BAS 102: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL SCIENCE

INTRODUCTION
Higher Education in Social Science
Social science is an academic discipline or field of study that is taught at various levels of education and
researched at university level. In the beginning, there was only one discipline, i.e. Philosophy. Philosophy
simply means love for wisdom or knowledge. This explains why the highest Degree in any subject is
Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy).

Higher education in SOCIAL SCIENCE will encourage you to question things; to take everyday
knowledge and look at things in a new light; and to discover who we are and how we get on with other
people.

Thus, studying at university should make you:

• See the world through fresh and different eyes;
• Experience the excitement of learning;
• Open up new vistas to explore;
• Experience the challenge of new ideas; and
• Begin to develop a critical stance about events.

You have been admitted to pursue a social science course. There are three courses in the universities:
i) Arts and Humanities
Arts are those courses that deal with human creative skills and imaginations. They may include painting,
sculpture, music, theater and dance.

The Humanities are courses that have to do with “disciplines of memory and imagination”. Those courses
that tell us where we have been and helping us envision where we are going.
The courses here include:
• Literature, Languages and Writing
• History
• Music
• Religious Studies
• Philosophy
• Performing Arts
• Visual and studio arts
• Media and Communications studies
• Archaeology

ii) STM/Natural Sciences

These comprise Science, Technology and Mathematics courses. They provide an answer to much more
fundamental questions about what makes the world around us and what is our impact on it.

These courses enable us to have knowledge in astronomy, physics, chemistry, and the Earth sciences
among others

iii) Social Science (s)

These are courses that deal with knowledge about the social world. Here we study human beings, their
culture and the relationship between human beings and their society and/or environment.

Human beings have distinct identity in the sense that every human being has a very strong sense of
him/herself as separate, even fixed, individuals. This explains why different people react differently in
similar situations.

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The uniqueness of every human being is as a result of differences in personality. Personality simply refers
to the uniqueness of individuals with respect to how they feel, react and behave. Human beings acquire
personality through socialization. Socialization in this context means the process of learning in a way that
is acceptable to society. We have got two types of socialization: primary and secondary.

While primary socialization is that provided at the family level, what a child learns from parents, siblings
and relatives, secondary socialization are values a child learns from the church and school

Thus, in social science, we question what happens around us and then try to explore to get answers
through the cycle of inquiry.

Figure 1.1: Cycle of inquiry

RELATABILITY
This refers to “the quality of being easy to understand or feel sympathy for”, that is, logical
connection to others. Given that all human beings feel, react and behave differently, it means
human beings also have different relatability.

It is through relatability that human beings are able to interact freely among themselves. Thus,
human beings connect better and effectively with others when they understand others’ life
experiences.

Different people have undergone different life experiences that inform their behavior, feelings
and reactions. Therefore, the way we connect/relate with others is influenced by various factors:

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Factors Influencing Relatability
1. Culture
The meaning is highly contested.

Simply defined, Culture is the memory and control device of society. Everything about our
society is passed from one generation to another: the values, beliefs, arts, what is right and what
is wrong among others. Sometimes another person’s set of cultural norms/standards can conflict
with our own thus putting us into conflict with them. Our experiences in life will impact on how
we relate to ourselves and to others.

The way we are accepted, loved and treated while growing up, will influence our behavior
towards ourselves and to others

Ask yourself? What have you been told about other cultures? What has that which you were told
influenced the way you perceive and relate with people from those cultures?

2. Tribalism
Tribalism refers to the behaviour and attitudes that arise from strong loyalty to one's own tribe or
social group. It is a situation where people are grouped into tribes and made to see themselves
different from others. Some people reject others simply because of tribe

If your neighbor in the urban centre is from another tribe, how do you guys relate with them.
What were you told about that tribe that makes you reject/hate them?

It is not uncommon for us to view other tribes as superior and others as inferior. This affects the
way we connect with them. We always like to generalize an individual simply because of a set of
experiences that we have had with someone else of similar tribe.

3. Language
Language refers to the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of
the use of words in a structured and conventional way. The way we use our language will either
build up or tear us down

Language is not only about what we say, it is much more. It has three parts:

a) Words- this makes up to 8% of our communications

b) Tonality-How we say what we say make up to 34% of our communications
c) Physiology-how we convey and conduct ourselves make up to the rest of the percentage. Our
physiology paints a picture of who we are to others

4. Hierarchies
Hierarchy refers to a system in which members of an organization or society are ranked
according to relative status or authority.

How do we relate to people we perceive as superior to us: Parents, lecturers, that rich fellow in
your community? How do we relate to people we perceive as inferior to us: Less education,
younger in age?

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Depending on our hierarchies, we may put ourselves down or up. Down, when we are in
connection with those we perceive superior to us. Up, when in connection with those we perceive
as inferior to us. In situations where a person puts themselves down, they may not be in a
position to open up.

In this case Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR)-the state of severing one’s prejudices and
interacting with others without letting our experiences cloud our judgement) comes handy.

