what is social science essay

what is social science essay

Exploring the Role of Social Science in Understanding Human Behavior and Society

1. Introduction to Social Science

One of the most interesting findings is that these regional scholars are actually looking for contributions from the center, but the center is the region itself. The only stage where the local is not enough is the opening of their own disciplines to new world trends but, when it comes to internalizing contributions, national and regional become the most relevant objects of attention. In light of these results, the next section highlights the lack of emphasis on their workplace when labor studies and institutions of higher learning are the main focus of R&D. The third section looks at what research content is awarded the most relevance and from where. Finally, the fourth and fifth sections end the study with concluding remarks.

The R&D Policy division at OECD designed a project with LAPOP to assess the degree of importance that national and regional social scientists working in academics, think-tanks, charities, and business organizations in Latin America assign to research contributions from whoever and from wherever in the world. A questionnaire was created, revised, and implemented through LAPOP’s signature data collection in 2012. The profiles of survey respondents and the sources they actually use reflect a very active group of researchers who, in fact, rely mostly on local and regional institutions to advance and disseminate research findings. Results regarding the source of information to conduct assessments on important issues, obtain information to teach courses, learn about new method techniques and skills, and simply keep abreast of state-of-the-art research all point to a strong preference for local and regional sources, as mentioned elsewhere in stimulatingly.

2. Key Theories and Methodologies in Social Science Research

Positivist, naturalistic, and humanistic approaches are just a few of the guiding principles underlying social science research. Other rifts in the scientific method are represented by the distinctions between European and American scientific customs, qualitative and quantitative research strategies, experimental and non-experimental designs, or ethnography and case study. This indicates that there is no one fixed way to discover anything in the social sciences. However, while researchers may disagree about the one best method, subject knowledge is expected to be built on the bedrock of scholarly study.

Methodology in social science research is often more explicitly tied to theoretical perspectives than in physical science research, where empirical results tend to stand on their own. This is because of both the relatively recent development of social scientific knowledge and the methodologically varied nature of scientific inquiry across the various social science disciplines. Variation is present in the very purposes of research; while research orientations might be thought of as oriented primarily toward explanation, understanding, or prescription (some blend of these), agreement on a positivist, scientific approach to “getting the facts” is tempered by the knowledge that much knowledge of social processes involves subjective meaning and value.

3. Applications of Social Science in Real-World Contexts

Non-profit sector social scientists work for permanently staffed research think tanks such as Brookings or the Urban Institute or members of their faculties who serve as part-time consultants to non-profit organizations. Social scientists working for these organizations often serve as advocates for populations who cannot advocate for themselves and propose solutions to real-world human and societal needs. For example, child advocacy organizations promote the best interests of children and strive to ensure that they have healthy academic and successful lives. To accomplish their goals, advocates use social science to identify families in need and promote policies that aim to prevent and solve problems such as childhood illness, educational underachievement, and adolescent drug use.

Social scientists conduct research on diverse topics, and their findings are applied in virtually every sector of society. Here we discuss the diverse roles that social scientists play in government, the non-profit sector, and private industry. For example, every ten years, social scientists employed by the US Census Bureau survey every household in the United States to count the number of people and learn about their demographics. The information collected guides the distribution of federal funds. Similarly, our knowledge about crime comes from studies by criminologists conducted with the help of public safety officials at the city and state levels. Criminologists compare policies and procedures associated with low and high crime rates to determine what works and what doesn’t work.

4. Challenges and Future Directions in Social Science

Capitalism has transformed activity traditionally considered leisure into a commercial commodity, where nonmonetary exchange becomes an exception rather than a rule. To assert that democratic societies are relatively effective is not to imply that improvements cannot be made, and in the distribution of the gains from economic growth, these improvements are indeed possible. But the fact is that democracy has come to address more effectively than any other political system the range of problems to which its participants allocate their attention. A self-sustaining and paternalistic welfare state also has become a reality in countries where the great bulk of the population suffer only mild hardship.

Much has been written about the second term of the quantitative behavioral revolution, the mobilization of social science for national defense, and the increasing importance of “big data” collected at immense cost or for other purposes. These objectives have helped to marginalize some important and fascinating areas of social science characterized by a heavy reliance on qualitative data, thought, or carefully measured small-N studies. To understand the future of qualitative sociology and related disciplines, however, we must be clear about what that concept means. If it merely denotes research marked by a manifold appreciation of the qualitative aspects of life, the attack on behaviorism and its innovations need have little relevance to the study of qualitative sociology’s future.

5. Conclusion: The Importance of Social Science in Shaping Our Understanding of the World

It merits underscoring that U.S. support for social, behavioral, and economic science research historically is as critical domestically as it is internationally. As the power of science to contribute to progress and prosperity is being questioned, this is a time when the realization of the implications of emerging trends and technologies has the potential for vibrant and authentic SBE disciplines in one stable nation to create the necessary bulwarks. Our discussion of national research priorities and the roles that U.S. SBE science may play in addressing them speak broadly and generally, without attention to the domestic and global competing forces that bear upon its realization. Addressing those issues is to be both tactful and functional, in equal measure.

In this paper on the role of social science in addressing the national research priorities of the United States, we document, quantify, and reflect on the role of social, behavioral, and economic sciences in supporting task forces charged with considering these priorities. Over multiple iterations, over two-thirds of the task forces engaged recognized the part that SBE sciences had to play in their activities. Key themes emerged in both the priority topics themselves and in the essays that underpin this report, with a call to thoughtfully develop science and technology, rather than simply resort to technological solutionism, as a through line that runs from research to application to understanding to communication.