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• Social Science


  A systematic way of discovering and explaining the patterns of behavior of people
• Social Science is defined as the study of society
• Social Science evolved from social philosophy to scientific investigation on how people behave in the social world
• Perry and Perry, 2012: 'Social Science is the scientific study of social, cultural, psychological, economic and political forces that guide individuals in their actions'
• Hunt, 2008: 'Social Science is the systematic attempt to discover and explain behavior patterns of people and groups of people'
• Mendoza and Napoli, 2010: 'Social Science is the systematic attempt to discover and explain behavior patterns of people and groups of people'
• Social Science perspective


  • Leads to the search for rational solutions and possible work perspective for positive change
• Science


  An organized body of knowledge that is a rational system of inquiry using the empirical testing of gathered data or facts
• Any scientific inquiry aims to obtain verifiable truth
• Social Sciences


  Focus on society, particularly human group interactions and human patterns of behavior
• Natural Sciences


  Concern the natural worlds, the natural environment where man exists, including the living and non-living things
• Humanities


  Involve a more analytical approach which could mean interpretations of the social sciences, and the understanding of human reactions to events and meanings human impose on experience as a function of culture, involving the affective domain of knowledge
• Economics


  A discipline of Social Science that deals with the optimum allocation of scarce resources among its alternatives to satisfy the unlimited human wants and needs
• Economics


  • Aims to answer the problem of scarcity of resources and give choices to each individual in satisfying their own needs and wants
• Branches of Economics


  • Macroeconomics (focuses on the aggregate level of the country)
  • Microeconomics (focuses on each individual as part of the household)
• History


  Gives national identity to each nation defining its society
• Branches of History


  • Local History (focuses on a certain group of people within a particular location)
  • Social History (focuses on how this group of people interact with other people within or outside their group)
  • Cultural History (focuses on the different ethnic groups and how they interact with each other)
• Anthropology


  The study of humans, both from the past and the present, giving explanation to human differences and cultures, and looking into the deeper meaning of human diversity and ethnocentrism
• Ethnocentrism


  The tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture, including the belief that one's own race, ethnic or cultural group is the most important or that some or all aspects of its culture are superior to those of other groups
• Subfields of Anthropology


  • Physical Anthropology (the study of the human body)
  • Cultural Anthropology (the study of how people who share a common cultural system organize and shape the physical and social world around them, and are in turn shaped by those ideas, behaviors, and physical environments)
  • Archaeology (the study of the human past using material remains)
  • Sociocultural Anthropology (the study of the diversity of human societies in time and space, while looking for commonalities across them)
  • Linguistic Anthropology (the study of language as a cultural resource and speaking as a cultural practice)
• Geography


  Deals with the understanding the locations, regions, movement of people, and human relationship with its environment, focusing on how human beings are being affected and how they adapt with environment, and how humans affect change in their environment and how they depend on it
• Branches of Geography


  • Physical Geography (the study of natural processes of Earth like climate, landforms, water forms, territories)
  • Human Geography (the study of the interaction of people to their environment and vice versa)
• Sociology


  A Social Science which studies man and society as well as man in society, including the interplay of people within the society and what man do to society and vice versa
• Max Weber: 'Sociology is a science that attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order to arrive as a causal explanation of its cause and effect'
• Focuses of Sociology


  • Rural Sociology (the study of human relationship in the rural environment)
  • Urban Sociology (the study of cities and urban communities)
• Political Science


  Concerned with the study of government and institutions, power, government, nations, international relationship of nations
• Aristotle is considered the Father of Political Science
• Normative theory


  Based on ethical action
• Empirical theory


  Purely informative
• Linguistics


  The study of the nature, structure and variation of language, which enriches one's understanding of culture
• Scope of Linguistics


  • Phonetics
  • Phonology
  • Morphology
  • Syntax
  • Semantics
  • Pragmatics
• Psychology


  Focuses on the person's cognition, human growth and change over time, using scientific inquiry and research methods, including quantitative methods like surveys and data analysis
• Demography


  Also known as population education, the scientific study of the composition, structure by density, and size of people within an area, making us understand the changes in population due to movement of people, social mobility, death rates, birthdates and morality rates, using mathematical and statistical treatment of data
• Auguste Comte


  The most influential philosopher of the early 1800s, recognized for his belief that in order to improve society, a theoretical science of society and a systematic investigation were needed, coining the term sociology and considering it the "Queen" of the hierarchy of sciences
• Comte's Positive Philosophy (Positivism)


  Aims to battle the negative perspective of the Enlightenment, with the Law of Three Stages: Theological, Metaphysical, Positivist
• Herbert Spencer


  Associated his work on Charles Darwin's study on the concept of "Origin of Species", relating the concept of evolution of species to the different societies in order to have explanations regarding the changes that happened, adapting the evolutionary view of the "survival of the fittest" and associating it to the life condition of the people
• Emile Durkheim


  One of the first professors of Sociology in France, who established an impressive academic reputation through his work that focuses on the behavior that must be understood within a larger social context and not just in individuals terms, including his study on the functions of religion and the concepts of "Anomie", alienation, loneliness and isolation, and the three patterns of suicide: Egoistic, Altruistic, Anomie
• Harriet Martineau


  One of the major contributors, known for translating Comte's work from French to English and writing the first book on sociological methods, focusing on social class distinctions, gender and race, and themes of women's fights, the emancipation of slaves, and religious tolerance
• Max Weber


  A German professor who highlighted the application of the concept "verstehen" (understanding or insights), stating that people cannot analyze their own social behavior using the same process and type of objective criteria used to measure weight or temperature, and that in order to understand one's behavior, people must learn the subjective meanings people attach to their actions and how they themselves view and explain their behavior
• Elements of an Ideal Bureaucracy

  • Continuous organization
  • With specific spheres of competency
  • Hierarchal System
  • Technical qualification
  • Non-ownership of means of production
  • No appropriation by incumbent
  • Formalized in writing