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COOPERATIVE UNIVERSITY OF KENYA
REANDING PDF AND REVESION QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
SOCIOLOGY

DEFINITION OF SOCIOLOGY
Sociology is the study of human social life, groups and societies
...
This is
because its subject matter is diverse, ranging from crime to religion, family to the state, divisions
of race and social class to the shared beliefs of a common culture, and from social stability to
radical change in societies
...

The American Sociological Association defines sociology as the study of social life, social
change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior
...

The British Sociological Association defines sociology simply as the study of how society is
organized and how we experience life
...

Sociology as a field of study analyses and explains important matters in our personal lives, our
communities and the world
...
At the societal level, sociology examines and explains
matters like crime and law, poverty and wealth, prejudice and discrimination, schools and
education, business firms, urban community, and social movements
...
Sociology and political science
Sociology is a social science that studies human interaction and inter-relations, their
conditions and consequences while political science is a social science of state and
government
...
It deals with social groups organized under the sovereign of the
state
...
‘Historically,
sociology has its main roots in politics and philosophy of history,’ Morris Ginsberg
...
It is rightly said, without the sociological background
the study of political science will be incomplete
...
It is because of this that Barnes wrote: ‘the most
significant thing about sociology and modern political theory is that most of the changes
which have taken place in the political theory in the last years have been along the line of
development suggested and marked out by sociology
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The state
in its origin was more of a social rather than a political institution
...
To understand different political events sociology takes the help from political

science
...
Any change in the
political system or nature of power structure brings changes in society
...
It is for this reason
that both social sciences are said to be inter-dependent
...
The laws of the state have a
profound influence upon society
...
Knowledge of both sociology and political
science is necessary in order to tackle social problems like communism; castes etc
...
g
...


As much as both political science and sociology contribute to each other and are interrelated and inter-dependent they differ from each other
...
Sociology is a science of society and social relationships whereas political science is a
science of state and government
...
The scope of sociology is wider than that of political science
...

3
...

4
...
Sociology studies both formal and
informal relations while political science studies only formal relations 6
...
7
...
Political science on the other hand gives only the explanation of

‘what’ of a thing or problem
...
g
...

5
...
Sociology deals with all forms of association while political science deals with only
one form of association: the state
...
Sociology and History
Sociology has close and intimate relationship with history in that it bears symbols of past
...
History records men’s past life and life of societies in a systematic and
chronological order
...
History not only studies the past but also establishes relations with present and future
hence it I said that ‘history is the microscope of the past, the horoscope of the present and
telescope of the future’
...

History without sociology has no fruit; sociology without history has no root
...
History supplies facts which
are interpreted and coordinated by sociologists
...
History is useful to understand the present and to serve as a guide for the future
since sociological interpretation of facts is absolutely important
...
To understand
that historical event history needs the help from sociology
...

Differences
1
...


2
...
The primary interest of the sociologist is to
find out the general laws of the society but the historian has to narrate the events in
chronological order
...
History confines itself to the study of the past whereas sociology shows more interest in the
contemporary or recent past
...
History is a fact-finder and has no power to change but sociology collects material
accumulated by history and place them in one human perspective and that of human
relations
...
The scope of sociology is very wide whereas the scope of history is limited
...

6
...

7
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as the unit of enquiry
...
Sociology and Economics
Economics is the study of production and distribution of goods and services
...
Also,
Economics can be defined as the study of man’s activities devoted to obtaining the material
means to satisfaction of his wants
...
It also studies the structure and functions of different economic organizations
like banks, markets etc
...

Economic activities to a great extent are social activities
...
an economist has to take into account
the social phenomenon existing at a particular time
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Man’s happiness depends upon the
economic factor to a remarkable extent
...
g
...
Marx and Weber studied society through its economic institutions
...
Economics study only the economic aspect of social life while sociology is concerned with
the whole of social life i
...
, the legal, political, educational, philosophical etc
...
Sociology is a general social science whereas economics is a special social science
...
Sociology differs from economics in matters of unit of analysis; while economics as a study
can have its focus upon the individual, sociology concerns society as a whole
...
Sociology is concerned with the social activities of man whereas economics is concerned
with the economic activities of man
...
Sociology and psychology
Psychology is a social science of human experience and behavior
...

Sociology as a scientific study of human society studies the human interactions in social
institutions
...
It analyses attitudes, emotions, perception, process of learning and
values of individuals and process of personality formation in society
...
To understand
human nature and behavior properly psychology depends on sociology
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The society and its social institutions are the products of
human mind and can be best understood in terms of mind
...
Psychology studies behavior of individual as individuals, their mental processes, emotions,
perceptions etc
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2
...

