves treating someone differently because of his or her group membership or social status.”

Wallace and Wallace

Question 16

Kulinism

Answer 16

Kulinism is a practice where a Brahmin wife lived with her father and her polyamorous husband visited his wives occasionally at their places and the children grow up in the place of the maternal uncle. This is the custom of “ghar jamain” which makes the husband leave his paternal domicile and take up residence with his wife in the latter’s house.

Question 17

Economic Organisation

Answer 17

Economic organisation consists of the ordering and organisation of human relations and human effort in order to procure as many of the necessities of day-to-day life as possible with the expenditure of minimum effort.

Question 18

Social Stratification

Answer 18

“Social stratification is the division of society into permanent groups of categories linked with each other by the relationship of superiority and subordination.”

Gisbert

Question 19

Religion

Answer 19

Religion is the human response to the apprehension of something, a power, which is supernatural and supersensory. It is the expression of the manner, and type, of adjustment affected by the people with their conception of the supernatural.

“Religion” is derived from the Latin word “religio” which is itself derived either from the root “leg-“ which means “to gather, count or observe” or from the root “lig-“ which means “to bind.” In the former sense, the implication is belief in and observation of sign of divine communication. In the latter sense, the implication is the performance of necessary actions which may bind together man and the supernatural powers.

Question 20

Fetishism
OR
Fetishes

Answer 20

Magic is often associated with fetishism. According to this belief, certain objects are regarded to be possessed of powers to help man out of various difficulties or in achieving his desires.

Such objects are called fetishes. It may be a feather, a skull or an amulet. Its test is its efficacy.

Question 21

Tribe

Answer 21

“A tribe is a social group with territorial affiliation, endogamous with no specialisation of functions, ruled by tribal practices, hereditary or otherwise, united in language or dialect, recognising social distances with other tribes or castes without any social obligations attached to them as it does in the caste structure, following tribal traditions, beliefs and customs, illiterate of naturalisation of ideas from alien sources and above all, conscious of a homogeneity of ethnic and territorial integration.”

Majumdar

Question 22

Assimilation

Answer 22

“Assimilation is the social process whereby attitudes of many persons are united and thus, developed into a united group.”

Bogardus

Question 23

Modernisation

Answer 23

“Modernisation is a process by which modern scientific knowledge is introduced to the society and the ultimate purpose of achieving a better and more satisfactory life in the broadest sense of the term is accepted by the society concerned.”

Alatus

Question 24

Urbanisation

Answer 24

Urbanisation is “the process of becoming urban, moving to cities, changing from agriculture to other pursuits common to cities and corresponding change of behavior patterns.”

Mitchell