Empirical-Critical Approaches in the Social Sciences

Marxism

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that analyzes class relations and societal conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and a dialectical view of social transformation. It originates from the mid-to-late 19th century works of German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.According to Marxism, economic issues are dominant in any society and it has been responsible for all major changes in history. Capitalism will eventually be replaced by a socialist system and a classless society in which there is no exploitation or private property. The state will then provide work and everything one needs to live. The previously exploited masses or proletariat will take the lead in this new society.

Marx describes the social classes in capitalist societies:

• Proletariat: "the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live". As Andrei Platonov expressed "The working class is my home country and my future is linked with the proletariat." The capitalist mode of production establishes the conditions enabling the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat because the workers' labour generates a surplus value greater than the workers' wages.
• Bourgeoisie: those who "own the means of production" and buy labour power from the proletariat, thus exploiting the proletariat; they subdivide as bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie.
• Landlords: a historically important social class whose members retain some wealth and power.
• Peasantry and farmers: a scattered class incapable of organizing and effecting socio-economic change, most of whom would enter the proletariat while some became landlords.

Communism

The ideology, based on Marxism, in which communal ownership of means of production is promoted.In a communist society, there must be no private ownership and no class structure. Each member of the community must work according to his or her abilities for the good of the whole community and they should be rewarded according to their needs. Communism must be brought about by revolution and violence, and is associated with a totalitarian Communist Party who takes total control of economic, social and political aspects.

"Karl Marx"

Feminist Theory

Feminist theory is a major branch of theory within sociology that is distinctive for how its creators shift their analytic lens, assumptions, and topical focus away from the male viewpoint and experience. In doing so, feminist theory shines light on social problems, trends, and issues that are otherwise overlooked or misidentified by the historically dominant male perspective within social theory. Key areas of focus within feminist theory include discrimination and exclusion on the basis of sex and gender, objectification, structural and economic inequality, power and oppression, and gender roles and stereotypes, among others.

Feminist theory focuses on analyzing gender inequality. 

Themes explored in feminism include: 

• Discrimination
• Objectification (especially sexual objectification)
• Oppression
• Patriarchy
• Stereotyping
• Art history
• Contemporary art
• Aesthetics

Historical-Hermeneutic Approaches in the Social Science

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis began with a young physician's search for the treatment of his patients with emotional problems. That young doctor was Sigmund Freud, and his theory was known as psychoanalytic theory. Freud theorized three levels of consciousness (conscious, pre-conscious and the unconscious mind)

• Conscious mind - is merely the tip visible above the surface, whereas the bulk of the important workings of the mind lurks mysteriously beneath the surface. 
• Pre-conscious mind - consist of memories that are not presently conscious but can easily be brought into consciousness. 
• Unconscious mind - stores primitive instinctual motives plus memories and emotions that are so threatening to the conscious mind that they have been unconsciously pushed into the unconscious mind through the process of repression. 

and three components of the personality structure (the id, ego, and the superego). The best known aspect of Freud's theory was his view that the mind is composed of the id, ego and superego. 

• The id is composed primarily of two sets of instincts, the life instincts and death instincts. 
• The ego operates according to the reality principle, this means that it holds the id in check until a safe and realistic way has been found to satisfy its motives. 
• The superego is the ethical component of the personality and provides the moral standards by which the ego operates. The superego's criticisms, prohibitions, and inhibitions form a person's conscience, and its positive aspirations and ideals represent one's idealized self-image, or “ego ideal.”

"Sigmund Freud"

Phenomonology

Phenomenology is the study of subjective experience. It is an approach to psychological subject matter that has its roots in the philosophical work of Edmund Husserl.

Hermeneutic Phenomenology is a particular type of phenomenology among a range of phenomenological methodologies, usually classified into  two camps, namely the descriptive phenomenology and the interpretive phenomenology. 

Descriptive phenomenology was developed by Edmund Husserl and interpretive or hermeneutic phenomenology by Martin Heidegger. Hermeneutic/ interpretive/ existential phenomenology is used to interpret the meaning of lived experiences and communicate the interpretation textually or symbolically. Transcendental/descriptive phenomenology is based on discovering the objective universal essences of lived experiences and communicating them through pure description. 

