We explain what social sciences are and how they are classified. Also, what do these sciences study, and what methods do they use.
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What is social science?
The social sciences are those sciences that aim to know some aspect of society . They comprise those disciplines that work from scientific methods and systems with the object of study linking human beings with each other, particularly when it comes to forming societies.
The social sciences are defined in some cases as opposed to another group of sciences , the exact and natural ones, which are responsible for describing and analyzing what happens in the world around us, regardless of the human being. In this way, a fundamental difference can be derived: while in the natural sciences the object of study is different from the subject that studies, in social sciences the object and subject coincide.
The social sciences study aspects of man that cannot be analyzed in isolation , so the different disciplines that it encompasses are interrelated. Interdisciplinary work is essential to fully understand how it has worked and how the world works; and only in this way can a true diagnosis be generated that enhances collective and individual socioeconomic development.
Regarding the method they use, it is usually controversial, since having an object as dynamic as human beings is, the general model of hypothesis , verification and the orization is usually discussed . However, this vagueness is contrasted through the application of specific methods: surveys, questionnaires on large scales, documentation, observation and even experimentation (working on particular cases) are valid means to legitimize theories.
We can differentiate different kinds of social sciences:
- Those related to the interaction between people. which investigates the ways in which they were relating the people along the time , and where fully include anthropology and sociology, but also includes how production and organized consumer goods (economy) or the ways in which the institutional organization (law) was carried out.
- The references to the evolution of societies. which aims to make anindispensable retrospective analysis to understand the current affairs of any group History appears first, but also archeology.
- Those corresponding to the cognitive system and the ways of expressing oneself. that people have had In addition, linguistics can be mentioned, which is the study of the structures of language and communication , and on the other hand, psychology , which delves into the individual’s internal psychic processes and their external manifestation.
- Those of application. that comprise slightly less analytical sciences, but that respond to a need in some areas of society . The accounting , pedagogy or urbanism appear in this group.
The educational system considers as one of its most important objectives the approach of children to the social sciences. In the early years, social science is limited to knowledge of the environment , and only in primary school, in parallel with an expansion of the horizons of imagination and diversification of concepts, history and geography appear, as concrete dimensions of time and space.
They are the two sciences that understand reality in an integral and comprehensive way , being the best bridges in the introduction to social science. Then, in high school, knowledge is expanded and a reflexive evaluation begins to take place on the processes that have taken place: history and geography begin to be complemented by demography, statistics , economics or anthropology.
