Read the passage and answer the following question:
The scope of sociological study is extremely wide. It can focus its analysis of interactions between individuals such as that of a shopkeeper with a customer, between teachers and students, between two friends or family members. It can likewise focus on national issues such as unemployment or caste conflict or the effect of state policies on forest rights of the tribal population or rural indebtedness. Or examine global social processes such as: the impact of new flexible labour regulations on the working class; or that of the electronic media on the young; or the entry of foreign universities on the education system of the country. What defines the discipline of sociology is therefore not just what it studies (i.e. family or trade unions or villages) but how it studies a chosen field.
Which among these is not impacted by globalisation?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Hierarchical organisation of caste group
Option (1) Impact of global market on farmers — Impacted (Incorrect). Sociology asks how the peasant in a remote village is affected and how he or she is connected to global changes. Farmers now sell into a global market, so their lives are touched by globalisation.
Option (2) Employment chances of middle class — Impacted (Incorrect). The chapter asks how globalisation has affected the chances of employment for the middle class; new jobs in multinational companies and services have opened up for some, while others have lost work.
Option (3) Changes in leisure time of young people — Impacted (Incorrect). Shopping malls and new media have changed the way young people spend their leisure time, one more of the changes sociology traces to globalisation.
Option (4) Hierarchical organisation of caste group — Not impacted (Correct). The ranking of castes, one above another by birth, is an old structure of Indian society. It is not one of the changes the chapter lists as an effect of globalisation, unlike the lives of farmers, middle-class jobs and young people’s leisure.
Note: The passage of Q1-Q5 is taken from the pre-rationalised NCERT chapter ‘Globalisation and Social Change’, which NTA followed in 2023; the chapter quotes it from the Class XI book to explain the sociological perspective. This paragraph on the scope of sociological study has been deleted from the NCERT book (2025-26), though the chapter is still there. A single paragraph of the chapter gave five questions here, so read every paragraph and box of the book closely.
NCERT (2025-26): “…What Sociology does is use the sociological imagination to make sense of the connections between the individual and society, the micro and the macro, the local and the global. How is the peasant affected in a remote village? How is s/he connected to global changes? How has it affected the chances of employment for the middle class? How has it affected the possibilities of big Indian corporations becoming transnational corporations? What does it mean to the neighbourhood grocer if the retail sector is opened up to big transnational companies? Why are there so many shopping malls in our cities and towns today? How has it changed the way young people spend their leisure time? These are just few examples of the wide ranging and different kinds of changes that globalisation is bringing about. You will find many more instances whereby global developments are affecting the lives of people. And thereby affecting the way sociology has to study society.…” |