Descriptive and interpretive methodologies share four common features. 

• Description of phenomena is the aim of phenomenology. 
• Reduction is a process that involves suspending or bracketing the phenomena so that the 'things themselves' can be returned to. 
• Essence is the core meaning of an individuals experience that makes it what it is. 
• Intentionality refers to consciousness since individuals are always conscious to something. 

Between descriptive and hermeneutic phenomenology, hermeneutic phenomenology is more complex. As a methodology, descriptive and hermeneutic phenomenologies also vary significantly. In descriptive phenomenology one has the technique of 'bracketing off' influence around a phenomenon to get to essences. In hermeneutic phenomenology one has approaches that recommend to the researcher to interpret the meanings found in relation to phenomena.  

"Reflexivity "is a person's reflection upon or examination of a situation or experience. Reflexivity describe the process in which their questions, methods, and subject position might impact on the data or the psychological knowledge produced in a study. Reflexivity is often mentioned in hermeneutic phenomenology. The influence of descriptive and hermeneutic phenomenology is visible within the field of qualitative investigate methods. However, Hermeneutic  or interpretive phenomenology is more prominent being listed as one of various qualitative methodologies of the social science. It is also applied to many sorts of qualitative studies in the human science.   

"Edmund Husserl"

Empirical-Analytical Approaches in the Social Sciences (Interdisciplinary)

Human-environment system approach

The HES approach conceptualizes a mutualism between human and environmental systems. The human and the environmental system are conceived as two different systems that exist in essential dependencies and reciprocal endorsement. The term human systems, meaning social systems  ranging from society to individuals, has been used since the time of the ancient Greeks. These systems are supposed to have a memory, language, foresight, consciousness etc. In contrast to the concept of human or social systems, the term environmental systems arose late in the early 19th century, even though Hippocrates had  already dealt with environmental impacts on human health in  early medicine in 420 BC.

In the history of  environmental sciences at large, the  relationship between  human (H) and environmental (E) systems was dealt with  from different perspectives. The HE impact chain was initially examined from the human perspective. In the early 18th century, forest engineers investigated how legal or economic restrictions  affect the texture of forests agricultural,  forest. Resource economics evolved in the early 18th century and focused on the question of how  agricultural and forest yields can  be  sustainably or  most efficiently obtained (Goodwin, 1977). From  the environmental  research perspective, the H  impact chain has quite a different focus, namely how human activities affect the environment or environmental equilibrium and how these impacts can be mitigated.

The HES approach presented below separates human and environmental systems and studies their mutualism. Note that the concept of environment emerged in the early 19th century, a time when the upcoming industrial age unmistakably revealed the interaction and mutual dependency between these two  systems. Mutual dependency, reciprocity, and the H impact chains can be approached from the environmental as well as from the human perspective. The former looks at optimizing environmental quality by integrating human models into ecosystem analysis. The latter investigates the impact of regulatory mechanisms on the state of the environment when taking an anthropogenic perspective.

Six basic principles, which begins from six basic assumptions from the modeling of  HES

1. Conceive human and environmental systems as two different, complementary, interrelated systems with human action and “immediate environmental reaction” being part of both systems. 
2. Consider a hierarchy of human systems with related environmental systems. 
3. Construct a ‘state of the art’ model of the environmental system and its long-term dynamics.
4. Provide a decision theoretic conceptualization of the human system with the components goal formation, strategy formation, strategy selection and action.
5. Characterize and conceptualize different types of environmental awareness in each component of 4. 
6. Distinguish and model primary and secondary feedback loops with respect to human action. 

Empirical-Analytical Approaches in the Social Sciences (Macrolevel)

Structural Functionalism

Structural functionalism is "a framework for building a theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability". Such parts of the whole system may vary in terms of functions but they are all related to each other. lnterdependent as they are, they all have one goal and that is to maintain or keep the whole system, at least in its present form. lt follows therefore that the working of one part would have effects on the other parts.

