UPHESC Assistant Professor Sociology 2025, 2026 PYQs

Concept: Malthus (1798): population grows geometrically (1, 2, 4, 8 …), food arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4 …).

1. Geometric growth → doubling every generation (~25 years) (II).
2. Arithmetic growth of subsistence → slower linear increase (I).
3. Preventive checks → lower births: moral restraint, late marriage (IV).
4. Positive checks → raise deaths: war, famine, epidemics (III).

Short trick: Preventive = Prevent births; Positive = 'Positively' kills (deaths).

Concept: In 'Main Currents in Sociological Thought', Aron writes that Marx's sociology is, above all, a sociology of the class struggle.

1. Marx: 'The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles' — so not only after the Industrial Revolution (A).
2. For Marx it is the motor of history, not a temporary process (C), and rooted in relations of production, not merely inequality (D).

Short trick: Aron: Marx = sociology of class struggle (Main Currents, Vol. 1).

Concept: Poststructuralism grew out of, and against, structuralism (Saussure, Lévi-Strauss).

1. First the structuralist premise: language structures constrain action (II).
2. Derrida's 1966 Johns Hopkins lecture 'Structure, Sign and Play' launches poststructuralism (I).
3. He then deconstructs language and institutions as 'writing' (III), concluding that meaning is unstable and contextual — différance (IV).

Short trick: Structure first, then its critique: II → I → III → IV.

Concept: Jajmani (W.H. Wiser, 1936) is a hereditary, caste-based, long-term system of exchange of services between patron (jajman) and service castes (kamin/purjan).

1. A is false — the relation was hereditary, durable and caste-based, not short-term or contractual.
2. R is true — it rested on traditional caste obligations, paid in kind (grain at harvest), not contract.

Short trick: Jajmani = Hereditary + Caste + Kind payment → never 'contractual'.

Concept: Edwin Lemert: primary deviance = initial, occasional rule-breaking that does not affect self-concept; secondary deviance = deviance that follows from accepting the deviant label as part of one's identity.

1. Option A shows exactly this movement — minor violation → internalised label → systematic crime.
2. C has no change in self-identity, so it stays primary; B is collective protest; D is not deviance at all.

Short trick: Primary = act; Secondary = identity (label internalised).

Concept: 'Accretion' means gradual growth by adding layers; in Weberian bureaucracy specialised offices keep multiplying.

1. Each new technical task adds a new expert office, so the hierarchy of experts grows ever more complex.
2. This widens the gap between administrators/experts and the ruled (Weber's 'iron cage').
3. A, C, D contradict the meaning of 'accretion'.

Short trick: Accretion = piling up → more and more layers of experts.

Concept: Capitalism rests on capital (owned by the bourgeoisie) and wage labour (the propertyless proletariat).

1. I is correct — capital and wage labour presuppose each other.
2. II is correct — profit comes from surplus value extracted from workers.
3. III is wrong — workers do NOT own the means of production; that is precisely why they must sell their labour power.
4. IV is correct — class struggle is the motor of history.

Short trick: Proletariat = 'nothing to lose but their chains' — they own no means of production.

Concept: Chipko (1973, Mandal/Reni villages, Chamoli, Uttarakhand) — villagers, especially women like Gaura Devi, hugged trees to stop commercial felling.

1. Led by local people and Gandhian workers (Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Sunderlal Bahuguna), not parties or unions.
2. It linked forest protection with local livelihoods — a classic environmental, grassroots new social movement.

Short trick: Chipko = 'hug the tree' → environment + grassroots (Gaura Devi, Reni 1974).

Concept: In the broad sense, the peasantry includes all who live by working the land (Daniel Thorner, André Béteille).

1. Thorner's classes: maliks (landowners), kisans (working peasants/owner-cultivators, tenants), mazdoors (labourers, sharecroppers).
2. Absentee landlords, advisors and urban owners do not cultivate, so they are not 'peasants'.

Short trick: Peasantry = those who till: owner, tenant, sharecropper, labourer.

Concept: Panchayati Raj (Balwant Rai Mehta Committee 1957; 73rd Amendment 1992) is democratic decentralisation.

1. Three tiers — gram panchayat, panchayat samiti, zila parishad — bring planning and decision-making to the village.
2. It decentralises (not centralises, C), supplements state governments (not replaces, A) and is for rural areas (not B).

Short trick: Panchayati Raj = Democratic decentralisation (73rd Amendment, Part IX, Article 243).

