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Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

Explain the concept of ‘definition of the situation’ and its significance in sociology.

  • UPSC 2026
  • Sociological Thinkers

W. I. Thomas argued in The Unadjusted Girl (1923) that every self-determined act is preceded by a stage of examination and deliberation, the definition of the situation. With Dorothy Swaine Thomas in The Child in America (1928) he condensed it into the Thomas theorem: "If men define situations as real, they are real in their…

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  • The concept
  • Significance in sociology
  • Limits
  • Conclusion

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