Sociology ISC (Arts) Class 12 CISCE Syllabus 2025-26

• Meaning of kinship,
• Types of kinship: consanguineous and affinal kinship.
• Degree of kinship (primary, secondary, tertiary; descent (matrilineal, patrilineal);
• residence (matrilocal, patrilocal and avunculocal)
• Kinship usages: avoidance, joking, relationship, teknonymy, avunculate, amitate, couvade;
• descriptive and classificatory kinship terms

• Finding out about families
• The ideal of patriliny
• Rules of marriage
• The gotra of women
• Were mothers important?
• Marriage: definition and functions.
• Definition, merits, demerits, functions of the following:

1. Rules of marriage: exogamy and endogamy (clan, gotra, pravara, village and sapinda), cross and parallel cousin, levirate, sororate, hypergamy and hypogamy.
2. Forms of marriage: polygamy (polyandry and polygyny), monogamy.

• Definition and features (MacIver’s features)
• Functions of the family to be discussed explaining the reasons for its universal existence.
• Types of the family:
  (i) Consanguineous and conjugal family (family of origin and procreation),
  (ii) The Diverse forms of Family: Matriarchal and atriarchal family (matripotestal, patripotestal, and avuncupotestal),
  (iii) Nuclear and joint families
• Structural changes (disintegration of the joint family), functional changes
• Factors responsible for the changes
• Small family norm

• Definition and concepts of religion and science; beliefs, rituals, superstitions, taboo.
• Definition of the above and a basic understanding of each of the above. Differences and similarities between religion and science.

• A brief discussion of animism, naturism, totemism; functional theories (Malinowski, Radcliffe Brown and Durkhiem).

• A brief discussion on the positive and negative functions of religion. 

• Definition
• features of Communalism, Fundamentalism, and Secularism in a Plural Society
• explanation through relevant examples showing how the State copes with the Communalism, Fundamentalism, and Secularism in a Plural Society crises to maintain Unity in Diversity.

• Definition of morality and social control
• the relation between religion, morality and social control, moral code, religious code.

• Definition of economic organization
• Definition of economic and free goods

• Food gathering
• agriculture: shifting axe cultivation ( jhum, Dahi, Koman, penda, podu and bewar),
• criticism of this type of cultivation, examples of tribes having this
  practice;
• handicraft making
• pastoralism
• industrial labour - migration of large numbers of Santhal, Kond and Gond to tea gardens in the north-east; large resources of coal, iron and steel in Bengal, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh; examples of Santhal, Ho in pick-ining, coal-cutting, the mica and the iron & steel industry

• Agrarian Economy: land relations – owner, tenant, sharecropper.
• Jajmani system: caste-based occupations and exchange of services.
• A brief understanding of MGNREGA and its implications.

To be discussed with respect to Weekly markets, barter exchange

• Definition of tribe,
• features (unity and self-sufficiency, clan and family, common totemic ancestor, territory, occupation, endogamy, dormitories, language, common culture, common name, common religion, political organization and territory,)
• racial classification – mongoloid, caucasoid, australoid and negrito – to be explained with the help of examples along with the geographical location of tribes.

• Definition;
• origin of dormitories;
• features and functions;
• culture contact and change in dormitories.

• Definition and examples of assimilation,
• isolation and acculturation;
• an understanding of how these processes have helped in tribal transformation.

• Economic, political (regionalism and separatism), social and cultural conditions and problems.
• Discuss briefly the following policies of the Government of India (post-independence) for the upliftment of the Indian tribes:
• Tribal Panchsheel
• Important constitutional safeguards
• Important Committees and Commissions
• Backward Classes Commission
• Special Central Assistance
• Economic programmes and facilities
• Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP)
• Large Sized Multi-Purpose Cooperative Societies (LAMPS)
• 20 Point Programme
• Programme for encouragement in crafts, home industries and agriculture
• Educational policies

• Definition of social stratification 
• features of social stratification 
• inequality of social stratification 
• difference of social stratification

• The class system: its nature, development, types of classes.
• Discuss briefly the growth, nature of the different classes (lower, middle, upper).

• Concept of the caste system
• Caste
• Origin
• Caste and class comparison
• Features of caste
• Caste in modern India.
• Definition and Theory of Divine Origin
• Social mobility - brahminisation, sanskritisation and westernization.

1. Changes in the role and features of caste (relevant examples may be given to provide a better understanding e.g. the role of the dominant caste).
2. Factors leading to change in the caste system: 

• Influence of education, industrialization, urbanization, modernization, freedom struggle and the establishment of Democracy, the rise of the Non - Brahmin movement, other causes - social reform movement, threat of conversion, improvement in the status of women and rise of new  classes;
• Social legislation {a brief mention to be made of the following Constitutional Measures: Caste Disabilities Removal Act (1872), The Hindu Marriage Act (1955), The Untouchability Offences Act (1956), Constitutional policy of protective discrimination, the Kaka Kalelkar Commission (1953), The Mandal Commission (1979)}.

• Concept of race and racism: Definition and traits of race and racial prejudice.
• Notion of Ethnicity: Definition and features of ethnicity
• Relationship between race and ethnicity: Causes of prejudice: misinformation, ethnocentrism and xenophobia, economic advantages, political advantages; a brief mention of conflict between ethnic communities.

• Difference between sex and gender, gender bias and its consequences for both men and women – at the workplace, property rights and family status.
• Gender issues: female infanticide, foeticide, dowry, sati, child marriage, domestic violence, rape, widowhood, sexual harassment; women as perpetrators of violence.
• The following bills and latest amendments to be briefly discussed: The Anti-Dowry Act; the Anti-Rape Bill, the Inheritance Bill, Domestic Violence Act.

Definition of Social Change and development – features and sources.

• Industrialization, urbanization, modernization, globalization and sustainable development - definitions and their role in social change.
• The relationship between social change and development, (special focus on sustainable development, ecological and environment issues for improving quality of life for the present and future).

Meaning, causes, consequences and role of the following Social Movements in society:

• The Maoist Movement in Chhatisgarh (Tribal movement),
• Irom Sharmila (a feminist struggle in Manipur),
• the Telangana Movement (An Urban-ethnic movement which began as a tribal movement in the 19th century).

• Meaning and functions of education.
• Emphasize the role of education in creating social change.
• Role of Right to Education (RTE) and its implications to be discussed briefly

• Role of Mass Media (Print, electronic, audio-visual positive and negative aspects of mass media).
• Understanding each of the above forms of mass media and their role in creating social change
• Their role in creating a civil society that confronts the bureaucracy and the authoritarianism of the state machinery through NGO activity, vigils and acts like the Right to Information (RTI).
• Positive and negative aspects of mass media.