Concept: Bhargava contrasts idealised doctrines with 'really existing secularisms' — how secular states actually work.

1. In practice (e.g., India's 'principled distance'), the state engages with religion: it accommodates some practices and criticises or reforms others (e.g., untouchability).
2. So it is neither strict exclusion (C, French laïcité ideal) nor surrender to religion (D), and it is practice, not mere theory (A).

Short trick: Bhargava = 'principled distance' → engage, accommodate, criticise.

Concept: A reference group (Hyman 1942; Merton) is any group used as a standard for evaluating oneself — one need not belong to it.

1. I is wrong — reference groups can be imaginary, past or symbolic (e.g., celebrities on media).
2. II is correct — positive (to imitate) and negative (to avoid) reference groups (Newcomb, Merton).
3. III and IV are correct — they shape attitudes, aspirations and anticipatory socialisation.

Short trick: Reference group = a 'mirror' you choose — real or imagined, liked or disliked.

Concept: Social movements are classified by the direction and extent of change they seek (Blumer, Aberle, Rao).

1. Reform: partial change within the system (II).
2. Revolutionary: total transformation of the social order (IV).
3. Reactionary/regressive: return to the past — 'put the clock back' (I).
4. Resistance: block changes already under way (III).

Short trick: Reform = Part, Revolution = Whole, Reaction = Back, Resistance = Stop.

Concept: Subnationalism = loyalty to a regional, linguistic or ethnic identity below the level of the nation (e.g., Dravidian, Assamese, Naga, Khalistan movements).

1. A is true — such assertions can strain the idea of a single, unified national identity.
2. R is true — it is the assertion of regional/ethnic identity for recognition and autonomy within the state.
3. Because subnationalism means demanding autonomy for a regional identity, it challenges a unified nation — R explains A.

Short trick: Regional identity + autonomy demand → tension with 'one nation'.

Concept: Peasant movements in India (Telangana, Tebhaga, Naxalbari) arose mainly from skewed landownership and exploitative tenancy.

1. A few landlords controlled most land; tenants, sharecroppers and labourers faced high rents, debt and eviction.
2. Urbanization, industrial jobs or technology are not the root causes cited (A. R. Desai, Kathleen Gough).

Short trick: Agrarian unrest = Land inequality (Tebhaga: 'two-thirds share' demand).

Concept: Urban economics: people migrate to cities as long as benefits (wages, amenities) exceed costs; housing and land rents are the main 'congestion cost'.

1. As cities grow, land and housing prices rise and reduce real income.
2. Unless higher wages or consumption benefits compensate, the city becomes less attractive and growth slows — a limit to urbanization.
3. B, C, D are not logical consequences of high land prices.

Short trick: City size limit: Wage gain − Rent cost = net attraction.

Concept: The median needs at least ordinal data — values must be ranked to find the middle one.

1. Nominal categories (religion, gender, caste names) have no inherent order; any arrangement is arbitrary — R is true.
2. Hence a median of a nominal variable cannot be defined — A is false. Only the mode applies to nominal data.

Short trick: Nominal → Mode; Ordinal → Median; Interval/Ratio → Mean.

Concept: Ambedkar (speech of 25 Nov 1949): social democracy is 'a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life'.

1. He warned that political democracy cannot last unless there lies at its base social democracy.
2. The three principles form a 'union of trinity' — divorcing one from the others defeats democracy.
3. B, C, D leave caste hierarchy intact, which he opposed.

Short trick: Ambedkar's trinity: Liberty–Equality–Fraternity ('one man one vote' must become 'one man one value').

Concept: Murray Bookchin (social ecology) argues that natural evolution tends toward greater complexity, subjectivity and flexibility ('first nature' giving rise to 'second nature').

1. A is true in his framework — evolution produces organisms with more self-directedness and choice.
2. R is true — such organisms can respond actively to new environmental challenges and opportunities.
3. Because subjectivity and flexibility increase adaptability, evolution favours them — so R explains A.

Short trick: Bookchin: evolution → more subjectivity + flexibility → better adaptation (participatory evolution).

Concept: C.R. Kothari classifies sampling designs by element selection (unrestricted/restricted) and representation basis (probability/non-probability).

1. Unrestricted probability = simple random sampling (I).
2. Restricted probability = complex random designs: stratified, systematic, cluster (II).
3. Unrestricted non-probability = haphazard/convenience sampling (III).
4. Restricted non-probability = purposive/judgement, quota sampling (IV).

Short trick: Kothari's 2×2 grid reads straight down: I, II, III, IV.