RESEARCH METHODS-1 (SEMESTER-5) REFLEXIVITY

Reflexivity refers to the ‘reflexive monitoring of action’, that is, the way in which humans think about and reflect upon what they are doing in order to consider acting differently in future. Humans have always been reflexive up to a point, but in pre-industrial societies the importance of tradition limited reflexivity. Humans would do some things simply because they were the traditional things to do. However, with modernity, tradition loses much of its importance and reflexivity becomes the norm. Social reflexivity implies that social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those very practices, thus continuously altering their character.

RESEARCH METHODS-1 (SEMESTER-5) COMPARATIVE METHOD

Comparative method refers to the study of different types of groups and societies in order to determine analytically the factors that lead to similarities and differences in specified patterns of behaviour. Comparative method is an integral component of the positivist tradition in sociology. The founding fathers of sociology like Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim laid great emphasis on the use of ‘comparative method’ in any sociological enquiry. In the 19 th century, when sociology as a discipline was still in its infancy stage, the principle attraction of the comparative method lay in the belief that it could be used for discovering scientific laws about human society and culture. 

SOCIOLOGY OF WORK (SEMESTER-5) CLASSICAL APPROACHES TO WORK

Classical approaches to work provide us insights into various theories and views of different scholars such as Marx, Durkheim and Weber, which help in understanding the sociology of work in an efficient way. Though contemporaries, their views are different in many aspects, ranging from class conception to the future possibilities, and accommodating different views can be fruitful for understanding contemporary work structures also and its future prospects.  While Marx establishes capitalism as antagonistic, and suggests revolution in future to overthrow it, confining himself to 2 classes - bourgeoisie and proletariat; Durkheim on the other hand is a positivist and emphasises on the importance of division of labour to maintain integrity and solidarity in society. Weber takes a very different approach from Marx and Durkheim and focuses on different types of classes (by giving Trinitarian model) and rejects the idea of stateless society.

SOCIOLOGY OF WORK (SEMESTER-5) INFORMATION SOCIETY

An information society is a society where the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information are significant activities. Its key drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in a rapid variety of information growth and are somehow transforming all facets of social organization, including education, economy, health, government, war, and democracy levels. Technological, economic, occupational, spatial, cultural, or a combination of all of these may be some of the markers of this steady transition. Intellectual society is considered a successor to industrial society.

SOCIOLOGY OF WORK (SEMESTER-5) POST INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY (Daniel Bell)

 Post industrial society(PIS) literally means the society following industrialial society. Scholars believe that industrial revolution created a need for services , and the advent of service sector forms the post industrial society. Daniel bell is one of its advocate. He, in his work " The coming of post industrial society " expounds that post industrial society is characterized by change in the erstwhile social structure and the economy, which now is inclined more towards science and technology. He believes that information/ intellectual society is implict in and integral to post industrial society. To get insights into the nature of pis,  we will discuss his work, supplemented with krishna kumar’s work on information society.