BRANCHES OF SOCIAL

SCIENCES

DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

M S . J OA N R . D O C TO R
 SOCIAL SCIENCES
Studies the historical, cultural, sociological,
psychological, and political forces that shape the
actions of individuals and their impact in society.
ANTHROPOLOGY LINGUISTICS

DEMOGRAPHY HISTORY

ECONOMICS POLITICAL SCIENCE

GEOGRAPHY PSYCHOLOGY

SOCIOLOGY
 DEFINITION

FIELD OF INQUIRY

HISTORY
ANTHROPOLOGY
AC T I V I T Y 1

Analyzing
Culture
 DEFINITION
▪ Greek word: “Anthropos” meaning humankind and
“logos” meaning study.
▪ It is the study of the ancient societies and their
cultural traditions.
▪ Study of culture means language, values, technologies,
and how they group themselves
 DEFINITION
Related to other disciplines in the social sciences. To
examine cultural practices of different groups and
communities, it requires:
▪Knowledge of the history of the area where the people
lived
▪Familiarity with the environment, the group’s
settlement patterns, the organization of their family life,
their system of government
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
It has two broad fields:
▪Physical Anthropology: Studies the biological evolution
of man and provides explanation on the reasons behind
the biological variations among contemporary human
population.
▪Cultural Anthropology: Investigates and seeks to
understand the cultural features of societies.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
Three subbranches of Cultural Anthropology:
▪ Archaeology: seeks to reconstruct the past life of ancient
societies using the fossil remains of human culture.
▪ Anthropological Linguistics: study of language in societies
or communities where language may or may not be written.
▪ Ethnology: uses data gathered through observations and
interviews with living people. (i.e. marriage customs, kinship
patterns, economic systems, religious rites, cultural groups)
 HISTORY
▪ Herodotus
➢ traveled a great deal and was able to write detailed
narratives about West Asia and Egypt.
➢ had second hand information to describe the
Scythians, the Ethiopians, and the people from the
Indus Valley.
 HISTORY
▪ These narratives reveal an important area of inquiry in
anthropology, which is “how are we able to relate to the other?”
▪ In answering these questions, we can lean towards finding
commonality or highlight the difference. (e.g Herodotus himself
shows prejudice and ethnocentrism in his narratives but there are
also times when he acknowledges that the difference among
people is accounted for by the difference in the environment and
life circumstances.
 HISTORY
▪ European conquest during the sixteenth century
elicited the formulation of rudimentary theories on
what distinguishes humans from animals and
inspired descriptive narratives on the way of life of
these exotic people. (e.g travel accounts)
 HISTORY
▪ During Enlightenment, the period saw the flourishing of
philosophy and sciences and the people sought greater
freedom from the Church. This liberal environment which
produced the French Revolution and the Napoleonic
Wars became a fertile ground for academic
anthropological studies.
ECONOMICS
 DEFINITION
▪ Greek word: “Oikos” meaning home and “nomos”
meaning management.
▪ It is the study of the efficient allocation of scarce
resources in order to satisfy unlimited human needs
and wants.
▪ A family faces the challenge of managing their limited
income to satisfy the needs and wants of its members.
 DEFINITION
▪ In our society, even if we combine all the world’s
resources, it will never be enough to cover all
humankind’s desires and needs, which by nature,
is infinite.
▪ A careful study must be done in order to mitigate
the impact of an imbalance and inequity in
resource allocation.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
4 FACTORS OF PRODUCTION:
▪ Land: Comes from nature which gives life and support
to all living creatures. It also refers to immovable
properties where industries are built, (clean air, timber
resources, water)
▪ Labor: Any human effort exerted during the production
process which includes physical exertion, application of
skills or talent, or exercise of intellectual faculties.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
4 FACTORS OF PRODUCTION:
▪ Capital: anything that can be used to create or
manufacture goods and services. (e.g buildings,
infrastructures, machines, and other tools used in the
production process.)
▪ Entrepreneurship: ability to organize all the factors of
production in order to carry out effectively the production
process.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
Classified in two scopes:
▪ Microeconomics: study of the choices made by
economic actors such as households, companies, and
individual markets. It studies the choices of individuals as
consumers and workers.
▪ Macroeconomics: It examines the behavior of the
entire economies. (e.g GDP, employment, economic
growth, interest rates, and inflation)
 HISTORY
▪ Period of Enlightenment inspired the birth of Modern
Economics
▪ Adam Smith: “An Inquiry into the Nature and the Causes of
the Wealth of Nations” (1776)
▪ Thomas Malthus: “An Essay on the Principle of Population”
(1798)
▪ David Ricardo: “Principles of Political Economy and
Taxation” (1817)
GEOGRAPHY
1. What is the reason behind the
choice of water forms and land
forms and the location of the AC T I V I T Y 2
cities?
Creating an
Imaginary
2. How will your imaginary nation
be conducive to a productive and Nation
develop society?
 DEFINITION
▪ Greek word: “geo” meaning Earth and “graphos”
meaning charting or mapping.
▪ It studies the interaction between the natural
environment and the people living in it. (bridge between
Natural Science and Social Science)
▪ It studies where things are on Earth, explains why they
are there, and their relationships to other people,
places, and things.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
2 main branches:
▪ Physical Geography: studies the natural
feature of the Earth, like climate, water,
vegetation, and soil. (e.g physical environment
as the provider of natural resources or as a
hazard to human life.)
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
2 main branches:
▪ Human Geography: studies human population
and the impact of its activities on the planet. It
examines how people use the resources
available to them, and how they cultivate their
environment to suit their needs. (e.g agriculture,
urbanization, land reclamation)
 HISTORY
▪ The Babylonians were able to draw a map that clearly
identifies their location in Mesopotamia.
▪ Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey also contain a lot of
geographical information even though they are fictional
works.
▪ The interest is partly stimulated by the extensive travels
of Alexander the Great.
 HISTORY
▪ The pioneer in the field is Eratosthenes who wrote the
first scholarly treatise on the topic; a three-book volume
Geographika. (inhabited portions and the people living in
it, depths of the sea, climate, and the geological history
