What are the Social Sciences?
The social sciences are one of three divisions of science, along with natural science and formal science. Social science concerns itself with human aspects of the world, like the arts and humanities, although social science places more effort on experimentation and the scientific method. Because the methods used the social sciences are often qualitative and based more on personal interpretation, they are often referred to as the “soft sciences” in contrast to the “hard” natural and formal sciences. The social sciences include anthropology, economics, education, geography, history, law, linguistics, political science, psychology, sociology, communication studies, development studies, information science, and sociobiology. The social sciences have existed at least since Ancient Greece, where philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle studied numerous aspects of the world and passed them down via texts. To these thinkers, there was no fundamental distinction between social and natural scien
The social sciences are concerned with the development of human society, the nature of social institutions and roles, human behavior and the ideas that have shaped human life.At Saint Martin’s University, the social sciences are represented by majors in community services, criminal justice, history, political science, psychology and sociology and cultural anthropology. Minors are available in criminal justice, history, political science, international relations, psychology, sociology and cultural anthropology and women’s studies. A minor in economics is available in the business and economics division. Limited coursework in geography is also offered within the social science division.
The social sciences are those academic disciplines that are concerned principally with human behavior. Pi Gamma Mu considers the following fields to be included among the social sciences: anthropology, criminal justice, economics, geography, history, international relations, political science, psychology, and sociology. WHAT ARE THE QUALIFICATIONS FOR MEMBERSHIP? The Georgia Kappa Chapter’s qualifications are somewhat more demanding than the minimum criteria established in Pi Gamma Mu’s international constitution. At NGCSU, an undergraduate is eligible if he has completed 60 credits (at least 20 of which must have been earned in residence at NGCSU), at least 24 credits in the social sciences, and at least 12 upper-division credits in social science earned in residence. A cumulative GPA of 3.0 at all institutions, a cumulative GPA of 3.0 at NGCSU, and a GPA of 3.2 in the social sciences are minimum requirements. The student must not have obtained an “F” or “WF” in any course in the soci
Are they really sciences? (Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher struck science from the name of the government agency funding social research, now titled the Economic and Social Research Council.) Can and should the social sciences empirical, social, and political components be meaningfully separated? Is their public standing and policy advice best served by an alliance with, or independence from, the natural sciences? In their financial and public status, U.K. social scientists seem decades behind those in the United States. Will that help them avoid at least some of the vain claims their U.S. colleagues have made (such as equating arbitrary quantification with objectivity and the implementation of social programs with the development of technology)? The commissions tone is generally sober and moderate, but it does sympathize with a claim no reader will live to confirm: [T]he twenty first century will be the social sciences century. *Commission on the Social Sciences (March 2003). Great E
