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 polices 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.
Sociological study of globalisation will involve which of the following?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Study of the relationship between public policies and individual/group life
Option (1) Study of changes in personal life as new jobs emerge. — Incorrect. Sociology does look at such changes: it asks how globalisation has affected the chances of employment for the middle class, and the changes globalisation brings are personal because they affect individuals’ lives and lifestyles. But this option names only the personal side. But these changes are also linked to public policies, and the sociological study of globalisation is about that link.
Option (2) Study of the relationship between public policies and individual/group life — Correct. Sociology uses the sociological imagination to connect the personal and the public, the micro and the macro. A change in the food we eat at home or in a farmer’s livelihood is personal, yet it is linked to public policies of the government and its agreements with the WTO.
Option (3) Study of relationship between countries — Incorrect. Relations between countries and the changing role of governments are what Political Science may focus on. Sociology starts from how people and groups are affected.
Option (4) Study of technological change — Incorrect. Technology is one of the forces behind globalisation, but sociology is not the study of the machines or networks themselves. It studies how such changes connect with the lives of individuals and groups.
Note: Options (1) and (2) both describe things sociology studies, so the question asks for the most appropriate answer. Option (1) stops at changes in personal life, while Option (2) joins individual and group life to the public policies that shape it. This joining of the individual and society, the micro and the macro, is what the book calls the sociological imagination, the way sociology studies globalisation, so Option (2) is the answer.
NCERT (2025-26): “…However, this does not mean that there can be only one definition of globalisation and only one way of understanding it. Indeed you will find that different subjects or academic disciplines may focus on different aspects of globalisation. Economics may be dealing more with the economic dimensions such as capital flows. Political science may focus on the changing role of governments. However, the very process of globalisation is so far-reaching that disciplines have to increasingly borrow from each other to understand both the causes and consequences of globalisation. Let us see how sociology seeks to understand globalisation.…” “…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?…” “…The same set of policy changes affects consumers and producers differently. What may mean greater choices for the urban, affluent consumer may mean a crisis of livelihood for a farmer. These changes are personal because they affect individuals’ lives and lifestyles. They are obviously also linked to public policies adopted by the government and its agreement with the World Trade Organisation (WTO).…” |