Q1-DISS (GRADE-11)

Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences

INTRODUCTION

The meaning and nature of Social Science Discipline, Natural Science and Humanities

Social Science is a generic term covering the scientific study of man. It is a discipline or branch of
science that deals with the socio-cultural aspects of human behavior. The social sciences generally
include cultural anthropology, economics, political science, sociology, criminology, and social psychology.

Natural science is a branch of science concerned with the description, prediction, and
understanding of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and
experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatability of findings are used to try to ensure
the validity of scientific advances.

Humanities, those branches of knowledge that concern themselves with human beings and their
culture or with analytic and critical methods of inquiry derived from an appreciation of human values and
of the unique ability of the human spirit to express itself.

This learning material will provide you with knowledge about the meaning and nature of Social
Science disciplines with the natural sciences and humanities. After going through this module, you are
expected to differentiate the meaning and nature of Social Science disciplines with the natural sciences
and humanities.

TARGET OBJECTIVES

At the end of this module, you will be able to:

1. Differentiate the meaning and nature of Social Science disciplines with the natural sciences and
humanities

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LET’S TRY!

Activity 1

Using the given box below, give your ideas about Social Science disciplines along with
the natural sciences and humanities. Social Science Natural Science Humanities

SOCIAL SCIENCE NATURAL SCIENCE HUMANITIES

After listing down your ideas, write a brief discussion about it.

1. Social Science disciplines

2. Natural Sciences
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

3. Humanities
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______________________________________________________________

A. Social Science

What are the seven social sciences?

The following are the seven social sciences:

Anthropology, Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Sociology and Psychology

Definition of Terms:

Social Science

Social Science is defined as any scholastic discipline or scientific field that investigates human
society. According to James High, “Social Sciences are those bodies of learning and study which
recognizes the simultaneous and mutual action of physical and no-physical stimuli which produce social
relation”. According to Charles Beard “Social Sciences are a body of knowledge and thought pertaining to
human affairs as distinguished from sticks, stones, stars and physical objects”. Bining & Bining defines
Social Science as “the subject that relate to the origin, organization, and development of human society,
especially to man in his association with other men”.

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Social Studies:

Social Studies are a field of study which deals with man, his relation with other men and his
environment; its content is drawn from several social sciences. It is a course of study including
anthropology, history, geography, economics, political science, sociology, law, civics, etc. According to
Michaelis, “the Social Studies are concerned with man and his interaction with his social and physical
environment; they deal with human relationships; the central function of the social studies is identical with
the central purpose of education – the development of democratic citizenship”.

National Council for the Social Studies defined Social Studies as “the integrated study of the social
sciences and humanities to promote civic competence".

Nature of Social Science: The real nature of this discipline can be well understood by analyzing the
above definitions.

1. A unique combination of various disciplines.

2. A study of human relationships.

3. A study of man’s development through ages.

4. A realistic course of study.

5. It forms an important part of the core-curriculum.

6. It includes commitment to action.

7. Aims at preparing the learner for wholesome social living.

Scope of Social Studies:

` The scope of Social Studies is very vast and wide as wide as the world itself and as lengthy as
the history of man. According to Michaelis “the breadth of social studies program should provide for a
variety of experiences Both helps to understand the various aspects of the society and Both emphases
on inculcating good qualities like truthfulness, sincerity, etc. of human being.  Both are related to society
and have same aims and objectives.  Social Science and Social Studies are not only related generically.
They also share common body of content. so that the child’s learning will be well rounded and well
balanced”.

Similarities between Social studies and Social Sciences:

 Both helps to understand the various aspects of the society and

Difference between Social Studies and Social Science:

1.The focus and emphasis of both are different. When a student studies geography as a social
science, he has to focus his attention on the methods of geography, tools and concepts, etc. While
studying geography as a social studies, he should focus attention on using ideas and concepts from

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geography, to understand man, how his efforts to control his environment have led to a better life, how
various geographical factors influence his life, etc

2. Social Sciences represent an adult approach, while the social studies represent a child-
approach: Social sciences are to be taught at the high school and college level. Social Studies are
simplified portions of social sciences to be taught at primary level.

3. Social sciences are the theory part of human affairs; social studies are the practice part of
human affairs: Social sciences are large bodies of organized and authentic knowledge representing
human affairs. While social studies give an insight into various aspects of man and society.

