Discipline and Ideas in

Social Sciences

Defining and Distinguishing

Social Sciences:
Disciplines and Fields
Quarter 1, Module 1
 DEFINING AND DISTINGUISHING SOCIAL SCIENCES:
DISCIPLINES AND FIELDS

This module aims to assist the learners to connect the

disciplines with their historical and social foundations

Learning Objectives:

1. Define Social Sciences as the study of Society.

2. Distinguish Social and Natural Sciences and Humanities.
3. Analyze the various Social Science disciplines and their
fields, main areas of inquiry, and methods.

.
In doing this module, the
following are some reminders:

1. Take the pretest before

answering the module.
2. Read the instructions carefully
before doing each task.
3. Answer all the exercises.
4. Take the posttest.
5. Use a separate sheet in
answering all the activities.

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A. Directions: Write True if the statement is correct and False if not.
1. Social science can be used to study and understand
society.
2. Socialization affects the overall cultural practices of
a society, but it does not shape one’s self-image.
3. Most social scientists believe heredity is the most
important factor influencing human development.
4. Social sciences perspective can be used to address
issue or problem.
5. Society refers to a group of people who share a cul-
ture and a territory.

B. Identify if the word related to social science or natural science.

Biology History Economics Anthropology
Psychology Physics Chemistry Political Sci
Astronomy Zoology

SOCIAL SCIENCES NATURAL SCIENCES

1. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.
4. 4.
5. 5.

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Introduce yourself and by completing this sentence.

“Hello, my name is .The object that best

represent me is a because____________________
.

Example:

“Hello, my name is GERONIMO T. SAMPILO. The object that best

represent me is a POCKET WI-FI because I CAN GIVE AND
SHARE THE KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION THAT THE US-
ERS WANT TO KNOW.”

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ETYMOLOGY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
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.
Define Social Sciences as the study of
Society.

SOCIAL SCIENCES - are all academic disciplines which deal with the
man in their social context. - A science which deals with human
behavior in its social and cultural aspects.
Ang AGHAM PANLIPUNAN, ay ang pag-aaral sa pangyayari sa ating
paligid at ang Agham ay nakatuon sa mga natural na phenomena.
Ang Ekonomiks ay isang Agham sapagkat ito ay gumagamit ng
siyentipikong pamamaraan sa pagsagot sa mga pangyayari sa
paligid .
Distinguish Social and Natural Sciences and
Humanities.

The Social Sciences are statistical — that is, they are addressed by
surveys of large populations, as well as by empirical evidence. For
example, anthropology compares social groups in so-called
primitive economic conditions with social groups in more advanced
economic conditions. It also includes Archaeology, Psychology,
Politics, Economics and History. Though most observations of
Social Science can be verified, some observations are matters
of opinion — subject to a cultural bias of the scientist.

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The Natural Sciences are empirical that is, they are addressed by
using our five senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Their
facts can be verified “empirically,” that is, with the five
senses. Everybody can verify them.

The Humanities are neither empirical nor statistical. This includes

Ethics — the study of Right and Wrong (Good and Evil). It includes
Aesthetics — the study of the Beautiful. It includes Poetry,
Rhetoric, Drama, the Fine Arts and the Performing Arts. There is
no objective way to verify the data. The only methods of judgment
that we enjoy in the Humanities are intuition, feeling, opinion,
debate .

Pinag-aaralan sa agham panlipunan ang mga aspeto ng tao at ng

sangkatauhan sa mundo. Pinagtutuunan ng pansin sa pag-aaral
na ito ang ginagawa ng tao para sa pangkalahatan.

Pinag-aaralan naman sa humanidades ang tungkol sa tao at ang

pagiging tao. Pinagtutuunan ng pansin sa pag-aaral ng ito ang
ginagawa at sinasabi ng tao na naayon sa kanyang kagustuhan

Pinagaaralan sa agham pangkalikasan ang diskripsyon,

prediksyon, pagkakaintindi sa mga likas na pinomena sa
pamamagitan ng pagsusuri, obserbasyon at mga nakalap na
ibedensya.

