NCERT Class 11th Sociology and Society Introduction
Categories: Freshers Study NCERT Class 11
NCERT Class 11th Sociology and Society Introduction
Introduction
Let us begin with some suggestions that are often made to young students like you. One advice often made is, “Study hard and you will do well in life.” The second advice as often made is, “If you do this subject or set of subjects you will have a better chance of getting a good job in the future”. The third could be, “ As a boy this does not seem a correct choice of subject” or “As a girl, do you think your choice of subjects is a practical one?” The fourth, “Your family needs you to get a job soon so why choose a profession that will take a very long time” or “You will join your family business so why do you wish to do this subject?” Let us examine the suggestions. Do you think the first advice contradicts the other three? For the first advice suggests that if you work very hard, you will do very well and get a good job. The onus rests upon the individual. The second advice suggests that apart from your individual effort, there is a job market that decides which subject choice may increase or decrease your chances in the job market. The third and fourth advice complicate the matter even more. It is not just our personal effort or just the job market that makes a difference — our gender and family or social background also matter. Individual efforts matter a great deal but do not necessarily define outcomes. As we saw there are other social factors that play an important role in the final outcome. Here we have only mentioned the ‘job market’, the ‘socioeconomic background’ and ‘gender’.
Can you think of other factors?
We could well ask, “Who decides what is a ‘good job’?” Do all societies have similar notions of what is a “good job?” Is money the criteria? Or is it respect or social recognition or individual satisfaction that decides the worth of a job? Do culture and social norms have any role to play? The individual student must study hard to do well. But how well he/she does is structured by a whole set of societal factors. The job market is defined by the needs of the economy. The needs of the economy are again determined by the economic and political policies pursued by the government. The chances of the individual student are affected both by these broader political and economic measures as well as by the social background of her/his family. This gives us a preliminary sense of how sociology studies human society as an interconnected whole. And how society and the individual interact with each other. The problem of choosing subjects in the senior secondary school is a source of personal worry for the individual student. That this is a broader public issue, affecting students as a collective entity is self-evident. One of the tasks of sociology is to unravel the connection between a personal problem and a public issue.