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

Social Institution

Answer 19

A social institution is a complex integrated set of social norms organised around the preservation of a basic societal value.

Human society considers social institutions from two major points of view:

1) The organisational structure responsible for preserving basic societal value.
2) Modes of procedure

Question 20

Social Anthropology

Answer 20

Anthropology comes from the word “anthropos” meaning man and “logos” meaning science. Out of all the sciences that attempt to study man, anthropology comes closest to studying the total man.

It studies the emergence and development of man from all cultural, physical and social points of view.

Anthropology, as an independent science, is a recent adventure, but it would be wrong to say that the first anthropologists started from scratch.

It’s studies man’s past as well as his future, his pre-human as well as sub-human states, and so on. It studies man in all cultures, on all parts of the planet.

Question 21

Small Family Norm

Answer 21

Small family norm is a recommendation to have families of no more than two children to help the problems of overpopulation and poverty. Smaller families can mean better education and health facilities for family members because the resources are not spread over as many people. To promote this, the central government is giving its employees certain concessions, allowances and reimbursements for maintaining small family norms. This is closely related to promotion of family planning.

Question 22

Social Mobility

Answer 22

People in society continue to move up and down the status scale. This movement is called ‘social mobility.’

Question 23

Sanskritisation

Answer 23

Sanskritisation refers to a process in which the lower castes tend to imitate the values, practices and other lifestyles of some dominant upper castes.

Question 24

Nuclear Family

OR

Immediate Family

OR

Primary Family

Answer 24

The basic grouping of mates and their children has been called by various names such as the nuclear, the immediate or the primary family.

Question 25

Extended Family

Answer 25

If the nucleus of the family is extended by addition of other closely related kin, then the family is called an extended family.

Question 26

Consanguineous Family

Answer 26

If a nucleus of blood relatives is surrounded by a fringe of spouses, the resultant grouping is called a consanguineous family.

Question 27

Conjugal Family

Answer 27

The type of family in which there is the nucleus of spouses and their offspring surrounded by a fringe of relatives is called a conjugal family.

Question 28

Family of Origin

OR

Family of Orientation

Answer 28

The family in which one is born is called the family of origin or orientation.

Question 29

Family of Procreation

Answer 29

The family which one helps set up after one’s marriage is called the family of procreation.

Question 30

Polygynous Family

Answer 30

A family where a man marries more than one wife.

Question 31

Polyandrous Family

Answer 31

A family in which a woman marries more than one husband.

Question 32

Joint Family

Answer 32

A joint family is a collection of more than one primary family on the basis of close blood ties and common residence.

Question 33

Clan

OR

Sib

Answer 33

When primary families link up with each other only on the basis of kinship and not residence, we will naturally have a much wider and bigger grouping which has been called clan or sib.

Question 34

Phratry

Answer 34

When several sibs or clans combine to constitute a still wider grouping, it is called a phratry.

Question 35

Gotra

Answer 35

A gotra consists of a large number of cognates supposed to be descended from the same Rishi-ancestor, who lived in the ancient past.

Question 36

Levirate

Answer 36

The practice of being mate, actual or potential, to one’s husband’s brothers is called levirate.

Question 37

Sororate

Answer 37

When several sisters are simultaneously or potentially the spouses of the same man, the practice is called sororate.

Question 38

Lineage Group

Answer 38

A lineage group are members of a lineage who are alive at a particular time.

Question 39

Dual Organisation

Answer 39

If all the clans of a tribe are constituted into just two phratries, then the emergent type of social structure is called dual organisation.

Question 40

Fusion

Answer 40

Fusion means coming together of several families and adopting one common name.

Question 41

Fission

Answer 41

If a clan splits into smaller groups, the process is called fission.

Question 42

Multiple Possessory Rights

Answer 42

Under the multiple possessory rights condition, several possessors use the same thing, say land, for different purposes.

Thus, in Melanesia and West Africa a person can own trees growing on another’s land, wherein the latter cultivate crops.

Question 43

Assimilation

Answer 43

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

Bogardus

Question 44

Bonga

Answer 44

Bonga is the manifestation of a vague supernatural power, one that is the cause of all energy.

Question 45

Religion

Answer 45

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.