DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES

Quarter II - Week 5 Functions of Applied Social Sciences

As a HUMMS student I find this topic very near to my heart as it tackles the functions of
Applied Social Sciences. And how every function of it helps us, our society to grow. Social
justice, inclusion, and caregiving are all promoted by applied social sciences. Children and
family agencies, health care settings, such as community-based clinics and hospitals; schools;
penal facilities; settings that serve older persons, such as nursing homes; and military veterans
and active duty military personnel agencies are all places where they can be found.
Applied social sciences services are crucial to a child's complete transformation because
they are essential in removing all impediments to an individual's, group's, and community's
holistic development. Through communication and journalism, social work, and guidance and
counseling leadership, they assist society in seeing beyond the behavior manifestations by
delving beneath them, and in addressing and uprooting the core causes. All helping
circumstances should be considered multicultural, according to applied social sciences, in the
sense that people's uniqueness—such as personal history, culture, gender, socioeconomic class,
religion, language, and so on—must be recognized in the helping process.
The function of Applied Social Sciences for self-development have been discussed in this
material – counseling, social work and communication. Counseling provides individuals with the
tools to handle challenges of self-development and provides help in a variety of situations of
conflict, confusion, and crisis. Social work provides a diverse range of services, with a focus on
emancipating underprivileged people and promoting access to public goods and services that are
essential for self-development. Communication allows an individual to be more productive by
giving them the ability to listen and speak. By evaluating the message, itself, the audience or
receiver, and how the message is likely to be perceived, the individual must ensure that the
message is sent accurately. Self-development entails actively participating in one's own growth.
The ability to grasp one's audience and its complexities is at the heart of persuasion. The
communicator in this type of communication deals with people's basic attitudes, values, and
beliefs on issues, as well as how to tailor the message for the audience in order to persuade them
to adopt a particular point of view via appropriate channels such as television, radio, the Internet,
magazines, and newspapers. Persuasion frequently consists of or contains a small number of
words, with each one being extremely essential, straightforward, particular, and engaging.
Counseling and social work abilities, in addition to communication and journalism skills, assist
the capacity to empathize, listen well, and reply effectively. Persuasion energizes itself by
drawing on the expertise of the social sciences to bring audiences to desired and quick action.
Art is a kind of human creativity that incorporates an artist's perceptions and imagination
in order to transmit a selective reconstruction of reality and give it form in the present moment.
Theater and drama, which are often live and about people, as well as collaborative art forms, are
examples of art. They tell a narrative. Art and entertainment necessitate active viewing, self-
examination, audience challenge, and are aimed at the broadest possible audience. Art and
entertainment provide an intellectual challenge to the observer but do not always require it, and
they have a lot of potential for societal change. We may see life in new ways through art and
entertainment, without forcing our beliefs and perceptions on it. It allows us to broaden our
horizons, sharpen our perceptions, question conventional wisdom and standards, and propose
new ideas.
In the context of news and information, applied social science may inspire and empower
marginalized populations to use open and free media platforms to express themselves and
consume essential information. The increased susceptibility can also be handled by creating self-
protection against a variety of personal risks, such as falling victim to the internet prostitute
industry and blackmail. As a result, participatory journalism emerges, resulting in the ultimate
empowerment of all people. Participatory journalism and peer-to-peer news cascading are
becoming increasingly popular in news production, and their potential to exchange information
is likely to grow in the future. We're entering an era in which the public engages in self-
censorship and plays a larger part in remixing, commenting, and eventually filtering what's
significant.
The educational process is a globally acknowledged framework for socialization and
enculturation. Education is a continuous process of expanding one's knowledge and skills, and it
is a powerful tool for personal growth and the formation of bonds between individuals,
communities, and nations. Education, in keeping with the principles and ideas upon which
UNESCO was founded, offers hope for a better world, one in which people respect the rights of
women and men, and where mutual understanding and advances in knowledge are used to foster
human development rather than to create barriers between people.
The process through which society transforms an individual from a child to a fully
responsible adult, or from an outsider to an insider, is known as socialization. Part of this is the
educational system. The enculturation process is another process that happens concurrently with
this one. Enculturation is the process of acquiring a culture from one's surroundings (Sampa
2008). Because culture is a system for creating meaning, it has five elements: symbols, language,
values, norms, ideal-real, and worldview-ethos. Enculturation refers to the ability to comprehend
cultural symbols, language, values, and norms, as well as the ability to negotiate the thin line of
meanings known as ideal-real or worldview-ethos.
And lastly is Advocacy and Mobilization; Organizing advocacy is an important aspect of
social cohesiveness in today's world of free speech and democracy. Individuals, groups, and
communities must bring their concerns to political platforms and, where possible, develop public
solutions and policies. The essential values of applied social sciences can be used to organize
advocacy for matters of considerable concern. These principles promote the common good,
inclusivity, and a sense of belonging in the community. People are urged to stand in solidarity
with one another and, in many cases, to go above and beyond what is expected of them.