NCERT Solutions for Class 10 Social Science, Political Science Chapter 3 - Democracy and Diversity

In this chapter, students will study how democracy responds to social differences, divisions and inequalities.

The Civil Rights Movement in the USA was a set of events and reform movements aimed at abolishing legal racial discrimination against African Americans. Martin Luther King led the movement in the period of 1954-1968.

Social Division is also referred to as social difference or social discrimination as it is a difference that is created in society. This kind of social difference can be based on gender, colour, family background, caste, and many other criteria. The chapter discusses the inequality created by such factors. Social differences may divide similar people from one another, but they also unite very different people.

There have been other civil rights movements, such as during the 1968 Mexico Olympics, two athletes named Tommie Smith and John Carlos wore black gloves on the one hand and raised the hand, making it a fist. They did this while the US National Anthem was played during the medal ceremony. The two athletes reportedly did this on purpose to protest against social discrimination in the US. They were trying to attract the attention of all the people of the world towards the social discrimination in the United States. The Black gloves and the closed fist symbolized the power of black people or Black Power.

In the United States, it believed that African Americans tend to be poor and homeless and hence they are discriminated against. Moreover, a group that shares a common interest on one issue is likely to be indifferent issues. Overlapping social differences create possibilities for deep social divisions and tensions. However, cross-cutting social differences are easier to accommodate.

At first sight, it would appear that the combination of politics and social divisions is very dangerous and explosive. Political parties can make social divisions into political divisions and lead to conflict or even disintegration of a country.