3
...

5
...
Anthropology deals with man as much whereas sociology
deals with him as he is a social being
...
offer a common ground on which both social sciences meet
...
Historical anthropology is concerned with the cultures of the prehistoric period
...
Social anthropology deals with the institutions and human
relationships of primitives of the past and present
...
Efforts directed towards tribal
welfare would be incomplete unless anthropological knowledge is used in them
...
They can be
described as human evolution and linguistics
...
The past societies are as much of a treasure for the researcher in sociology as the
present ones are and the patterns of future societies
...

Much of the material of sociology depends upon the materials supplied by anthropology
...
Sociology has borrowed
cultural area, traits, lag and other conceptions from social anthropology on whose basis cultural
sociology has developed
...

Sociology on the other hand has limited its direct attention to historical societies, to societies that
are complex rather than simple, to societies, in short, whose members can read and write
...
Anthropology is the study of the whole society
...

2
...

3
...

4
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It does not bother for the future
...

5
...
It does not make any suggestions for the
future
...
The French social philosopher,
Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was the first to use the word “sociology” and to argue for a science
of society
...

Comte divided sociology into: “social statics” and social dynamics” which was the traditional
distinction in the physical sciences of his time
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But he also
realized that in the process of dealing with each other, humans were continuously changing—
i
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, they restructure, rekindle and rework their relationships
...
His contributions were that:

a
...
He emphasized the scientific as opposed to the philosophical, religious and moral analysis of
society; and
c
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Herbert Spencer
In England, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), a social philosopher and biologist was making efforts
to synthesize all the sciences
...
Spencer unfortunately sought to apply this doctrine to human affairs by arguing that
people should be left free to compete so that the most able could find the best opportunities
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The arguments could also support discrimination since the failure of
people to be “equal” was the result of operation of natural laws
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He sought to view society as a type of organism, that is, as a system of interrelated
functional parts
...
That is, society was not the sum
of individuals but rather an organism with a life and a vitality of its own
...
He developed a theory of social evolution arguing that societies were much like growing
organisms which went from simple to more complex states or from homogeneous masses
to highly differentiated complexes
...
Whereas Durkheim rejected Spencer’s ideas about
survival of the fittest, he extended and refined Spencer’s ideas about how the “social organism”
was maintained and changed
...

Emile Durkheim

Durkheim asked a simple set of questions: What holds society together? Why are people willing
to form and abide by social relationships? His answers have become sociology’s first principles
which are that: Humans create ideas to regulate their affairs—they hold values, beliefs, doctrines
and dogmas; and secondly, they regulate their conduct with norms and rules and they come to
see these ideas as compelling truths and to invest them with great emotion
...
Ideas or
the “collective conscience’ as he termed them had less power in more complex forms where they
became more general and abstract and not able to regulate human affairs in detail
...

People work for pay rather than for moral duty to society
...

Durkheim’s insights had the following important implications for sociology:
a
...
These symbols can become part of people, i
...
, a part of their personalities in terms of their
needs, desires and perceptions
...
Complex social relationships are also governed by negotiations between parties
...

Durkheim’s vision of what holds society together was based on his concern of developing
sociology as science
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In so doing he sought to realize Comte’s vision of sociology as
a science of society
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He was an
advocate of revolutions
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In

doing so he achieved some enduring insights into human society
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Power came from property; that is, from the
ownership of the means of production on which the economic system and people’s survival
depended
...

He observed that societies revealed natural and inevitable sources of conflict and tension
...
The unequal
distribution of power made conflict inevitable in all types of economic systems ranging from
slavery, feudalism and capitalism—with different power relations between those who owned and
those who did not
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In this conception, Marx opened raised new questions for sociologists: How are resources
distributed? How are resources used to manipulate people and classes? What tension and conflict
were likely to emerge? How did these change society?
Marx provided new insights into social forces of power and inequality
...
That the rules were imposed by those with power and the exchanges were one sided
...

Max Weber (1864-1920)
This was another great German sociologist whose works still influence a large number of topics
in sociology including: Social change, religion, stratification and bureaucracy
...
For example, how does religion influence social change? Does bureaucracy shape
society? What kinds of inequalities and divisions are important in understanding other features in
society? To answer these questions, Weber employed two major techniques:

a
...
Historical analysis
...
For example, if bureaucracy is a unique social phenomenon, what
distinguishes it from other social forms such as the family? He constructed an ideal/pure type of
bureaucracy based on its basic and distinguishing features
...
The causes of bureaucracy were, for example, found in those events preceding its
emergence
...