of the Earth). He is also considered as the “Father of
Geography”.
▪ Strabo: “The Geography of Strabo”
HISTORY
Describe yourself to the future
generation by providing clues as to
your personality, character, values,
and ideas. Attach herewith a copy of AC T I V I T Y 3
five pieces of evidences that best Use of
represent you. Only one can be a
description of yourself in 15 words Historical
or less. If the evidence is an object Evidence
and it is too impractical or too big
to attach here, you can prepare a
small drawing for it.
 DEFINITION
▪ Greek word: “historia” meaning learning.
▪ Traditionally, it is the study of the recorded past.
▪ As used by Aristotle, it is a systematic account of a set
of natural phenomena, whether or not chronological
ordering was a factor in the account.
▪ It attempts to reconstruct the past given the available
sources.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
2 types of historical sources:
▪ Primary source: testimony of an eyewitness or
an account of someone who has a firsthand
information on the subject. It has to be written or
recounted by someone who is contemporary to
the event being narrated. (e.g transcripts,
diaries, official government records, etc.)
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
2 types of historical sources:
▪ Secondary source: an account of someone
who is not an eyewitness to the event being
narrated. It is also not contemporary to the event
being narrated. (e.g biographies, textbooks,
book reviews, etc.)
 HISTORY
▪ People have always had a sense for history as
evidenced by the need to record events that happen in
their lives whether the said events are special or
ordinary:
❑ hieroglyphs in Egypt
❑ cuneiform engraved in mud brick tablets in Mesopotamia
❑ drawings made by the Cro Magnons in their caves
 HISTORY
▪ The credit of employing historical method goes to
Herodotus who wrote about the Greek wars against
Persia during the 3rd decade of the 5th century. His
narrative is entitled “The Histories”. The narrative
departed from the writing tradition common at that time,
which is to explain human events as the outcome of
divine will.
 HISTORY
▪ Thucydides: “History of the Peloponnesian Wars”. His
narrative includes how his materials were gathered and
the tests he used to separate fact from fiction.
Thucydides intended his writing to have instructional
importance as a guide to action in the future.
LINGUISTICS
 DEFINITION
▪ Latin word: “lingua” meaning language.
▪ It studies the nature of language through an
examination of the formal properties of natural
language, grammar, and the process of language
acquisition.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
Areas of study:
▪ Phonetics: study of speech sounds. It examines
how the sounds are made and identifies its
properties.
▪ Phonology: study of speech sounds patterns. An
orderly combination of speech sounds form words,
and words need to be structured in order to convey
meaning.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
Areas of study:
▪ Morphology: study of how words are
categorized or formed.
▪ Syntax: study of how words are combined to
form a sentence. It also categorizes types of
phrases and types of sentences.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
Areas of study:
▪ Semantics: study of meaning-making.
▪ Pragmatics: study of language-context.
(e.g “Oh please” would have an entirely different
meaning if it was done in a felicitous manner or if
it was said in a harsh tone.)
 HISTORY
▪ Throughout most of history, linguistics has been
considered a province of philosophy and
rhetoric. It is led by the sophists of Classical
Greece who have given young, wealthy men an
education in the art of public speaking, which in
turn they can use to vie for public positions.
 HISTORY
▪ The conventional date of linguistics proper is 1786
when regular sound correspondences were found
across the many languages of Europe, India’s
Sanskrit, and Persia. This eventually led to the
discovery of parent language called Proto Indo-
European.
POLITICAL SCIENCE
 DEFINITION
▪ Greek word: “politea” which means a person who
participates in the polis. Engagement in the polis
means taking part in the decision-making, which
normally takes place in the agora or the market
place, where new laws are passed or disseminated
under the scrutiny of the entire community.
▪ It is the study of politics, power, and government.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
Basic concepts:
▪ Politics: process of using power in the government.
▪ Power: means for the government to rule the
people.
▪ Government: authority or bureaucracy that
provides the system of rile over its territory and for
its people.
 HISTORY
▪ It has to be noted that the engagement in the political
decision-making in the polis is only limited to Greek
men.
▪ Aristotle: “Politics” (government and the leaders
behind it, concept of justice and slavery, happiness and
virtue of the political community to the people’s
participation in politics.) ; Pioneer in the field of political
inquiry.
 HISTORY
▪ John Locke: “Two Treatises of Government”
(1689) – discusses the concept of representative
government and the people’s right to revolution.
▪ John Stuart Mill: “Considerations on
Representative Government” (1861) – also talks
about the topic of representative government.
 HISTORY
▪ Political Science as an academic discipline
separate from history was only established after
the Second World War in American universities as
well as in number of European universities.
PSYCHOLOGY
 DEFINITION
▪ Latin word: “psyche” meaning soul or spirit and
“logos” meaning study.
▪ It seeks to understand how people think and why
they behave in a certain way. It is the scientific
study of behavior and the mental processes,
including the physical and mental state and how
this all relate to the environment of the individual.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
Three major fields:
▪ Clinical Psychology: assesses and finds
treatments for people with psychological
disorders.
▪ Developmental Psychology: studies the
intellectual, social, emotional, and moral
development across a lifespan.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
Three major fields:
▪ Experimental Psychology: studies the most
basic concepts of psychology like cognition,
perception, memory, and learning but mostly
conducted on animals instead of humans.
 HISTORY
▪ Wilhelm Wundt: Father of Modern Psychology;
His famous work was “The Principles of
Physiological Psychology” (1873); He is credited
for being the first in the movement to make
psychology a science; Other wide array of topics
include spiritualism, ethics, animal physiology, and
even poisons.
 HISTORY
▪ William James: studied the concept of
Functionalism, which analyzes the function or
purpose of a behavior and not simply a description.
▪ Sigmund Freud: known for his psychoanalytic
theory, which divides the personality into id, ego,
and super ego. He also wrote the psychosexual
stages of development.
SOCIOLOGY
 Crime Tell the Police (Yes / Why?
No)

