Revision summary
Surveys estimate population rates with known error. NFHS and NSSO illustrate Indian strengths. Weaknesses: thin meaning, missing frames, social desirability, weak process. Blumer, Weber, and Oakley name those limits. Use for prevalence; pair with fieldwork for why.
Model answer
Introduction
The social survey asks standardised questions of a sample to describe a population. NFHS and NSSO are Indian strengths of the method. Weakness begins when meaning, power, and absence from the frame are forced into a tick.
Body
Strengths
- Probability surveys estimate rates with known error, which ethnography cannot.
- Comparison over time and regions: fertility, work, and education become public facts, as Emile Durkheim needed rates.
- Policy can be checked. Anonymised large N reduces some interviewer whims.
- Mixed with a census frame, it can represent hidden rural interiors better than a city anecdote.
Weaknesses
- Max Weber’s meaning thins in a closed option. Herbert Blumer warned of frozen variables.
- Frames miss pavement dwellers and some migrants. Informal labour is undercounted.
- Ann Oakley: the interview is a relation; a schedule can still extract.
- Social desirability on caste, violence, and income. Translation fails across languages.
- Causation is weaker than a well-chosen comparison of processes.
Analysis
- Use surveys for prevalence and gradients.
- Do not use them as the whole of verstehen or of class struggle.
- Strength is at its peak when the question matches a well-defined indicator.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD SUR[Social survey] --> STR[Rates comparison error] SUR --> WEAK[Meaning frame gaps] NFHS[NFHS NSSO] --> STR ETH[Ethnography] --> MEAN[Meaning process]
Conclusion
Social surveys are strong for population rates, comparison, and democratic publicity of facts. They are weak for meaning, unlisted lives, and causal process. Durkheim needs them; Geertz cannot live on them. Analyse by matching tool to claim, as NFHS versus a village ethnography shows.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Phenomenological perspectives in sociology reject many of the assumptions of positivism. Comment.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2020 · Q7(b)). View answer →
-
Is a census a survey?
A census aims at complete count. A survey samples. Both can use standardised schedules.
-
Can online polls replace NFHS?
Not if the frame is volunteers. Probability household design is the strength being asked about.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2022 · Q1(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
How does a researcher achieve objectivity in interpretative research? -
2020 · Q1(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Is sociology a value-free science ? Discuss. -
2020 · Q1(c) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Methodology is a system of rules, principles and procedures, which forms. scientific investigation. Comment. -
2020 · Q7(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 15 marks
Phenomenological perspectives in sociology reject many of the assumptions of positivism. Comment. -
2018 · Q2(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Is non-positivist methodology scientific? Illustrate. -
2018 · Q5(c) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Does scientific method make Sociology a Science? Illustrate your answer with Durkheim's method. -
2017 · Q1(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Examine ethnomethodological and phenomenological perspective as critique of positivism -
2017 · Q1(c) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Illustrate with example the significance of variable in sociology research
More from this topic
Q5(d) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
How does Weber's Verstehen address the objectivity-subjectivity debate in sociology?
Sociology as Science
Verstehen is interpretative understanding of meaningful social action. Ideal types help compare cases without pretending to be full copies of reality. Value relevance selects topics; value freedom forbids twisting evidence to preach. This rejects naive positivist objectivity as a view from nowhere. It also rejects the idea that interpretation is only the scholar’s private feeling. Actors’ meanings remain checkable through comparison, documents and consequences.
Q2(c) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
What do you mean by reliability? Discuss the importance of reliability in social science research.
Sociology as Science
Reliability is the consistency of a measure across time, items and raters. It differs from validity, which asks whether the right concept is being measured. Types include test–retest, split-half or alpha, and inter-coder agreement. Durkheimian rates and modern surveys both depend on stable classification. Qualitative work still needs transparent, repeatable coding. Without reliability, comparison, replication and policy use of data collapse.
Q2(a) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
What is positivism? Critically analyze the major arguments against it
Sociology as Science
Positivism treats sociology as a science of observable regularities, after Comte and Durkheim. Its strength is accountability to data, comparison and replication. Weberian understanding, phenomenology and ethnomethodology deny that meanings are mere residuals. Critical theory and feminist standpoint theories deny the neutrality of the observer. Giddens’s double hermeneutic states that people already interpret the world sociologists study. Indian field studies show why census categories cannot replace meaning, even when counts remain essential.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.