This approach of defining a social phenomenon of interest with a clear ideal-type description and
then looking out the general causes of the phenomenon, gave real substance to Comte’s cry for a
science of society
...
How do people define the
world? What are their interpretations? What, for example, do bureaucracies mean to those who
work in them? This type of understanding to the level of meaning was key to sociological
imagination
...
Society
was viewed as a system of parts interrelated to form a social whole that transcended individuals
...

All of these conceptions left the individual person behind
...
Or why people were willing

to participate in society
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George Herbert Mead (Early American Sociologist)
At the turn of the 19th Century, early American sociologists asked some important questions
about individuals and society which were: How did society become part of individuals? And,
why were people willing and able to be members of society? Their answers were that through
communication and interaction with others people learn to become members of society
...

The social philosopher, George Herbert mead saw the capacity for thinking; i
...
, to weigh,
consider, define and reflect on matters as a social product
...
With mind, people develop certain conceptions of themselves as certain
kinds of people
...

People also learn how to anticipate each other’s responses, that is, to imagine what others might
or must do
...
They thus begin to see the world in similar ways and to conform to generally accepted
practices
...

What Mead did was to sensitize sociology to what seemed like an obvious fact; that is, society is
created by people and its existence depends on people learning certain capacities
...

What makes us human is our participation in society—that is, society and individual are seen as
different sides of the same coin and sociology must seek to understand the processes by which
society and the individual make each other possible
...

Historians use the term culture to refer to things like art, music, literature, philosophy, religion and
science
...
B
...

Culture is therefore everything that we think, do and possess as members of a society
...

Characteristics of Culture
1
...
Culture is never acquired by instincts
...
However,
what human beings learn will depend on the culture of their society
...

2
...
Each generation has to teach its culture to an oncoming generation and
what is not taught is likely to be lost
...
Each generation contributes
something to this stream and leaves out something
...
Culture is shared
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Culture is thus something
always adopted and used, believed, practiced or possessed by more than one person
...

Importance of Culture
Culture helps us to distinguish:
1
...
one group from another
3
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Men as a species from other animals
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What people “see” depends on their culture—they have to learn to see
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What men wear will depend on their culture
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What men eat, drink or houses they live in are explained by culture
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Some communities’ men are warlike, others are cowardly
...

5
...

Elements of culture
Culture has three elements: Norms, beliefs and values
...
It is behavior expected of an individual in a given social setting and which is considered
appropriate in that setting
...
e
...

Norms are part of our everyday life; we seldom notice them
...

A norm may also be seen as a standard way of doing things, i
...
, a procedure
...
A completely normless society
or anomic society would not endure—indeed where there are no norms, there is no human society
...

Norms are folkways, mores or laws
...
Conformity to
folkways is neither required by law nor enforced by any special agency of society
...
e
...
They vary from society to society—what is immoral in one
society may not be immoral in another
...
Some of these acts may be legally acceptable, but are immoral from the point of
view of society
...
g
...
They are
enacted by the legislatures or decreed by political officials and are usually written down
and hence are not found in non-literate societies
...


Status and roles
Customs or folkways are the specialized and standardized ways of doing things among those
sharing a particular culture
...
Often the customs occur in a cluster and
are termed “role” which refers to a set of expectations
...
Where they are
formalized as to use a specific name, title or designation for their particular incumbents then they
constitute a social position or “status”
...

The rights and obligations comprise the role which the incumbent is expected to play
...
Ascribed status positions are those to which individuals are more or less automatically
assigned on the basis of sex, age, color, caste, family line and religion
...
g
...

Status
Society may be seen as a network of ‘statuses
...

Often, we interact with many persons who we rarely know personally—not even their names
...


These interactions in terms of status are often fragmentary, goal oriented or purposive, i
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each
party is interested in achieving its goal
...
Only after such information is known (where one is a stranger), does one
know how to interact with the other
...
g
...

Status is therefore, a position an individual holds in society or group
...

Every individual occupies many such positions—as many as are available in the groups to
which he belongs
...

Status is set in the structure of the group or of a society before a given individual comes along to
occupy it
...
Ascribed statuses derive from membership in involuntary
groups—that is, those to which one belongs without choice
...
Achieved statuses derive from membership in voluntary
groups
...

Role:
This is the dynamic or behavioral aspect of status, but while statuses are occupied, roles are
played
...

