Disciplines and Ideas in

Social Sciences
Ms. Chery Rose C. Balusada
Lesson 1, 2, and 3
In our everyday life, routine, regimen, seldom do we think about the
“patterns” of our usual behavior: why do we do certain things the way
we do; why we associate with a particular group of people; why we
follow a specific belief or conviction; why we are prohibited to do
certain acts; why we speak particular language; why we remember
certain acts and forget others; and the like.

All these affect our everyday decisions. These are not some random
actions, but are shaped by the “structures” of our living conditions:
geographic area, social status, historical experience, economic forces,
political institutions, ethnic grouping, religious affiliation, and power
relations among others.
SOCIAL SCIENCE sees these structures either from the point of view of
visible, concrete, and empirical interactions of people, sch as traditions
and rituals, or from the vantage point of the mind, how our ideas or
images of the world themselves structure or organize the world in
which e live.

Social Science is the systematic study of society and, over the years, it
has also developed various modes of engaging the notion of society
and how to truly grasp its enigma.

Social Science consists of disciplines that enable us to comprehend the

complexity of a social phenomenon, be it historical, social, cultural,
psychological, linguistic, economic, or political.
Additional Information:
SOCIETY AND COMMUNITY
Society and community may seem ordinary terms, but, in the social
sciences, they are big ideas that have steered the emerging discipline
into a full-blown academic inquiry in the late eighteenth to early mid-
nineteenth century.

SOCIETY represents the idea of a modern, urbanized, capitalist, and geographically

and demographically complex society that characterizes the newly emerged nation-
states in the West.

COMMUNITY, on the other hand, is smaller in geographical and demographic

scope, communal in social relations, and traditional in behavior and worldview.
• Social science is a body of knowledge characterized by an objective to
understand what society is and what it does to the people living
inside it.

• ANTHROPOLOGY deals with the nature of human beings, both from a

biological and cultural point of view. For anthropologists, culture is a
key factor that shapes human nature and that this culture is
conditioned by both natural and social environments.
• SOCIOLOGY deals with how people behave and interact with one
another as a member of a particular social group. It is important for
sociologists and anthropologists to know who these people are, male
or female, natives or foreigners, young or old, and the like in order to
capture the nuanced nature of human relations.
• DEMOGRAPHY deals with population as a unit of analysis.
Demographic process, such as birth migration, and aging are
investigated because they have impact on how society changes across
a period of time.
• ECONOMICS focuses on markets, wealth, and resources that people
construct and make use of in order to live.
• GEOGRAPHY insists that it is the environment or the location of the
people that ultimately conditions the way people will behave in
society.
• HISTORY interprets that the past is part and parcel of the present as
events that happened in the past shape the way people make their
decisions in the present.
FUNCTION
- The theory of function was developed by Herbert Spencer and Emile
Durkheim. The whole point of this theory is to liken society to a living
organism (complex body parts and all) whose objectives are self-
preservation and self-perpetuation.
Just like a living organism, a human body’s parts and organs perform
very specific tasks to sustain itself.

SOCIAL INTEGRATION is the process during which new comers or

minorities are incorporated into the social structure of the host or
mainstream society.
In Sociology, the concept of social integration refers to the ways that
different groups come together to form a whole in society.

Culture, defined very broadly by Edward Tylor, buttresses the idea that
it is a structure that constitutes and drives society.

The German thinker, Max Weber, focused on ideas rather than on social
structures. According to him, structures are not only the ones that are
important in society, but also meanings that people hold about what
they do and what they think.
FUNCTIONALISM states that what keeps the society together is the
function or role that all parts of a system perform, assert, and play in
order to preserve, maintain, and sustain society for posterity.

The indirect benefit for people would be the promotion of a feeling of

solidarity and unity among them, which lessens stress and thereby
make them feel happy and secure deep inside.
Structural Functionalism of Alfred Radcliffe-Brown follows the
Durkheimian paradigm of focusing on underlying structures that
support the whole fabric of society. Units of society, such as families,
organizations, and groups are studied in order to get a sense of
network, interdependence, and connection among the part of society.

“Ang sakit ng kalingkingan ay sakit ng buong katawan.” Truly, in an

organic analogy of society as a human body, the whole unit will only
function well if all of their parts perform their expected tasks. If there
are maladaptive parts, eventually, they will contribute to the collapse of
society unless checked by other units or sectors in charge of correcting
or penalizing the erring units.
 MARXISM
• It examines the effect of capitalism on labor, productivity, and
economic development and argues for a worker revolution to
overturn capitalism in favor of communism.

• SOCIAL CLASSES
- bourgeoisie / capitalists
- proletariat / workers

- worker revolution is needed to replace capitalism with a communist system

- both SOCIAL and POLITICAL THEORY
MARXISM
- It was first publicly formulated in 1848 in the pamphlet, The
Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels which lays out
the theory of class struggle and revolution.

- Marxism argues that capitalism as a form of economic and social

reproduction is inherently flawed and will ultimately fail.
• Marxist theories were influential in the development of SOCIALISM,
which requires shared ownership by workers of the means of
production.

• Communism outright rejects the concept of PRIVATE OWNERSHIP

mandating that “the people”, in fact the government, collectively own
and control the production and distribution of all goods and services.

• CAPITALISM is defined as a mode of production in which business

owners (the capitalists) own all of the means of production (the
factory, tools and machinery, the raw materials, the final product and
the profits earned from their sale). Workers (labor) are hired for
wages and have no ownership stake and no share in the profits.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
 It is a school of thought
 Symbolic Interaction cultivated a social theory and
method anchored on the idea that instead of having a
predetermined knowledge about a certain
phenomenon, we have a society, for example, that is a
product of our constant efforts and of our continuing
creative actions.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

 Social interaction is “symbolic” because social actors act in creative

and symbolic ways (language and gestures) based on their shared
meanings toward and event or situation.

 Symbolic interactionists believe that society is not a static entity that

appears before the individual, but it is the actors or individuals that
carry out the “leading role”.