Originally Posted by aishalam

I had both Sociology and Gender studies as optional during the 2019 exams. I thoroughly enjoyed preparing them both and appearing in their exams as well. They test your critical thinking and ability to logically make connections.

One thing I will say is that you will be hard pressed to find one good book that covers their syllabus satisfactorily. So I simply took it topic by topic and studied off of google, making my own notes along the way. I found this technique to be a little draining but if you apply enough discipline and stick with it, you retain the information longer and are exposed to many different views. Sociological subjects that deal with human beings are prone to having different school of thoughts even on the most basic of topics so if you study from only one or two books, you are limited to the author's point of view but if you study from a variety of blogs (note: always fact check them!) and Google books, you'll get a more varied perspective.

Furthermore, I had originally picked Gender studies and sociology under a misguided notion that they'd overlap but they didn't really besides the fact that GS is a social science. I think the reason for this is that the GS syllabus given by FPSC is primarily geared towards the more controversial aspects of the subject and its history rather than the actual theoretical work. The theories and literature of GS would most definitely overlap with sociology since-until very recently-sociology was the subject under which those topics were studied. So keep that in mind.

I'll highly recommend that you look through the syllabus and recent past papers of both the subjects to see what you feel more comfortable with. One thing people assume about both these subjects is that you need to write "generally". As someone with a masters degree in economics this view of "social sciences" irks me. The examiner does not want YOUR opinion. Just like in more established sciences, all social sciences have their own body of theories, laws and respected schools of thought. If you are asked a question, you must frame the answer in one of them. I'll give an example from Sociology below which I had posted on another thread in this forum to give you a better idea of what these subjects demand;

The basic approaches to the study of sociology are the three main paradigms; structural functionalism, conflict and symbolic interaction. You must learn sociology with its own concepts and theories and develop a "sociological perspective". I highly recommend giving time to these paradigms and also giving a good thorough study to part II-Sociological theory of the FPSC sociology course before preparing the other parts because it'll help you develop a sociological outlook and thinking.

This year's paper was highly conceptual. I enjoyed attempting it but that was only because I took the time earlier to carefully and methodically learn about the FPSC recommended sociologists and their theories. You need to immerse yourself in the subject. Once you know the basic theories you can apply them everywhere and even a seemingly general question will gain more weight if you can back it up with respected sociologists' theories and views.

For example; question number 4 from CSS-2019 was How cultural ethnocentrism promotes social change and maintain social order. Comment.

I attempted this question by first defining the term then giving examples of ethnocentrism and how "generally" it can maintain social order and also promote social change (social order: ethnocentrism promotes a feeling of solidarity amongst the members of the group against "others" and they develop cultural, social and legal measures to maintain an order where they are superior. e.g. European Colonialism and their "civilize the savages" campaign, apartheid in south Africa etc. Social change happens when the oppressed class gets tired of the discrimination and fights for change. e.g Martin Luther King Jr. and his marches, Black panther movement, freedom struggle of the Muslims against double ethnocentrism of both British colonizers and Hindu Mahasbha.) After this part I supported my stance with theories. Ibn Al-Khaldun and the concept of Assabiya (tribalism), Karl Marx and the fall of capitalism and W. E. B Dubois and racial discrimination in America.



I hope you found this helpful as a starting point. If you would like to ask me any questions regarding these subjects, I'd be happy to answer them to the best of my abilities.