Page 8 - DLIS407_INFORMATION AND LITERATURE SURVEY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Unit 1: Introduction to Social Science Disciplines

Notes
Social work is unique in that it seeks to simultaneously navigate across and
within micro and macro systems -in order to sufficiently address and resolve
social issues at every level. Social work incorporates and utilizes all of the social
sciences as a means to improve the human condition.

Following are the main branches of social sciences that deal with the modern problems of the modern
world of 21st century.
y Economics: Economics is a social science that seeks to analyze and describe the production,
distribution, and consumption of wealth. The classic brief definition of economics, set out by
Robins in 1932, is “the science which studies human behaviour as a relation between scarce
means having alternative uses.” Without scarcity and alternative uses, there is no economic
problem.
y Education: Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something
less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge positive judgment and well-
developed wisdom. Education has as one of its fundamental aspects the imparting of culture
from generation to generation. It draws on many disciplines such as psychology, philosophy,
computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, sociology and anthropology.
y Geography: Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main sub fields: human
geography and physical geography. The former focusses largely on the built environment and
how space is created, viewed and managed by humans as well as the influence humans have
on the space they occupy. The latter examines the natural environment and how the climate,
vegetation and life, soil, water and land form are produced and interact. As a result of the
two subfields using different approaches a third field has emerged, which is environmental
geography.
y History: History is the continuous, systematic narrative and research of past events as relating
to the human species; as well as the study of all events in time, in relation to humanity. History
can be seen as the sum total of many things taken together and the spectrum of events occurring
in action following in order leading from the past to the present and into the future. The
historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary
sources and other evidence to research and then to write history.
y Law: Law in common place, means a rule, which (unlike a rule of ethics) is capable of
enforcement through institutions. Law is not always enforceable, especially in the international
relations context. It has been defined as a “system of rules”, as an “interpretive concept” to
achieve justice, as an “authority” to mediate people’s interests, and even as “the command
of a sovereign, backed by the threat of a sanction”. However one likes to think of law, it is a
completely central social institution. Legal policy incorporates the practical manifestation of
thinking from almost every social sciences and humanity.
y Linguistics: Linguistics investigates the cognitive and social aspects of human language. The
field is divided into areas that focus on aspects of the linguistic signal, such as syntax (the
study of the rules that govern the structure of sentences), semantics (the study of meaning),
phonetics (the study of speech sounds) and phonology (the study of the abstract sound system
of a particular language); however, work in areas like evolutionary linguistics evolutionary
linguistics (the study of the origins and evolution of language) and psycholinguistics (the
study of psychological factors in human language) cut across these divisions.
y Psychology: Psychology is academic and applied field involving the study of behaviour and
mental processes. Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various
spheres of human activity, including problems of individuals’ daily lives and the treatment
of mental illness.

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