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Compare and contrast the various Social
Science disciplines and their fields, main
areas of inquiry, and methods

Anthropology is the study of humankind.

BRANCHES Physical or Biological, Cultural, and Archaeology

Methods: Ethnography, Participant Observation, Interview, Focused

group discussion, life history method, ocular inspection.

Economics seeks to understand people’s activities concerning

production, distribution and consumption of goods and services
The two fields of Economics are Microeconomics and
Macroeconomics.
Macroeconomics -the part of economics concerned with large-
scale or general economic factors, such as interest rates and
national productivity.
ay isang sangay ng ekonomiyang humaharap sa galaw o
pagsasakatuparan, kayarian o istruktura, at asal o ugali ng isang
pambansa o rehiyonal na ekonomiya o kabuhayan bilang isang
kabuuan
Examples: Markets. Markets such as supply and demand in a labor
market,Market Failure,Competition,Price
Stability,Goods,Productivity.
Efficiency.

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Microeconomics– the part of economics concerned with single
factors and the effects of individual decisions.
Mikroekonomiya- ay isang sangay ng ekonomiya na nag-aaral
sa pag-uugali ng mga indibidwal at mga kumpanya sa paggawa ng
mga desisyon tungkol sa paglalaan ng mga mapagkukunan at ang
mga pakikipag-ugnayan sa mga indibidwal at kumpanya.
Examples: Demand. How demand for goods is influenced by
income, preferences, prices and other factors such as
expectations.Supply,Prices,Elasticity,Opportunity Cost,Labor
Economics,Competition, and Competitive Advantage.

Geography- is the study of the features of the earth and the location
of living things on the planet. It is divided into two main branches-
the Physical Geography and Human Geography.

Physical geography looks at the natural processes of the Earth,

such as climate and plate tectonics.
Human geography looks at the impact and behaviour of people
and how they relate to the physical world.

History—is the past as it is described in written documents, and the

study thereof. Events occurring before written records are
considered prehistory.

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SOURCES OF HISTORY
Primary Source & Secondary Source
What is a Primary Source?
Primary sources include documents or artifacts created by a
witness to or participant in an event. They can be firsthand
testimony or evidence created during the time period that you are
studying.
Primary sources may include diaries, letters, interviews, oral
histories, photographs, newspaper articles, government documents,
poems, novels, plays, and music. The collection and analysis of
primary sources is central to historical research.

Note about primary sources: While there are many digital primary
resources available, it is very important to remember that the
majority of primary sources have not yet been digitized.

EXAMPLES:
Some examples of primary source formats include:

• archives and manuscript material

• photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, films
• journals, letters and diaries
• speeches
• scrapbooks
• published books, newspapers and magazine clippings published at
the time
• government publications
• oral histories
• records of organizations
• autobiographies and memoirs
• printed ephemera
• artifacts, e.g. clothing, costumes, furniture

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Secondary sources analyze a scholarly question and often use
primary sources as evidence.
Secondary sources include books and articles about a
topic. They may include lists of sources, i.e. bibliographies, that
may lead you to other primary or secondary sources.
Databases help you identify articles in scholarly journals or books
on a particular topic.
HERODOTUS—The father of history

EXAMPLES:
• Bibliographies
• Biographical works
• Reference books, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and
atlases
• Articles from magazines, journals, and newspapers after the
event
• Literature reviews and review articles (e.g., movie reviews,
book reviews)
• History books and other popular or scholarly books
• Works of criticism and interpretation
• Commentaries and treatises
• Textbooks
• Indexes and abstracts

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 ORIGINS

Anthropology traces its roots to ancient Greek historical and

philosophical writings about human nature and the organization of
human society. Anthropologists generally regard Herodotus, a Greek
historian who lived in the 400s bc, as the first thinker to write widely
on concepts that would later become central to anthropology. In the
book History, Herodotus described the cultures of various peoples of
the Persian Empire, which the Greeks conquered during the first half
of the 400s bc. He referred to Greece as the dominant culture of the
West and Persia as the dominant culture of the East. This type of
division, between white people of European descent and other
peoples, established the mode that most anthropological writing
would later adopt.