A role is what an individual does in a position he occupies
...
When a group or organization increase in size, its offices may acquire
new responsibilities, new duties and new rights
...

Role conflict: This arises in situations where demands of one status conflict with those of
another status
...
B
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These institutions constitute the main building blocks of society; and
their number and degree of specialization varies from society to society
...
The political institution which is concerned with the exercise of power and which has a
monopoly on the legitimate use of force
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The economic institution which is concerned with production and distribution of goods and
services; 3
...

3
...

Each of these institutions participates and contributes in a number of ways to the life of the
community
...

Social groups

These are the sub-societies in which interaction takes place
...

A group is a number of individuals who are in constant contact with each other—they interact
and have common interests
...

There has to be a goal, interest, belief, task or territory for a social group to exist
...
g
...

To successfully work toward a goal, members of a group must communicate and cooperate to
overcome strains from internal and external environments
...

1
...
Members have ward, intimate and personal ties
with one another
...
They are important in socialization
of the individual, in shaping his personality, his aspirations and his definition of the world
around him
...
Each
member strives to gain acceptance of the other members and feels obliged to fulfil the group’s
expectations of him
...

2
...
Relationships between their members are cool, interpersonal, rational,
contractual and formal
...
Members have intermittent contacts often through the
written rather than spoken word
...

FUNDAMENTAL SOCIAL PROCESSES
For human society to endure, its members have to conform to what is expected of them
...
Similarly,
conformity and the orderly conduct of society are based on its system of stratification and
social mobility
...
Hence the most important process in society is that which
ensures that people meet their role obligations
...

Sociology starts with what we know and accept; that is conformity to role obligations which
rests largely on sanctions
...

Punishment is termed “negative sanction” and ranges from all forms of physical force the
ultimate being death to mild restraint
...
Negative sanctions may be affected not only in doing, but also in not doing
...

Motivation, the readiness and desire of the individual to fulfil his role obligations is important
and ensures smooth flow of social activity without much supervision by others
...
The individual has to internalize the role in the
sense that he has to incorporate within himself knowledge and skills necessary for its
fulfillment
...

Note: Deviance can be ambiguous and may differ between groups in the same society
...
The distinction is based either on ascribed or achieved
status
...
Those sharing more-or-less comparable
standing will form a prestige group or stratum
...
Similarly, individuals may be placed on a scale of possessions such as
political power, land and money
...

Thus, a stratification system in any society refers to the nature of its hierarchies of possessions
and status, the criteria for assignment to positions in the hierarchies and to the relations
between the two hierarchies and among groups within each hierarchy
...
A man
moving from one job to another but at the same level of prestige or income is engaged in
horizontal mobility
...

In societies such as India with closed systems of stratification, there is little upward mobility—
almost all sons end up in the same stratum as their fathers had occupied while in open-class
systems such as the U
...
A
...

Class systems may influence other aspects of social structure but may also be shared by them
...

SOCIAL CHANGE

Social change can be defined as the process by which shifts or alterations occur in the structure
and functioning of a given social system
...

Sociologists define social change in terms of change in relationships, organization, culture,
institution, structure and functioning of the social system
...

Robert A
...

To John J
...
”
Several scholars have been concerned with the process of social change
...
He emphasized improvements in
knowledge—he felt that people became more objective in their explanations of the world
around them as society changed from the earlier stages to the positive stage
...
These scholars argued that society developed from simple or pre-literate forms
to complex or industrial forms; or from primitive forms to advanced or modern types
...
Social change happens everywhere but the rate of change varies from place to place
2
...
Social change may generate controversy
4
...
A large part of change in society is caused by change in culture
...
New ideas and modification of old ideas in a new context bring wide-scale changes in
society
...
Change occurs from the demographic transition in society
...
Social change is also caused by tension and conflict
...
Social movements generate new
identities and a new perspective
...
A model can generate a
number of theories, but one theory can be powerful enough to be a good model
...
Theory on the other hand is a devise for organizing what
we know or think we know at any particular time about some issue
...
While a theory can be proved wrong, a model can only be
judged as incomplete, misleading or unproductive
...
Most sociologists are guided by models which are
relatively constant and form fairly clear cut orientation or even ideology
...

The Models
The models include: the evolutionary, the organismic, equilibrium and conflict models
...

Evolutionary Model
The thinking of early sociologists was dominated by a conception of man and society seen
progressing up steps of evolution to some stage of perfection
...


