3. Aims of the module
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• To introduce students to the core concepts and theories shared by the main social
science disciplines in order to prepare them for undergraduate studies at the University
of Sheffield.
• To build students’ knowledge and understanding of the research process, recognising
key research strategies and interpreting the results of social research.
• To introduce students to social knowledge, demonstrating the role and relevance of
theoretical and empirical knowledge.
• To develop students’ academic skills to synthesise, analyse and critically evaluate
information.
4. Structure and assessments
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• How is the mark decided in Semester 1? What are the assessments?
• Coming assessments (all mandatory):
– Independent quiz at the end of week 2 0%
– Formative assessment (quiz) at the end of week 3 0% (RPAG)
– Independent quiz at the end of week 6 0%
– Mock exam at the end of week 10 0%
– Summative exam at the end of week 12 50%
5. Structure and expectations
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• What are you expected to do in class?
• At home: 7.5 hours of independent study, including
preparation and reading:
– Why is it important to read?
– And particularly in English?
– What does taking notes mean?
– Should you read every word? How to time it?
– What if you have questions?
6. What is social science?
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Image Source: Freepik
7. What is social science?
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• From the class preparation material for this week, you learned that Social Science is
comprised of several disciplines or specialised areas of study of human behaviour.
– Examples of these disciplines are: Sociology, Psychology, Politics, Geography, Economics.
• That is, social scientists are concerned with how and why human beings behave the
way they do, individually but, particularly, collectively—what we call social behaviour.
• But we are not the only ones who study human behaviour: there are other
disciplines, often grouped as Humanities (e.g., History, Literature, Linguistics) that
are also interested in the study of people.
• So, if it is not the subject, what makes social science different from other fields?
• The short answer to this question is the method or how we study human social
behaviour.
8. The ‘social’ in Social Science
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• ‘Social’ refers to a group of people that interact with each other,
often (although not always) in a cooperative way—or to achieve
common goals. In other words, it refers to ‘society’.
• But in any human society there are also conflictive interactions,
such as crime and wars.
• Moreover, society is organised in a way that makes it difficult, and
sometimes even impossible, for people to cooperate and achieve
the desired common goals. The result is undesirable social
outcomes, such as poverty or pollution.
Social
Related to human
interaction –human
social behaviour
9. The ‘science’ in Social Science
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• In this module, we consider ‘science’ to mean an attempt to
investigate something in a systematic way.
• By systematic we mean:
– following a system, method, or a series of previously defined steps
to study or to do something.
– Suggesting patterns and regularities that may explain behaviour
beyond the specific case being studied.
• As you will discover later in the module, there is a multitude of
methods followed by social scientists to study human social
behaviour.
Science
Systematic study of
something (i.e., with
a method) & find
regularities
11. What is Social Science good for?
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Through research, social scientists aim to:
• Contribute to creation of knowledge (facts, truth);
• Understand the ways we behave and make decisions, interact, and respond to change;
• Discover the causes and effects of social problems;
• Suggest rules or regularities in human behaviour;
• Offer solutions to social problems.
Social scientists are also often dealing with:
• Ethical concerns and debates (what is right or wrong);
• Theoretical ideas, concepts and frameworks to arrive at a conclusion or answer a question.1
1. In particular, this is necessary when we ask normative questions about the social world i.e. questions about how things should be, not just about how things are. More on this later in the semester!
12. What is Social Science good for?
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Social science can help explain how our own society works, for example:
• The causes of unemployment
• What fosters economic growth
• How and why people vote
• What makes people happy
• Offer solutions to social problems
• We can also make comparisons between societies to identify and explain similarities and/or
differences between different phenomena.
13. Origins of Social Science
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• The origin of social science is in the natural sciences –
physics, chemistry, biology.
• The Scientific Revolution (1550 – 1700) produced great,
secular advances in our knowledge and understanding of
the natural world, for example:
– Heliocentrism;
– Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation.
• In the 19th century, scholars interested in society saw how
successful science was at investigating problems and
extending knowledge and wanted similar results.
• Ideas were often borrowed directly from natural science, in
the belief that nature and society both obey universal laws
or rules.
• This set in motion what can be called ‘science of society’. Image source: OpenALG
15. Social Science disciplines:
Development, Human geography, Environmental planning
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• Development studies is a multidisciplinary branch
of the social sciences which addresses a range of
social and economic issues related to developing
or low-income countries.
• Human geography studies the world, its people,
communities and cultures, and differs from physical
geography (the study of space) mainly in that it
focuses on human activities and their impact in
space - for instance on environmental change.
• Environmental planning explores the decision-
making processes for managing relationships
within and between human systems and natural
systems, in order to manage these processes in an
effective, transparent and equitable manner. Image source: eDynamicLearning
16. Social Science disciplines:
Economics, Management and Business studies
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• Economics seeks to understand how individuals
interact within their social structure and addresses key
questions about the production and exchange of
goods and services.
• Management and Business studies explore a wide
range of issues relating to the activities and
management of business, such as strategic and
operational management, organisational change,
employment relations, marketing, accounting, finance
and logistics.
Image source: Freepik: OurTeam
17. Social Science disciplines:
Education studies, Anthropology and Sociology
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• Education studies are focused on educational issues and
debates and relate them to practice. The key aim is to
develop an understanding of how people develop and
learn throughout their lives.
• Anthropology is the comparative study of the ways in
which people live in different social and cultural settings
across the globe. It also explores human evolutionary
history i.e. how people behave and adapt (and have
behaved and adapted) to different environments.
• Sociology is the scientific study of human life, social
groups, whole societies and the human world as such.
Sociologists investigate the structure of groups,
organizations, and societies, and how people interact
within these contexts. Image source: History.com
18. Social Science disciplines:
Psychology, Politics and Law
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• Psychology studies the human mind and the ways in
which people and groups experience the world through
various emotions, feelings and ideas. It involves the
study of conscious and unconscious phenomena.
• Politics is the broad, universal, and essential study of
how governments, policies and institutions work. It
focuses on the theory and practice of government and
politics at the local, state, national, and international
levels.
• Law is the set of binding rules that regulate human
behaviour and are enforced by governmental
institutions. Law studies is a discipline that explores
those rules, as well as customs and practices
associated with them.
Image source: Freepik
19. Summary
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• Social science is the study of human behaviour, society and its key elements. The ‘social’ refers
to human interaction while the ‘science’ refers to investigating something in a systematic way,
and trying to identify patterns and regularities that can explain and sometimes predict behaviour.
• One goal of social science is to contribute to the solutions of undesirable situations or problems
in society (such as poverty, unemployment, pollution, crime). However, social scientists also
engage in theoretical debates that concern ethical questions (what is right and wrong) and
normative questions (how things should be).
• Social Science is comprised by several disciplines or specialised areas of study of human
behaviour. These include human geography, business and management studies, sociology,
psychology, politics and many more.