Anthropology, “the science of humanity,” which studies human

beings in aspects ranging from the biology and
evolutionary history of Homo sapiens to the features of society
and culture that decisively distinguish humans from other animal
species. Because of the diverse subject matter it encompasses,
anthropology has become, especially since the middle of the 20th
century, a collection of more specialized fields.

ECONOMICS

Origin of the term “economics” Two Greek roots of the word

economics are oikos-meaning household and nomus- meaning
system ofmanagement. Oikonomia or oikonomus
means“management of household.” With the growth of the Greek
society until itsdevelopment into city-states, the word became known
as“state management.” The term, “management of household”
pertains tothe microeconomic branch of economics while
“statemanagement” refers to the macroeconomic branch
ofeconomics.

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GEOGRAPHY

Its separate identity was first formulated and named some 2,000
years ago by the Greeks, whose geo and graphein were combined
to mean “earth writing” or “earth description.” However, what is
now understood as geography was elaborated before then, in the
Arab world and elsewhere. Ptolemy, author of one of the
discipline’s first books, Guide to Geography (2nd century CE),
defined geography as “a representation in pictures of the whole
known world together with the phenomena which are contained
therein.”

Geography was first systematically studied by the ancient Greeks,

who also developed a philosophy of geography; Thales of
Miletus, Herodotus , Eratosthenes , Aristotle , Strabo ,
and Ptolemy made major contributions to geography. The Roman
contribution to geography was in the exploration and mapping of
previously unknown lands. Greek geographic learning was
maintained and enhanced by the Arabs during the Middle Ages.
Arab geographers, among whom Idrisi , Ibn Battutah, and Ibn
Khaldun are prominent, traveled extensively for the purpose of
increasing their knowledge of the world. The journeys of
Marco Polo in the latter part of the Middle Ages began the revival
of geographic interest outside the Muslim world.

With the Renaissance in Europe came the desire to explore

unknown parts of the world that led to the voyages
of exploration and to the great discoveries. However, it was
mercantile interest rather than a genuine search for knowledge that
spurred these endeavors. The 16th and 17th cent. reintroduced
sound theoretical geography in the form of textbooks
(the Geographia generalis of Bernhardus Varenius ) and maps
(Gerardus Mercator 's world map). In the 18th cent. geography
began to achieve recognition as a discipline and was taught for the
first time at the university level.

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HISTORY

The term history entered the English language in 1390, with the
meaning of "relation of incidents, story" via the Old
French historie, from Latin historia, "narrative, account." This itself
was derived from the Ancient Greek ἱστορία, historía, meaning "a
learning or knowing by inquiry, history, record, narrative," from the
verb ἱστορεῖν, historeîn, "to inquire."

This, in turn, was derived from ἵστωρ, hístōr ("wise man," "witness,"
or "judge"). Early attestations of ἵστωρ are from the Homeric
Hymns, Heraclitus, the Athenian ephebes' oath, and from Boiotic
inscriptions (in a legal sense, either "judge" or "witness," or similar).
The spirant is problematic, and not present in cognate
Greek eídomai ("to appear").

ἵστωρ is ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European language *wid-tor-

, from the root *weid- ("to know, to see"), also present in the English
word wit, the Latin words vision and video, the Sanskrit
word veda the Welsh word gwynn, and the Slavic word videti, as
well as others. 'ἱστορία, historía, is an Ionic derivation of the word,
which with Ionic science and philosophy were spread first in
Classical Greece and ultimately over all of Hellenism.

In Middle English, the meaning was "story" in general. The

restriction to the meaning "record of past events" in the sense
of Herodotus arises in the late fifteenth century (interestingly, in
German, this distinction was never made, and the modern German
word "Geschichte" means both history and story). A sense of
"systematic account" without a reference to time in particular was
current in the sixteenth century, but is now obsolete.

