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Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

Analyse the relevance of ‘Pattern Variables’ in the study of social change.

  • UPSC 2020
  • Sociological Thinkers

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Talcott Parsons' pattern variables (with Edward Shils, Toward a General Theory of Action, 1951) were built to classify role orientations, not to explain change. Yet by setting affectivity, particularism, ascription, diffuseness and collectivity-orientation against their opposites, they gave post-war sociology a ready yardstick for measuring the move from "traditional" to "modern" society.

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions.

What the full answer covers

  • How they became a theory of change
  • Relevance: what they still capture
  • Indian evidence of mixed patterns
  • Critiques that limit their relevance
  • Conclusion
Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions

Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions

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