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Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

Write short note: Relevance of pattern variables in the study of social change.

  • UPSC 2008
  • Sociological Thinkers

Talcott Parsons and Edward Shils (Toward a General Theory of Action, 1951) set out five pattern variables, paired choices every actor faces in a role. Designed to classify action, they became the main yardstick of modernisation theory: social change could be measured as a shift from one end of each pair to the other.

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  • The modernisation hypothesis
  • An Indian illustration
  • Limits
  • Conclusion

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