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A. Directions:: Answer the following problems in the separate
sheets provided.

1.If you are an anthropologist, what specific Filipino tradition will

you be interested into?

2. List down 10 things which you can’t live without. Explain briefly
why.

3. Search the internet/ gather information by any means for a

significant event that happened during the day of your birth.

4. Complete the sentence prompts.

History is the study of ________. Among the fields of History, I am
interested at _______ History because I’m fascinated with
_______________. An example of primary sources that I will deal
with _____________ History are ________________. An example
of secondary source that I will deal with _____________ History
are ________________.

B. Directions: Compare and contrast: Compare and contrast

Social Science, natural Science, and Humanities using Venn
diagram.

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SOCIAL SCIENCES - A science which deals with human behavior
in its social and cultural aspects.

Social Sciences are statistical; Though most observations of Social

Science can be verified, some observations are matters of opinion.

Natural Sciences are empirical ;Everybody can verify them.

Humanities are neither empirical nor statistical ; Judgments are

based on intuition, feeling, opinion, and debate .
Anthropology is the study of humankind.

The two fields of Economics are Microeconomics and

Macroeconomics.
Geography- is the study of the features of the earth and the location
of living things on the planet.
History—is the past as it is described in written documents, and the
study thereof.
HERODOTUS—The father of history

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Directions: Write the letter of the correct answer.

1. Economics: Social Science while Physics:

A.Humanities C.Soft Science
B. Natural Science D. Science and Technology

2. Jared was asked to compare the physical appearance of man in

the present with man existed some million years ago. What is the
discipline involve?
A.Economics C. Social Science
B.Anthropology D. Sociology

3. A discipline which includes everything about humans, from their

biological and evolutionary past, to ways of life and traditions that
they uphold.
A.Economics C. Social Science
B.Anthropology D. Sociology

4. Looking back at the past is the focus of:

A.History C. Anthropology
B. Economics D. Geography

5.He is known as the father of Modern Economics

A.Karl Marx C. Adam Smith
B.Auguste Comte D. Thomas Malthus

6.In Geography, the following are the distinct fields of this discipline,
except
A. Physical Geography C.HumanGeography
B.Artificial Geography D. Geomatics
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7. A discipline which allows man to understand themselves and
make sense of the world. It came from the Greek word that
means “knowledge acquired by investigation”
A.Anthropology C. Geography
B.History D. Sociology

8.The study of the ways in which the human experience is

processed and documented; the fields of philosophy, literature,
religion, art, music, history and language
A.Humanities C. Social Science
B.Natural Science D. Social Studies

9. The study of the past as it is described in written documents.

A.Anthropology C. Geography
B.History D. Sociology

10. Considered within the-eastern tradition to be the 'father of

history'.
A.HERODOTOS C.HERODOTUS
B.HIROHIRO SATO D.HEROMI OTSUKA
11-15
In your own words, differentiate social sciences, natural sciences,
and humanities. (Do not copy and paste the lessons from this
module)

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file:///C:/Users/eking/Downloads/3.%20Disciplines%20and%20Ideas%20in%
20the%20Social%20DLP.pdf
https://www.clopified.com/download/disciplines-and-ideas-in-applied-social-
sciences-cg-humss/
https://drive.google.com/file/
d/0B8xBbYUc2V91YkRtYlNnc1pKeUJUS3k0NmVWSmMyNTVwajhB/edit
https://drive.google.com/file/
d/0B8xBbYUc2V91YkRtYlNnc1pKeUJUS3k0NmVWSmMyNTVwajhB/edit

https://guides.lib.uw.edu/c.php?g=344285&p=2580599
https://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/arts/language/lit-terms/

PREPARED BY:

JEREMIAH C. MONTEMAYOR
TEACHER II
DAGUPAN CITY NATIONAL HIGH-
SCHOOL

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