Culture refers to the ideas, customs, thoughts, behaviors and everything from the way they eat, to the way they dress, to the kind of music they listen to, the art forms that they show interest in, etc. Culture often has two aspects, the material, and the non-material aspects; while the former refers to the more … Read more
Ethnocentrism is the practice where we tend to believe that our own culture, ethnic group, race, etc. are superior to others. Such a belief develops out of socialization, which provides us the knowledge of the existence of different cultures, and that of our own, what these cultures entail, what is normal, what is different, what … Read more
Theism refers to a belief in a god or any higher power. Polytheism is a type of theism, it refers to a belief in more than one deity or god. These deities (which are a part of the polytheistic religion) come together to form a Pantheon- which is a group of a particular set of … Read more
Symbolic interactionism as a theory to understand the micro-level phenomenon of the society was given by George Herbert Mead, though he did not do much work on this. It is a sociological theory, also known as a symbolic interaction perspective. Symbolic interactionism focuses on looking at the actions and interactions among the individuals rather than … Read more
Pilot Study in Research Various disciplines carry out research on a large scale, such researches involve a large sample and are time-consuming and costly. There are various method and techniques, whether scientific or not, that are chosen as suitable to carry out the research. A pilot survey is carried out before the actual research to … Read more
To completely understand what untouchability is, how and why it is practiced, we must first understand that there ‘four-fold system’ in India which divides the population into four Varnas or groups namely Brahmins, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Shudra. They are placed in a hierarchy and observe rules of purity and pollution (higher castes being the purest … Read more
Ritualism is derived from Robert Merton’s strain theory. According to him tension in the society arises from the fact that the resources in the society are to equally divided among people to achieve cultural values and goals. when one does not have the resources to reach goals, they adopt other ways to attain goals, based … Read more
