(a) Describe various characteristics of a 'social fact'. How is rate of suicide a social fact according to Durkheim? (10…

(a) Social Facts and the Suicide Rate

Social fact: Durkheim (The Rules of Sociological Method, 1895) defined social facts as "ways of acting, thinking and feeling" that exist outside individuals and constrain them. Examples include law, morality, language, currency and religious beliefs. Their characteristics are:

• Externality: they exist before and apart from any individual and outlast them;
• Constraint: they exercise pressure on conduct, felt most when one resists (sanctions, ridicule);
• Generality: they are spread across a group, and are general because they are collective, not collective because they are general;
• Sui generis: they must be explained by other social facts, not by psychology or biology.

Suicide rate as a social fact (Suicide, 1897):

• an individual suicide looks personal, but the rate of a society is stable over time and varies systematically between groups: higher among Protestants than Catholics and Jews, among the unmarried than the married, and in times of economic crisis;
• such regularities cannot come from individual motives, which vary randomly; they reflect social currents of integration and regulation;
• hence four types: egoistic (too little integration), altruistic (too much integration), anomic (too little regulation) and fatalistic (too much regulation).
• Conclusion: the rate is external, constraining and group-specific, so it is a social fact explained by the structure of social bonds.

(b) Mead: Self and the Generalised Other

• Self as social: for George Herbert Mead (Mind, Self and Society, 1934, published posthumously), the self is not inborn. It arises through social interaction and language (significant symbols), when a person can become an object to himself by taking the attitude of others.

Stages of development:

• Preparatory (imitation): the infant copies gestures without understanding;
• Play stage: the child takes the role of one significant other at a time (playing "mother", "teacher");
• Game stage: in an organised game such as cricket, the child must grasp the roles of all players and the rules linking them.
• Generalised other: the organised attitudes of the whole community or group, which the individual internalises. Through it the person sees himself from the standpoint of society, and this makes self-control and social order possible.
• "I" and "me": the "me" is the internalised generalised other (the social, conventional self); the "I" is the creative, spontaneous response to it. Their interplay allows both conformity and change.
• Conclusion: the self is a continuing process, and the generalised other is the bridge through which society enters the individual.

(c) Work Organisation in Feudal and Capitalist Societies

• Labour relation: in feudal society the serf is tied to the land and lord through personal dependence; under capitalism the free wage labourer is legally free to sell labour power (Marx);
• Mode of extraction: feudal surplus is taken as labour services, rent in kind or dues through extra-economic coercion and custom; capitalist surplus value is extracted through the market and the wage contract;
• Means of production: the peasant keeps access to land and tools; the capitalist worker is separated from the means of production;
• Goal of production: use-value (subsistence and the lord's consumption) versus exchange-value (profit and accumulation);
• Organisation: household, manor and craft guilds (master, journeyman, apprentice) versus the factory and firm, with a detailed division of labour, Taylorism and Fordism;
• Ethos: traditionalism, status, paternalism and mutual obligation versus rational calculation, contract, achievement and bookkeeping (Weber);
• Work and home: joined, with work set by seasons and custom, versus separated, with work set by the clock (E.P. Thompson, 1967).

• Conclusion: the shift is from status to contract (Maine) and from personal domination to impersonal market compulsion.

(d) Power, Authority and Weber's Types of Authority

• Power (Macht): the probability that an actor in a social relationship can carry out his own will despite resistance, whatever the basis of that probability. It may rest on force, wealth or manipulation.
• Authority (Herrschaft, legitimate domination): the probability that a command will be obeyed by a group because they regard it as legitimate. Obedience comes from belief, not only fear, which makes authority more stable.

Weber's three ideal types of authority (Economy and Society):

• Traditional: based on belief in the sanctity of age-old custom; the ruler is obeyed personally (patriarchs, kings, village elders). Forms include patrimonialism;
• Charismatic: based on devotion to the extraordinary qualities of a leader (prophets, revolutionary leaders; Gandhi in the national movement). It is unstable and, after the leader, is routinised into traditional or legal forms;
• Legal-rational: based on belief in the legality of impersonal rules; obedience is owed to the office, not the person. Its purest form is bureaucracy (Indian civil services, courts, elected governments).
• Note: these are ideal types, and real systems mix them (a charismatic prime minister working within a constitutional order).

(e) Science, Technology, Social Change and Online Education

Roles of science and technology in social change:

• Driver of change: technology changed the economy, family, stratification and urbanisation (from the steam engine to the Green Revolution and the mobile phone);
• Cultural lag: William Ogburn argued that material culture changes faster than norms and institutions;
• Rationalisation: science replaces magic and tradition, bringing Weber's "disenchantment";
• Critique of determinism: the social construction of technology approach argues that society shapes which technologies develop and how they are used;
• Risks and inequality: Ulrich Beck's Risk Society (1986) shows technology producing new hazards, and access follows existing lines of class, caste and gender.

Online education:

• Positives:
• scale and reach through SWAYAM, DIKSHA and PM eVidya;
• flexible, self-paced learning for working adults and remote learners;
• continuity during the pandemic, and NEP 2020's support for blended learning;
• Concerns:
• the digital divide: devices, connectivity and a quiet space are unevenly available, and girls often get lower priority for the family phone;
• learning losses among poorer children during school closures;
• weaker socialisation, peer learning and teacher–student bonds;
• commercial ed-tech, data privacy and screen fatigue. UNESCO's Global Education Monitoring Report 2023 (Technology in education: A tool on whose terms?) warned against adopting technology without evidence that it improves learning.
• Opinion: online education works best as a complement, in a blended model with public investment in access and teacher training, not as a replacement for schools and teachers.