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The Social Sciences

Why Should I Care?

Each lesson is organized along a template with the following sections. This helps both instructors and students have a clear understanding of what's presented. Each lesson starts with a statement of why they should care about the topic. Hopefully, this helps students and instructors focus on the most relevant and engaging aspects, of the material.

This lesson has 2 parts

  • Disciplines of social science
  • Why are social sciences useful?

What are the Social Sciences?

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  • Part 1

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  • Part 2

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  • Part 3

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What are the Social sciences?

Social sciences is the study of

  • Psychology: how people feel and behave individually
  • Sociology: how people act and think as groups
  • Political Science: how people govern themselves
  • History: how people acted in the past
  • Geography: how people act and think over space
  • Economics: how people produce goods and services
  • Anthropology: how people exist as cultures and societies

Why are social sciences useful?

The goal of science is to build knowledge which helps to understand the world, but also to help solve real-life problems.

Without a scientific approach to answering questions about why and how humans do things, we are left with casual research, journalism, religious beliefs and superstition. The problems with these are that we are often led to believe falsehoods. This leads to poor understanding of how the world works, and poor problem-solving skills.

Science must lead to truthful answers, and hopefully also to useful applications. Same goes for social science.

References and Further Reading

APA style references