Understanding Social Science

What Social Science studies, its four core disciplines, the kinds of sources historians use, and the methods and tools social scientists work with.

Key ideas

• Social Science studies human society: how people live together, use resources, govern themselves and change over time.
• Geography asks where and why places differ, History how societies changed, Political Science how power and government work, and Economics how limited resources are used.
• One event can be studied by all four: a drought touches crops and climate, incomes, government relief and migration.
• Historians use literary, archaeological, epigraphic (inscriptions) and numismatic (coins) sources, and genealogical records of families.
• Social scientists gather evidence by observation, interviews, surveys and studying documents, so that others can check their conclusions.
• Geographers work with maps, atlases, globes, GIS and infographics; historians also date the past with carbon-14 dating and archaeology.
• Sustainable growth meets today’s needs without harming the ability of future generations to meet theirs.

Remember

Watch out

• Mixing up epigraphy (inscriptions) and numismatics (coins).
• Calling a survey an interview: a survey asks many people the same set of questions.
• Treating an opinion as evidence: a social scientist’s claims must rest on facts others can check.

Worked example