The anthropologist L
...
Morgan sought to prove that all societies went through fixed stages of
development each succeeding the other from savagery through barbarism to civilization
...
g
...
For example, the stage of capitalism had advanced the rationalization of
production and its concentration in large units as to make socialism historically necessary and
inevitable
...

Both Comte and Marx’s theories were termed unilinear theories of evolution in the sense that
each society was seen as passing through a fixed and limited number of stages in a given
sequence
...
For example, Durkheim saw society as
evolving from a low to a high degree of specialization, that is, from mechanical solidarity to
organic solidarity types of society
...
In organic solidarity, there was less intimate relations and members were tied in
common interests and there was a high degree of specialization
...

The third category are cyclical theories of evolution which set out a number of stages or cycles
which any long enduring culture had to go through more than once or repeatedly
...
In the ideational stage truth is revealed by the
grace of God and based on faith
...

A fourth category are the universal theories of evolution which hold that every society does not
go through the same fixed stages of development—that the culture of mankind taken as a whole
has followed a definite line of evolution as for example Spencer’s view that men had progressed
from small to large groups, simple to compound and doubly compound or homogenous to
heterogeneous groups
...
For example, the agricultural
revolution was followed by a long period of stagnation until the fuel age came about in the new
world about 1800
...

There have also been multilinear as well as other conceptions based on inventions in social
change
...
It required study of man’s early history—this interest has died
...
The main question it
addresses is: How is social life maintained and carried forward in time despite the complete
turnover in the membership of the society with every new generation
...

This structural-functional approach involves a limited time perspective, that is, it stops the motion
of the system at a fixed point in time in order to understand how it works as a system
...
For example, if society is to
continue, it must periodically find new members
...
The family institution ensures fulfillment of the functions of sexual reproduction,
of early care of dependent infants and initial training of the young in ways of the society
...

The model helps many features of society which may appear to have no reason for existence to
become meaningful when seen in terms of their functions (e
...
, to the flow of social life)
...
Equally, romantic love in modern society has a function of freeing

young people from dependence encouraged by family system and acceptance of responsibilities of
marriage
...
For example, Durkheim clarified the importance of social ceremonies as a way of increasing
social solidarity while studies by Marcel Mauss revealed in detail how seemingly unimportant
elements of social life can serve important functions in preserving the bonds which tie one
individual and one group to another and thereby preserving the unity of society as a whole
...
e
...

The model has also permitted comparative studies of societies, e
...
, primitive ones with no
government or economic institutions, for example, a search for less obvious ways in which these
societies arrange for flow of goods and services or to control legitimate use of force
...

Equilibrium Model
Equilibrium model is also a balance model
...
For example, a society
faced with improper training of its children leading most to delinquency would be forced to take
corrective measures, e
...
, intensive social work counseling with the families or to teach new ways
of child rearing, develop youth centres or provide improved housing to eliminate blighted areas—
with time the balance would be restored
...

Conflict Model
The sharpest criticism of the equilibrium perspective comes from the conflict model of society
which holds that that it is not true that modern society can be in harmonious balance—that most
societies continually experience conflict, especially conflict of interests
...
The dominant social process therefore is not harmony or
equilibrium, but the endless struggles between those without advantages who wish to secure them
and those with privileges who wish to either get more or to prevent others from taking what is
available
...
Sociology is the scientific study of society interest in the study of social relationship
between individuals in group context
...
True
B
...
Which two statement represent the concept culture in sociology
A
...
culture is the complex whole of lifestyle and habits of members of a society
C
...
culture refers to the civilization of members in a social system
3
...
Helpful to look beyond individuals’ psychology to the many and varied facets of
social and culture forces
B
...
Helps external agencies and those affected so that all parties are aware of any
constraints or limitations that may exist
...
Helps to understand how social forces influence our goals, attitude, behavior and
personality
4
...
Norms
B
...
Language

D
...
Which of the following are characteristics of culture?
A
...
Culture is only materialistic
C
...
Culture is shared and learned
6
...
Cooking
B
...
Medicine
D
...
One of the founding fathers of sociology defined sociology in the concept of sociology
static and social dynamic select
...
Auguste Comte
B
...
Herbert Spencer
D
...
Who among the theorist are contemporary sociological theorists?
A
...
Karl Marx
C
...
Peter Blau
9
...

Select one:
A
...
False
10
...
Demographic transition

B
...
Societal views
D
...
Which concept is not focused in the structural -functionalist theory?
A
...
Social function
C
...
Social conflict

ANSWERS:
1
...
A

2
...
B

3
...
A

4
...
C

5
...
D

6

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