The term social sciences groups together all academic disciplines that study aspects related to society and the relationships between individuals within society. The social sciences analyze and treat different aspects of social groups and the behavior of human beings from the social and cultural aspect, dealing with their material and immaterial manifestations. Now, what are the branches of the social sciences ? You do not know? We show them to you. WHAT ARE THE BRANCHES OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES?
The social sciences, as a whole, have many branches or fields of study. These in turn form smaller groups according to the object of study, leaving us then four subgroups:
- The sciences that study social interaction , such as anthropology, history, and economics, to name just a few.
- The sciences that study the human cognitive system . Psychology and linguistics are in this group.
- The sciences that study the evolution of societies , such as archeology, demography, and human ecology, among others.
- The applied social sciences . In this group we can name the administration, pedagogy and international relations.
In this article we are going to show you what the disciplines of the social sciences are, and we are going to give you a brief overview of some of them, what they are and what they study.
Social interaction has several areas of manifestation. It occurs in person-person relationships, or in person-group relationships, as well as in group-group relationships. Social interaction determines the social influence that every individual receives . WHAT ARE THE BRANCHES OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES?
Here are some of the branches of the social sciences that study social interaction in all its forms.
Anthropology
The word anthropology is derived from the Greek “anthropos”, which means “human”, and from the word “logos”, which means “knowledge.” Anthropology is dedicated to the study of the human being in an integral way.
Anthropology is the science that studies the response of human beings to the environment, interpersonal relationships and the social and cultural framework in which they develop. Its object of study is the human being in its multiple relationships , its culture as a differentiating element from other human beings, as well as its biological and sociocultural aspects.
Story
History is the science that is responsible for studying, describing and representing the events of humanity’s past. This discipline studies and chronologically narrates past events. And although it is considered a social science, it is also considered a bridge between these and the natural sciences, since it applies methodologies of the natural sciences in the social study.
History is divided into prehistory, which basically covers the period of time before the appearance of writing, and the history of which there are written records. WHAT ARE THE BRANCHES OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES?
History makes use of other disciplines to obtain, process and interpret data from the past. Sciences such as physiology, geography or anthropology are considered auxiliary sciences of history .
Science of law
The word right has its origin in Latin “directum”, which means “what is in accordance with the rule, the law, the norm.”
The law is the set of rules that regulate social coexistence, thus allowing the resolution of interpersonal conflicts. It is the normative and institutional order of human behavior in society, inspired by postulates of justice, whose bases are the existing social relations, which determine its content and character.
It is known as science of the right to the discipline that studies interprets, integrates and systematizes a legal system for its fair application. It is also known as legal science. Those who study law are not lawyers simply for studying the degree, but upon obtaining the title they will be “jurists”, that is, knowledgeable about laws and jurisprudence. WHAT ARE THE BRANCHES OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES?
Economy
Economics is the discipline that studies the social relations associated with the processes of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of goods and services, in order to satisfy the needs of the human being in society.
Economic science focuses on understanding what are the means created to satisfy our needs as a society , and what is its impact both individually and socially.
Since economic activity is very diverse, economics is divided into different areas of study, such as labor economics or international economics, to name a few.
Sociology
Sociology is a social science whose objective is the scientific analysis of the structure and functioning of human society. His study focuses on social activity and the phenomena that it produces, within the historical and cultural context within which they manifest. This makes his objects of study very diverse.
Religion, the family, social classes, racial divisions, and the organization of states, to name just a few, are objects of study of sociology. WHAT ARE THE BRANCHES OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES?
Sociology seeks to understand social stability, as well as the processes of change and transformation at the group level, and at the individual level it seeks to understand the impact of social phenomena on individuals.
Sciences that study the human cognitive system
Cognition is defined as the ability to learn through perception and the organs of the brain.
The social sciences that study the human cognitive system seek to understand basically how the communication of human beings works through an educational system adapted to the different societies that inhabit the planet, as well as the use that human beings make of the education received through through these systems to interact with other individuals and to cope with their daily environment.
Here are three of the social sciences involved in the study of the human cognitive process.
Psychology
Psychology is the science that studies human behavior, as well as the thought processes on which it is based. It seeks to develop generalized explanations of mental functions and individual behaviors.
Human behavior has a wide variety of variants, which has forced psychology to specialize in different disciplines that study it under different aspects. For example, educational psychology, which studies behavior and mental processes in the field of learning. Another example would be organizational psychology, which studies individual behavior in the workplace. WHAT ARE THE BRANCHES OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES?
Linguistics
The linguistic word has its origin in the Latin “lingua”, which means “language”.
Linguistics is the scientific study of the structure of natural languages and other elements related to them, such as their historical evolution, their internal structure, and the knowledge that speakers have of their language.
Linguistics as a science focuses on the analysis of nature and the laws that govern language. Try to explain how languages work at a specific point in time, which helps you understand their general behavior.
Semiology
Semiosis consists of the production of signs or the way in which they operate to produce meaning. Semiology is the science that studies the general properties of sign systems as the basis for understanding all human activity, a sign being an object or present event that is instead of another object or absent event, at the rate of a certain code.
The principle of semiology is that “something means something to someone . “
Sciences that study the evolution of societies
There are several sciences that focus their study on the advancement that certain human groups have achieved throughout history. Some of the sciences that make up this group are the following.
Archeology
Archeology is the science that evaluates and investigates the evolution of society from its economic, political, cultural and social aspects. Its study is carried out through the observation of objects (material remains) that help to know with certain accuracy where we come from, reconstructing history based on the evidence provided by such objects. WHAT ARE THE BRANCHES OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES?
This science, which tries to explain how the passage of time has modified our environments, can be considered a discipline attached to history or anthropology.
Demography
Demography is known as the science whose objective is the study of the social characteristics of human populations and their development through time under the perspectives of density, dimension, structure, evolution and general characteristics, always considered quantitatively.
Demography collects and analyzes data related to the distribution of the population by age, ethnic group, family situation, economic activities and marital status, births and deaths, life expectancy and migration statistics, among other data.
Human ecology
Human ecology focuses on the study of the relationships of humans with the ecosystem. This science studies how people adapt their genetic, behavioral, physiological and cultural characteristics to the physical and social environment.
Applied social sciences
In this category we find some disciplines such as those that we are going to analyze below.
Pedagogy
Pedagogy in the discipline that brings together a set of knowledge focused on education as a social and specifically human phenomenon. It is an applied science of a psychosocial nature, whose object of study is education .
Its focus is the study of education with the intention of organizing it to fulfill certain purposes, starting from what is considered desirable for a society. WHAT ARE THE BRANCHES OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES?
International relations
It is an academic discipline that studies foreign affairs , as well as issues of the international system in matters of politics, economics, jurisprudence and diplomacy. It studies the role of the State, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and multinational companies.
Other disciplines that are also related to the social sciences are the following:
- Administration
- Accounting
- Communication
- Right
- Education
- Finance
- Psychiatry
- International relations
- Translationology
- Town planning
- Architecture
- Librarianship
- Criminology
- Didactics
- Philology
- Journalism
- Public relations
- Advertising
- Graphic design
- Industrial design
- Social work WHAT ARE THE BRANCHES OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES?
