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Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

“Tradition and modernity are misplaced polarities in the study of social change in India.” Elucidate

  • UPSC 2011
  • Visions of Social Change in India

The phrase belongs to Joseph R. Gusfield, whose Tradition and Modernity: Misplaced Polarities in the Study of Social Change (American Journal of Sociology, 1967) charged development sociology with turning a pair of ideal types into an empirical opposition. The statement does not deny that the two words mean different things; it denies that they name…

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

What the full answer covers

  • Where the polarity came from
  • Why the polarity is misplaced
  • The Indian evidence
  • Is the polarity therefore useless?
  • Conclusion

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