Indian Civil Service Exams (CSE) Syllabus - UPSC Exams

Paper-I

• Sociology-The Discipline :
  
  Sociology as a science and as an interpretative discipline; impact of industrial and French Revolution on the emergence of sociology; sociology and its relationship with history, economics, political science, psychology and anthropology.
• Scientific Study of Social Phenomena : Problem of objectivity and value neutrality; issue of measurement in social science; elements of scientific method-concepts, theory and fact, hypothesis; research designs-descriptive, exploratory and experimental
• Techniques of data collection and analysis :
  
  Participant and quasi-participant observation; interview, questionnaire and schedule case study, sampling-size, reliability and validity, scaling techniques-social distance and Likert scale.
• Pioneering contributions to Sociology:
  a) Karl Marx : Historical materialism, mode of production, alienation and class struggle.
  b) Emile Durkheim : Division of labour, social fact, religion and society.
  c) Max Weber : Social action, ideal types, authority, bureaucracy, protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.
  d) Talcott Parsons : Social system, pattern variables.
  e) Robert K. Merton : Latent and manifest functions, anomie, conformity and deviance, reference groups.
• Marriage and Family :
  
  Types and forms of marriage; family-structure and function; personality and socialization; Social control; family, lineage, descent and property; changing structure of family marriage and sex roles in modern society; divorce and its implications; gender issues; role conflicts.
• Social Stratification :
  
  Concepts-hierarchy, inequality and stratification; theories of stratification-Marx, Davis and Moore and Melvin Tumin’s critique; forms and functions; class-different conceptions of class; class-in-itself and class-for-itself; caste and class; caste as a class.
• Social Mobility :
  
  Types of mobility-open and closed models; intra-and inter-generational mobility; vertical and horizontal mobility; social mobility and social change.
• Economic System :
  
  Sociological dimensions of economic life; the impact of economic processes on the larger society; social aspects of division of labour and types of exchange; features of pre-industrial and industrial economic system; industrialisation and social change; social determinants of economic development.
• Political System :
  
  The nature of power-personal power, community power, power of the elite, class power, organisational power, power of the un-organised masses; authority and legitimacy; pressure groups and political parties; voting behaviour; modes of political participation-democratic and authoritarian forms.
• Educational System :
  
  Education and Culture; equality of educational opportunity; social aspects of mass education; problems of universalisation of primary education; role of community and state intervention in education; education as an instrument of social control and social change; education and modernisation.
• Religion :
  
  Origins of religious beliefs in pre-modern socieites; the sacred and the profane; social functions and dysfunctions of religion; monistic and pluralistic religion; organised and unorganised religions; semitism and antisemitism; religion, sect and cults; magic, religion and science.
• Science & Technology :
  
  Ethos of science; social responsibility of science; social control of science; social consequences of science and technology; technology and social change.
• Social Movements :
  
  Concepts of social movements; genesis of social movements; ideology and social movement; social movement and social change; types of social movements.
• Social change and Development :
  
  Continuity and change as fact and as value; theories of social change-Marx, Parsons and Sorokin; direted social change; social policy and social development.

Indian Civil Service Exams (CSE) Syllabus - UPSC Exams