Thinker
Robert K. Merton
Robert K. Merton is central to 27 previous-year questions, spanning 2009 to 2025 across Paper I and Paper II. Everything below is drawn from the official papers — the questions themselves, the concepts they test, and where they sit in the syllabus.
27Questions
2009–25Years tested
I & IIPaper
7Syllabus topics
Concepts asked alongside Robert K. Merton
What the examiner actually wants you to know when this name appears.
anomie 5strain theory 5anticipatory socialisation 3functional prerequisites 3latent functions 3manifest functions 3modes of adaptation 3modes of individual adaptation 3reference group 3relative deprivation 3social equilibrium 3structural functionalism 3value consensus 3cultural goals and institutional means 2cultural goals and institutionalised means 2deviance 2dysfunction 2dysfunctions 2
Where Robert K. Merton appears in the syllabus
Every question on Robert K. Merton
Each links to a full breakdown — how to approach it, a model answer, and the examiner’s perspective.
2025
2022
2021
- Describe the role of Science and Technology in enabling us to face the challenges triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Do you agree with Max Weber's idea that bureaucracy has the potential to become an iron cage? Justify your answer.
- With suitable examples, explain how conformity and deviance coexist in a society as propounded by R.K. Merton.
2019
2016
2015
2014
2013
2011
2010
2009
- To Robert Merton, deviant behaviour is a result of anomie. Analyse his sociological theory of deviant behaviour, with a special reference to his formulation of types of deviance.
- What are the main principles of the structural-functional perspective? Comment on the suitability of applying this perspective to the study of Indian society.
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