Our physiology should paint a picture of us being kind and caring, otherwise, we won’t
understand others

5. Prejudice
Prejudice refers to biased opinions. These may be as a result of our experiences at some point in
the past, culture, tribal norms, social norms, what we know is right or wrong.

When you say an action is right/wrong, we need to ask, according to whose standard? Our
parents or guardians have imparted onto us in terms of how life should and shouldn’t be most
effectively lived. Some of us never got parents who would do this, and therefore were imparted
by others who may not have meant well. As human beings, all that we were imparted with while
growing up underpin our every decision.

How do you know that what you think is right is right, or what you think is wrong is wrong? It is
because the orientation you got indicated them to be so, but what if what you were imparted as
right is actually wrong and what you were imparted as wrong is actually right?

Here, we are not talking about law but rules/morals. There is a difference between laws and rules

6. Racism
Refers to prejudice or discrimination directed against a person or people on the basis of their
membership of a particular racial or ethnic group.

How do you relate with or perceive Arabs, Indians, Somalis, the whites? How do you relate with
or perceive people from different religious beliefs? How do you know your religion or church is
right?

What these questions provoke is the need for us to look more deeper within ourselves and
become aware of our own prejudices. This will make us better relate with others with reference
to UPR

7. Orientation
A major challenge arises when we meet individuals with totally different life orientation that we
never imagined. Imagine sleeping in the same room with a person snoring when you have never
witnessed the same? What about a drunk who vomits in the house, or a gay person?

If one had never encountered such, it will be very difficult to relate with such people.

In Africa, gayism is not accepted. This explains why same sex marriage is illegal in Kenya. This
is not the case in USA and Europe where it is something normal

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8. Stereotypes
Stereotype refers to the over-generalized belief about a particular category of people. May be as a
result of the impact of our different cultures. If a group of people are negatively stereotyped,
relating with them becomes a challenge. The reverse is true.

Iceberg Concept of Culture

According to Edward Hall, the visible aspects of culture are only the ‘tip of the iceberg’. He
argues that much of what drives our culture lies unseen, below the surface and very unconscious!

Some elements of culture we can see. For instance: food people eat, the clothes they wear and
ritualistic behaviour. Other elements of culture aren’t quite so obvious. They can’t be seen by the
human eye. For instance: religious beliefs, expectations and social preferences. These remain
underwater.

Culture influences virtually every aspect of our lives – both consciously and unconsciously.
Thus, if we want to understand people, we must also recognize and embrace the vast range of
interpersonal differences that derive from the cultures we develop in as individuals.

It is therefore, important to explore and acknowledge how culture has influenced and governed
our own preferences and behaviors.

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Frame of Reference
This has to do with viewing the world through the lens of our own beliefs and our own values.

If two people are rejected by the same person, will they react similarly? We react differently to
same stimuli because different people give different meanings to things.

We need not as scientists, interpret what others are telling us, through our frame of reference but
through theirs. Putting down our own beliefs, thoughts and opinions allows us to start building a
picture of others’ frame of reference and begin understanding why they act and behave in the
way that they do.

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Factors Influencing Frames of Reference
a) Hurts
As humans we have been hurt in our life by people. Some still carry the hurts to date. These hurts
have informed our perception of ourselves, others and the world

b) History
All of us have different life stories. These stories have impacted on who we are today

c) Relationships
Each of us relate differently with our parents, siblings or relatives, girl/boyfriends. These have
influenced our thinking and beliefs

d) Culture
Our cultures have influenced our thinking and beliefs. Some of the beliefs in our cultures which
we have accepted as ‘normal’ may not be ‘normal’ in other cultures.

e) Upbringing
We were brought up differently. Our upbringing influenced the person we have become today.
As we grew up, we related differently with our parents and siblings and they taught us different
things about ourselves, others and life

f) Beliefs and Rules

Each of us has beliefs and rules that we currently subscribe to. Some of these beliefs and rules
are negative and therefore, holding us back from moving forward in life.

g) Standards
As human beings, we also have different standards that we currently live our life by. These
standards have been learnt through our culture, upbringing and interactions with others. The
standards are not static, they keep on changing depending on what we learn from our relatability
with others.

How People See and Interpret Life

Human beings are meaning making machines. We thus see things in three ways:

a) Seeing with the Eyes (Physical Sight)

This is the narrow minded and naïve way of seeing life. This seeing by physical sight is
unconsidered observation. People react without getting the details. It is the worst way of
interpreting things

b) Seeing through the rational (Academia)

Here truth is limited to personal experience and understanding. Emphasis put on results of past or
current research. Anything not based on evidence-based practice is dismissed

c) Seeing with the heart (empathic relatability)

This is the best way of seeing and interpreting life if we are to understand human behavior. Here,
we look forward into understanding the presented facts, understand the unseen facts and to
consider new levels of truths and ideas. In other words, this type of seeing perceives and accepts
things without biases