About the Book

This book is an innovative and comprehensive volume on Social Stratification. One segment of this volume comprises theoretical and conceptual dimensions of social stratification and mobility, and the other segment is a comprehensive analysis of empirical studies of social stratification, including caste, class, ethnicity, power, social inequality, social mobility, etc. The bearing of theoretical frameworks and concepts on empirical realities and of the latter on the former has been examined in the Indian context. The author questions the prevailing notions of caste, class and village; his main concern is to see how caste-class polarity and the country-town divide have ceased to exist and how the nexus between them has emerged in the wake of structural and cultural transformation in contemporary India.

The book brings out the challenge to the hold of entrenched castes and classes and the emergence of a new system of theoretical and conceptual paradigms and consequent new patterns of social stratification and mobility. New questions relating to the persisting social order have created new situations and social encounters. This indicates the emergence of a new social milieu, negating conventional notions and definitions. To deal with such a social ambience, Sharma attempts an interdisciplinary approach for a comprehensive and intense study of social stratification and mobility.

Contents

Introduction: Theoretical and Methodological Issues

Defining Social Stratification

Basic Concepts Relating to Social Stratification

Theories of Social Stratification

Dimensions of Social Stratification

Open and Closed Systems of Social Stratification

The Caste System: Continuity and Change

Emerging Patterns of Social Stratification in India

Culture and Social Stratification

Social Stratification in Rural-Agrarian Setting

Social Stratification in Urban-Industrial Setting

Social Stratification and the Weaker Sections

Gender and Social Stratification

Social Mobility

New Dimensions in the Studies of Caste, Class, Ethnicity and Power

About the Author / Editor

K.L. Sharma was formerly Professor of Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. At JNU, from 1972 to 2004, he held several academic and administrative positions, including the one of Rector (pro-Vice-Chancellor). Professor Sharma was Vice-Chancellor at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, during 2003–2005. He later served as founder Vice-Chancellor of Jaipur National University, Jaipur from 2007 to 2014. During his long stint at JNU, New Delhi, he was invited five times at College de France, Paris as visiting faculty. He has supervised more than one hundred M.Phil and Ph.D students, and has published 28 books and more than one hundred research papers. Currently, he is an honorary Pro-Chancellor at Jaipur National University. He is also the Editor of Hindi journal Samajik Vimarsh published by the Council for Social Development, New Delhi. He regularly writes on current issues for the popular Hindi daily, Dainik Bhaskar.