Sociology Daily Answer Writing (01-12-2022)

Questions

1. Education is often viewed as an agency of social change. However in reality it could also reinforce inequalities and conservatism. Discuss.       20
2. With the growing concern for the environment the social movements are assuming a new character. Comment.          10

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Model Solutions

1. Education is often viewed as an agency of social change. However in reality it could also reinforce inequalities and conservatism. Discuss. 20

Model structure:
Introduction

• Social change is defined as a change in values, ideology, institution, structure, human interactions and interrelations in a society.

Main Body

• Education is the most powerful instrument of social change. It is through education that society can bring desirable changes and modernize itself.
• Education can transform society by providing opportunities and experiences through which the individual can cultivate him/herself for adjustment with the emerging needs and philosophy of the changing society.
• Education as a factor of social change is discussed by the various schools of thoughts.
  • Functionalists like Durkheim and Talcott Parsons established a positive relationship between education and social change.
  • While Durkheim argued that education prepared students for taking up a future role in capitalist society, Parsons advocated that schools in capitalist America offer adequate training to the children to get into the job market.
  • Davis and Moore in their theory of stratification advocated that highly specialized persons get high degrees of specialization and are endowed with exclusive qualities to fit into the highly challenging and most productive occupations. They are instrumental in the economic progress and social development of the nation.As a result, the values like self-orientation, individualism, achievement, competition, universalism, innovation, conformity to legal provisions of society and equality has predominated the thought of every generation.
• However, Education also reinforces inequalities and conservatism.
  • Pierre Bourdieu, in his theory of social & cultural reproduction says that education preaches equality but practices reinforcement of hierarchy & inequality.
    • The children belonging to an upper class having control over economic, cultural and social capital enter into high profitable occupations and this success is legitimized by the school.
    • Education offers no scope for mobility and mass education is given to masses but exclusive education important for the job market is monopolized by the upper class.
  • The argument of Bourdieu is supported by Bowels and Gintis who advocated that schools in capitalist America are class-based rather than egalitarian. It provides the least opportunity for mobility. The children belonging to lower class get into low privilege schools and subsequently get into low paid jobs.
  • Andre Beteille in his article advocates that it is not the principle of equality or economic interest or search for mobility that put people into schools rather entry into school and success into school is greatly defined by family, kinship, religion or other cultural variables. The role of education in encompassing mobility cannot be universally similar. In every society, various forms of compulsions, institutional conditions, and value systems will determine to what extent, in what forms education has successfully contributed to mobility.

2. With the growing concern for the environment the social movements are assuming a new character. Comment. 10

Model Structure
(The question is about environment movements within the context of new social movements)

Introduction

• New social movements theory says postmodern movements do not follow the two traditional social movements challenging the social order: class-based or gender-based movements, thus are difficult to explain with traditional social movement theories.
• Environment movement is one such new social movement which is unconventional in a way that it doesn’t strive for the benefit of particular group of people but for the benefit of all

Main Body
Guha & Gadgil provide the following four-fold classification of women’s movements:

• Eco-feminism:
  • Eco-feminism emerges from the nexus between women and nature
  • Eco-feminism can be summarized as an environment movement of women against the state
  • Prominent movements are Chipko movement, Appiko movement
  • Vandana Shiva and Medha Patkar have written extensively on eco-feminism
• Eco-Marxism:
  • Eco-Marxist movements are generally violent in nature
  • Eco-Marxist movements have oppressor vs. oppressed dynamic in which it is a people’s environment against the state
  • Kudankulam protests and Sterlite protests in Tamilnadu can be categorized under eco-Marxism
• Gandhian Crusaders:
  • The environment movements which follow Gandhian methods of struggle such as Ahimsa and Satyagraha
  • E.g., Chipko movement wherein tribal women did civil disobedience
  • Ramachandra Guha extensively writes about Gandhian Crusaders
• Alternate Technologists:
  • Environment movements wherein technology is the revolution
  • E.g., Moving from BS-IV to BS-VI

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