4. The social sciences are far larger than the social studies: The purpose of the social sciences is to
find out new truth about human relationships; the purpose of the social studies is to guide adolescents in
their learning of selected portions of what has been discovered in social sciences.

5. In social sciences, social utility is the primary object; in social studies instructional utility is the primary
object.

6. Social sciences are the part of cultural of knowledge having direct bearing on man’s activities in any
field, Social studies offers learning situation and insight into all knowledge.

Evolution of social science as a subject

History

The history of the social sciences has origin in the common stock of Western philosophy and
shares various precursors, but began most intentionally in the early 19th century with the positivist
philosophy of science. Since the mid-20th century, the term "social science" has come to refer more
generally, not just to sociology, but to all those disciplines which analyze society and culture; from
anthropology to linguistics to media studies. The idea that society may be studied in a standardized and
objective manner, with scholarly rules and methodology, is comparatively recent. While there is evidence
of early sociology in medieval Islam, and while philosophers such as Confucius had long since theorized
on topics such as social roles, the scientific analysis of "Man" is peculiar to the intellectual break away
from the Age of Enlightenment and toward the discourses of Modernity. A social science came forth from
the moral philosophy of the time and was influenced by the Age of Revolutions, such as the Industrial
revolution and the French revolution. The beginnings of the social sciences in the 18th century are
reflected in the grand encyclopedia of Diderot, with articles from Rousseau and other pioneers.

As a subject

Social science can be described as all of the following:

Branch of science – systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable
explanations and predictions about the universe.

Major category of academic disciplines – an academic discipline is focused study in one academic
field or profession. A discipline incorporates expertise, people, projects, communities, challenges, studies,
inquiry, and research areas that are strongly associated with academic areas of study or areas of
professional practice. For example, the branches of science are commonly referred to as the scientific
disciplines. For instance, gravitation is strongly associated with the discipline of physics, and is
considered to be part of that disciplinary knowledge.

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 B. Natural Science

A system of the sciences of nature, or natural sciences, taken interrelatedly and as a whole.
Natural science is one of the three fundamental fields of scientific knowledge of nature, society, and
thought. It is the theoretical basis of industrial and agricultural technology and medicine, as well as
the natural scientific foundation of philosophical materialism and the dialectical understanding of
nature.

Subject and goals

The subject of natural science consists of the various forms of the motion of matter in nature: their
material bearers (substratum), forming a scale of successive levels in the structural organization of
matter; their interrelationships, inner structure, and genesis; the basic forms of all existence—space
and time; and the regular link between natural phenomena both general (embracing a number of
forms of motion) and specific (relating only to individual aspects of various forms of motion, their
substratum and structure). “The subject of natural science is matter in motion…. The knowledge of
different forms of motion … is the chief subject of natural science” (F. Engels; see K. Marx and F.
Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 33, pp. 67–68).

Nature, which is the subject of natural science, is viewed not abstractly, outside of man’s activity,
but concretely, under the influence of man, since cognition of nature is achieved as a result not only
of the theoretical but also of the practical productive activities of individuals. Natural science, as a
reflection of nature in human consciousness, is perfected during the process of its active
transformation in the interests of society.

The goals of natural science are twofold: (1) to discover the essence of natural phenomena and their
laws and, on this basis, to foresee or to create new phenomena; and (2) to reveal the potential for utilizing
in practice the known laws, forces, and substances of nature. It may be said that the cognition of truth
(that is, of the laws of nature) is the direct or most immediate goal of natural science and that facilitating
the practical use of such laws is the ultimate goal of natural science. Thus, the goals of natural science
coincide with the goals of human activity itself. “The laws of the external world, of nature … are the basis
for man’s purposive activity” (V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 29, p. 169).

Methods. In natural science it is possible to distinguish three aspects: the empirical, the theoretical, and
the applied. These aspects correspond to the general course of the cognition of truth, which proceeds
“from lively perception to abstract thought and from this to practice” (V. I. Lenin, ibid., pp. 152–53). The
empirical aspect of natural science includes the functions of collection (establishing, registering, and
accumulating facts) and of description (summarizing and preliminarily systematizing the facts). The
functions of the theoretical aspect consist of explanation, generalization, discovery (creating new theories,
proposing new hypotheses and concepts, accumulating new laws), and prediction (prognostication);
these functions are the reason that the theories of natural science are referred to as “compasses” in
scientific research.

