The 10 branches of Social Sciences

The main interest of the social sciences is to study human social behavior. More specifically, the social sciences study subjectivity and its relation to the structural aspects of society. The above is divided into many specialties that are responsible for analyzing and describing the specificity of different social processes as well as their impact on individuals.

Next we explain what are social sciences and the characteristics of its branches.

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What are the social sciences?

The social sciences are a set of academic disciplines that study human aspects related to individual behavior and the functions and elements of social organization.

Unlike the formal sciences, such as mathematics, logic, or physics; the social sciences study living systems. At the same time, differ from natural sciences (which also study living systems), while the social sciences study these systems from the complexity of behavior and its effects in social terms.

They have, on the other hand, more relationship with the human sciences (the humanities), because both that study a large part of subjectivity and the community, nevertheless, They are different in that the social sciences emphasize the use of scientific methods, while the humanities use more artistic and aesthetic.

In terms of science, “the social” formally appeared until the 19th century, when its disciplines were consolidated as research fields with their own and differentiated objects of study. Initially, the term "social science" was used to group studies on culture and society, with which the anthropology and the sociology They were two of the pioneers.

However, its antecedents can be traced back even centuries, in the curiosity that we have to understand what we makes human beings, the nature of our behaviors, the relationship with the environment, how we do not organize socially, and so on.

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Top 10 Branches of Social Sciences

The social sciences can be divided into different disciplines, which varies according to the intention of the person who defines and uses them. For example, according to the specific social science tradition, one of these disciplines may be considered a social science, or a human science, or even a natural science.

Likewise, and according to the needs of each context, there may be more or less disciplines within the social sciences. This is the case, for example, of the limits that exist between some sub-disciplines within medicine (such as social medicine), sociobiology, neuropsychology or philosophy itself.

However, very broadly we can divide the social sciences into 10 fundamental disciplines: anthropology, sociology, geography, history, law, political science, economics, communication, pedagogy and psychology.

1. Anthropology

Anthropology is the discipline that studies the social behavior of human beings in relation to their physical characteristics and the cultural elements in which they are inscribed. This implies the forms and norms that culture takes in different societies, both past and present.

It is a holistic discipline because it integrates different knowledge from various branches of the social sciences and natural sciences. It can be subdivided into different branches, such as physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, or archeology.

2. Sociology

Sociology is in charge of studying human social relations and their institutions. This implies that its objects of study are very diverse. They can go, for example, from religion to family, through social class divisions or racial divisions and the organization of states, among many others. It seeks to understand both social stability and the processes of change and transformation.

At the individual level, sociology allows us to understand the consequences of social phenomena in people (eg gender identities, religious faith, family institutions). And globally, sociology can help us to understand phenomena such as migration, population growth, wars, economic development, among others.

3. Geography

Geography is the social science that is responsible for studying the different environments and spaces that make up the earth's surface, as well as the interactions that occur between and within them. It is responsible for describing the main characteristics of the places where our life develops, especially paying attention to natural environments and how we relate to them.

As a result of this discipline, maps have emerged, for example, which among other things allow us to understand where they are and how are the places where we develop from graphic descriptions of the Earth.

4. History

History is the discipline that is responsible for studying, describe and represent the events of the past, generally recorded in written documents, although not necessarily. While "the past" is a fairly broad category, history can be divided in many ways.

This division begins with defining at what moment has passed from prehistory to history. From this, the different periods that have characterized different societies can be studied. There is, for example, medieval, modern or contemporary history; but also history of religion, art history, universal history, among many others.

5. Right

Law as a specialty within the social sciences is responsible for studying the set of institutions, their systems of rules and authority related to legality. On many occasions, law is separated from the social sciences and is understood as a school of its own, however, this area of ​​study is based on the idea that laws and legality are themselves social institutions, and that is why it is often considered a branch of science Social.

In this sense, the right draws on human sciences such as philosophy, but also on politics, economics, sociology or history. The intention is to understand and generate institutional normative orders that impact human behavior and social relations.

6. Politic science

Political science is the discipline that studies, describes, and analyzes political theories and practices, systems, and behaviors. Seeks to understand transfers of power in political decision processes and how these transfers are organized publicly and socially.

In addition to political theory, some sub-disciplines that make up this social science are the theories of democracy and governance, the study of national systems, public and administrative policy, international law, among other

At a methodological levelPolitical science performs, for example, analysis of primary sources such as written historical documents or interviews; and secondary sources such as scientific articles, among other empirical collection methods.

7. Economy

As much as one tends to associate the social sciences with studies that dispense with numbers, this is still a mirage. Clear proof of this is the existence of economics as a scientific discipline.

The economy studies, analyzes and describes the processes of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. It seeks to understand what are the means that we have generated to satisfy our needs and how that impacts us both individually and socially. While economic activity is very diverse, economics as a social science can be subdivided into different areas. For instance there are studies in public economics, labor economics, international economics, development economics, among many others.

The economy has several levels of analysis, and if we look at the scale of the processes it investigates, we can distinguish between macroeconomics and microeconomics. The first focuses on global economic dynamics, while the second focuses on the behavior and decision-making of individual entities, be they individuals or organizations.

8. Communication

This discipline studies and describes the human processes related to the creation and the exchange of symbols that help us to communicate. Specifically, it studies how the messages we elaborate can be interpreted through different political, cultural or economic dimensions in each context.

Among other things, it analyzes how messages are developed and transmitted through the mass media, although it can also be through the arts, technology, among other areas. Therefore, progress in communication studies has implications in areas such as health management of false rumors or hate campaigns, regulation of propaganda, etc.

9. Pedagogy

Pedagogy is a discipline that studies the teaching-learning processes that occur in different environments, especially within schools, as they are the institutions where education is developed and transmit. Education has positioned itself as one of the fundamental aspects in culture because it allows the socialization and transmission of knowledge from one generation to another.

In this sense, pedagogy is the science that studies educational processes and also applies them, through different tools that it shares for example with psychology, sociology, communication, among others.

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10. Psychology

Psychology is the discipline that studies human or animal behavior and mental processes. It differs from other social sciences, such as anthropology, in that it seeks to develop generalized explanations about mental functions and individual or group behaviors, and not so much about cultural processes or historical.

However, it is closely related to other human and social disciplines, since to develop explanations on individual functioning, it has been necessary to take into account how we develop in relation to others. Thus, different branches have emerged, some of the main ones are clinical psychology, social psychology, educational psychology, organizational psychology or neuropsychology.

On the other hand, psychology collaborates extensively with almost all the rest of the social sciences, even those that study the social behavior of animals, such as the ethology.