Free Sociological Theory MCQs with Answers

• A. understanding the differences between the classical theorists
• B. seeing the social world as one made up of Social facts
• C. bringing together private troubles and public issues
• D. avoiding explanations based on individual psychology

Explanation: C. Wright Mills described sociological imagination as linking personal troubles to wider public issues and social structures.

• A. None of these
• B. Physical and social solidarity
• C. physiological and mechanical solidarity
• D. Mechanical and organic solidarity

Explanation: Durkheim distinguished mechanical solidarity, based on similarity and shared beliefs, from organic solidarity, based on interdependence…

• A. structural functionalism
• B. interaction school of thought
• C. Phenom ology
• D. None of these

Explanation: Structural functionalism views society as an interdependent system whose institutions and parts perform functions that maintain the…

• A. Karl Marx and Georg Hegel
• B. Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx
• C. George Herbert Mead and Jane Addams
• D. Talcott Parsons and Robert MertonSocial Sciences

Explanation: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels jointly wrote The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848 as a statement of communist theory and a critique…

• A. Max Weber
• B. Karl Marx
• C. Emile Durkheim
• D. George Herbert Mead

Explanation: George Herbert Mead published no book during his lifetime, and students edited his lecture material into works such as Mind, Self, and…

• A. all of the above
• B. an analysis of deviant behavior that focuses on societal goals and means
• C. an attempt to bring macro- and micro
• D. successfully combining theory and research

Explanation: Merton connected sociological theory with empirical research, explained deviance through the strain between cultural goals and legitimate…

• A. personalities of individual suicide victims
• B. suicide rates and how they varied from country to country
• C. means people used to take their own lives
• D. effects of suicide on the families of victims

Explanation: Durkheim studied suicide as a social fact by comparing suicide rates across societies and groups, relating variation to levels of social…

• A. Marx
• B. Durkheim
• C. Herbert Spencer
• D. None of these

Explanation: Herbert Spencer popularised the phrase survival of the fittest and applied evolutionary ideas to the development of societies.

• A. Durkheim
• B. Weber
• C. Marx
• D. All of above

Explanation: Durkheim defined sociology as the systematic study of social facts, which are collective ways of acting, thinking and feeling that exist…

• A. Feudalism
• B. communism
• C. Economic equalitarianism
• D. None of these

Explanation: In Marx's historical sequence, capitalism creates class conflict between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, eventually leading to a…

• A. Four phases
• B. Two phases
• C. three phases
• D. All of above

Explanation: Comte's law of three stages describes intellectual development from the theological stage, through the metaphysical stage, to the positive…

• A. Kurkheim
• B. Comte
• C. All of above
• D. Marx

Explanation: Ibn Khaldun is often compared with Marx because both explained social development through material conditions, economic relations and…

• A. Muamlla
• B. Muqaddimah
• C. Muzakira
• D. None of these

Explanation: Ibn Khaldun is best known for the Muqaddimah, his foundational introduction to history and analysis of society, group solidarity and…

• A. middle-range function
• B. latent function
• C. consumption function
• D. structural function

Explanation: A latent function is an unintended or unrecognised consequence of a social practice, unlike a manifest function, which is intended and…

• A. it removes the need to assess a theory according the empirical evidence
• B. sociologists can choose the theory that best fits the data they have collected
• C. human behavior is so complicated that no single theory would be adequate
• D. innumerable theories have been developed in the many fields of sociology

Explanation: Human behaviour is shaped by many interacting biological, psychological, cultural and structural factors, so one theory cannot adequately…

• A. the mode of production
• B. the motor of history
• C. the history of class struggle
• D. the spirit of capitalism

Explanation: Historical materialism explains change through the mode of production and class struggle, with material economic relations driving…

• A. only things that have been shown to be true
• B. ways of behaving that are external to individuals
• C. social insights into collective behavior
• D. information captured by official statistics

Explanation: Durkheim's social facts are external and coercive patterns of behaviour, belief and thought that influence individuals, such as laws…

• A. the Russian and Scientific Revolutions
• B. the Chinese and Agricultural Revolutions
• C. the French and Industrial Revolutions
• D. the American and Democratic Revolutions

Explanation: Modern sociology developed as thinkers tried to understand the major social disruption caused by the French Revolution and the Industrial…

• A. Georg Hegel
• B. Ralf Dahrendof
• C. Talcott Parsons
• D. George Herbert Mead

Explanation: George Herbert Mead supplied the central ideas behind symbolic interactionism, especially the development of the self through social…

• A. conceptual or analytical models of social phenomena
• B. the most commonly found type of social organization
• C. philosophical models of an ideal human society
• D. models of society based on up to date statistical evidence

Explanation: Weber’s ideal types are simplified conceptual models used to analyse and compare social phenomena, not descriptions of the most common or…