C. Humanities

Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the
Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main
area of secular study in universities at the time. Today, the humanities are more frequently contrasted
with natural, and sometimes social sciences, as well as professional training. The humanities use
methods that are primarily critical, or speculative, and have a significant historical element—as
distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences, yet, unlike the sciences, it

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 has no central discipline. The humanities include the study of ancient and modern languages,
literature, philosophy, history, archaeology, anthropology, huma n geography, law, politics, religion,
and art.

Scholars in the humanities are "humanity scholars" or humanists. The term "humanist" also describes
the philosophical position of humanism, which some "antihumanist" scholars in the humanities reject. The
Renaissance scholars and artists were also called humanists. Some secondary schools offer humanities
classes usually consisting of literature, global studies and art. Human disciplines like history, folkloristics,
and cultural anthropology study subject matters that the manipulative experimental method does not
apply to and instead mainly use the comparative method and comparative research.

Origin of the term

the word "humanities" is derived from the renaissance latin expression studia humanitatis, or
"study of humanitas" (a classical latin word meaning—in addition to "humanity"—"culture, refinement,
education" and, specifically, an "education befitting a cultivated man"). in its usage in the early 15th
century, the studia humanitatis was a course of studies that consisted of grammar, poetry, rhetoric,
history, and moral philosophy, primarily derived from the study of latin and greek classics. The word
humanitas also gave rise to the renaissance italian neologism umanisti, whence "humanist", "renaissance
humanism".

History

In the West, the history of the humanities, also the title of the journal History of the Humanities,
can be traced to ancient Greece, as the basis of a broad education for citizens. During Roman times, the
concept of the seven liberal arts evolved, involving grammar, rhetoric and logic (the trivium),alongwith
arithmetic, geo metry, astronomy and music (the quadrivium). These subjects formed the bulk of medieval
education, with the emphasis being on the humanities as skills or "ways of doing". A major shift occurred
with the Renaissance humanism of the fifteenth century, when the humanities began to be regarded as
subjects to study rather than practice, with a corresponding shift away from traditional fields into areas
such as literature and history. In the 20th century, this view was in turn challenged by the postmodernist
movement, which sought to redefine the humanities in more egalitarian terms suitable for a democratic
society since the Greek and Roman societies in which the humanities originated were not at all
democratic.

Fields of Humanities:

Anthropology - is the holistic "science of humans", a science of the totality of human existence.

Archaeology - is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture.

History - is systematically collected information about the past. When used as the name of a field of
study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of humans, societies, institutions, and
any topic that has changed over time.

Law and politics In common parlance, law means a rule that (unlike a rule of ethics) is enforceable
through institutions. The study of law crosses the boundaries between the social sciences and
humanities, depending on one's view of research into its objectives and effects.

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Literature - is a term that does not have a universally accepted definition, but which has variably included
all written work; writing that possesses literary merit; and language that foregrounds literariness, as
opposed to ordinary language.

Philosophy - etymologically, the "love of wisdom"—is generally the study of problems concerning
matters such as existence, knowledge, justification, truth, justice, right and wrong, beauty, validity, mind,
and language.

Religion - Humans are inherently religious. Rituals are used to bound the community together.

Performing arts The performing arts differ from the visual arts in so far as the former uses the artist's
own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal, or paint,
which can be molded or transformed to create some art object.

Musicology Musicology as an academic discipline can take a number of different paths, including
historical musicology, music literature, and ethnomusicology and music theory.

Theatre Theatre (or theater) (Greek "theatron", θέατρον) is the branch of the performing arts concerned
with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance,
sound and spectacle — indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts. In addition to the
standard narrative dialogue style, theatre takes such forms as opera, ballet, mime, kabuki, classical
Indian dance, Chinese opera, mummers' plays, and pantomime.

Dance Dance (from Old French dancier, perhaps from Frankish) generally refers to human movement
either used as a form of expression or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting.

Visual arts The great traditions in art have a foundation in the art of one of the ancient civilizations, such
as Ancient Japan, Greece and Rome, China, India, Greater Nepal, Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica

Media types:

Drawing - is a means of making a picture, using any of a wide variety of tools and techniques.

Painting – as taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a carrier (or medium) and a
binding agent (a glue) to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas or a wall.

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 ASSESSMENT

Directions: As learners, differentiate the nature of social science discipline with

10 points Rubrics

 Introduction --------------------------------- 3 points

 15 points

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