Vandalism

Robbery
AC T I V I T Y 4
Black Mail
Use of
Assault
Historical
Evidence
Car Theft

Cyber Bullying
 DEFINITION
▪ Latin word “socius” meaning friend or companion
and the Greek word “logos” meaning study.
▪ It is the systematic study of human society. It
studies how people relate to each other and how
they work as a whole in the larger society.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
▪ The sociological perspective sees the general in
particular.
▪“We begin to think sociologically [when we realize] how
the general categories into which we fall shape our
particular life’s experiences.
▪ Social rules of behavior, societal expectations, and
norms guide an individual’s action, thoughts, and
feelings.
 HISTORY
▪ Sociology was born as a result of powerful complex
economic and social forces – Industrial Revolution.
o changes in the field of technology and in the way goods are
manufactured
o massive change in the work and living of the people (factory
life pulled people away from their homes, changed their work
schedules, and weakened their family ties)
o drawn people to the cities causing problem in urbanization
 HISTORY
▪ The new issues that confronted people at that time
required a new way of thinking.
▪ Auguste Comte: coined the word “sociology” in 1838
to encapsulate the idea of improving society by
understanding how it operates. His works include
“Course on Positive Philosophy”, “System of Positive
Polity”, “Treatise on Sociology, Instituting the Religion
of Humanity”.
DEMOGRAPHY
 DEFINITION
▪ Greek words: “demos” meaning the people and
“graphos” meaning charting or mapping
▪ It is the study of the human population. It studies
how people move from place to place.
▪ The main sources of data are census and other
vital statistics.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
Basic demographic concepts:
▪ Fertility: incidence of child bearing in a country’s
population. It is measured using crude birth rate or the
number of live births for every 1,000 people in a
population.
▪ Mortality: incidence of death in a country’s population. It
is measured using crude death rate or the number of
deaths for every 1,000 people in a population.
 FIELD OF INQUIRY
Basic demographic concepts:
▪ Migration: movement of people into and out of
a particular territory.
▪ Population growth: simply the difference
between the crude birth rate and the crude
death rate.
 HISTORY
▪ Kautilya: commented in his Arthashastra that a
large population is a source of military, political,
and economic strength of a nation.
▪ Ibn Khaldin: Arab historian who contended that a
dense population growth is generally favorable to
the maintenance and increase of imperial power.
 HISTORY
▪ This thinking has been reversed in later rimes
when an increase in population growth is seen as a
bane to developing societies.
▪ Edmond Halley: first scientist to study a person’s
likelihood of death as he or she passes through
different age groups using death statistics from
across the different age groups.