Structural functionalism was developed by Talcott Parsons in the 1930s under the influence of the works of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. lt emphasizes social structure, "any relatively stable pattern of social behavior'' and social functions, "the consequences of any social pattern for the operation of society as a whole". Examples of social structure are the family, government, religion;education, and economy. Social structure shapes our lives in various contexts such as the family, the workplace, classroom, and community; and all social structure functions to keep society going, at least in its present form.

Robert Merton (1910-2003) expanded the concept of social function by arguing that any social structure may have many functions. He distinguished between manifest functions, "the recognized and intended consequences of any social pattern" and latent functions, the unrecognized and unirrtended consequences of any social pattern." Merton recognized that the effects or outcomes of social structure are not all necessarily good and not necessarily good for everyone. He coined the term "social dysfunction."

"Robert Merton"

A social dysfunction is "any social pattern that may disrupt the operation of society"

The structural-functional approach built on the following premises:

1. Within every social structure or system--politics, family, organizations--each member of the system has a specific function.
2. Those functions can be small or substantial, are dynamic in nature (i.e., they can change), and work toward the same purpose: to keep the system operational within its environment.
3. Change is evident within any society or system; however for the system to survive, it must adapt to that change in order to maintain its equilibrium.

To maintain the equilibrium of the system, Parsons identified four imperatives for societies to survive, which he called the AGIL model, the acronym stands for the first letter of each of these four imperatives. These are:

• Adaptation: acquiring and mobilizing sufficient resources so that the system can survive.
• Goal Attainment: setting and implementing goals
• Integration: maintaining solidarity or coordination among the subunits of the system
• Latency: creating, preserving, and transmitting the system's distinctive culture and values.

Institutionalism

The institutional approach can be understood as a subject matter, as a method, and as a theory. As a subject matter, the study of political institutions is central to the identity of the discipline of political science. 

To Quote Rhodes, "If there is any subject matter at all that political scientist can claim exclusively for their own, a subject matter that does not require acquisition of the analytical tools of sister fields and that sustains their claim to autonomous existence, it is, of course, formal-legal political structure". 

Public administration, a sub-discipline within political science, has the study of institutions as its key characteristics. William Robson, describes the dominant approach in public administration as institutional. As a method, the traditional or classic institutional approach is "descriptive, inductive, formal-legal, and historical-comparative". As a theory, the  traditional or classic institutional approach does not only make statements about the causes and consequences of political institutions. 

• Roy Macridis, a comparativist in political science, critiques the approach's subject matter and method while focusing on the study of comparative government. The historical methods and legal analysis of the classic institutional approach are inadequate. 
• David Easton, the most influential critic of the traditional study of politics, found the classic institutional approach wanting on two grounds.

• First, the analysis of law and institutions could not explain policy or power because it did not cover all the relevant variables. Second, 'hyperfactualism', or reverence for the fact, meant that the political scientist suffered from 'theoretical malnutrition', neglecting 'the general framework within which these facts could acquire meaning. 

• Other critics noted that the approach was concerned with the institutions of government, and yet operated with a restricted understanding of its subject matter.

By the 1980s,   the traditional or classic institutional approach has declined in its importance in political science. In contrast to the traditional or classic institutional approach, now referred to as the "old institutionalism", new institutionalism has a much broader, yet sophisticated definition of its subject matter.

Empirical-Analytical Approaches in the Social Sciences (Microlevel)

Rational Choice Theory (RCT)

Rational choice theory (RCT) is a powerful tool in making sense of why people act or behave in the way they do. Nonetheless, it is not a comprehensive theory that can fully account for one's behavior or action. According to Elster 1989 (in Ward2002,65), "(t)he essence of rational choice theory is that 'when faced with several courses of action, people usually do what they believe is likely to have the best overall outcome." lndividuals' actions are based on their preferences, beliefs, and feasible strategies (Ward 2002).

The RCT has become a dominant approach to political science at least in the US. But while it traces its beginnings to the behavioral movement, "rational choice theory draws on the methodology of economics in contrast to behavioralists who drew on sociology or psychology" (Ward 2002, 65). Using similar methods as in standard microeconomics, it is the economists who carried out largely early work in rational choice theory.The most important tool used is the game theory. Central to the game theory is strategic interdependence, a situation where others'choice of strategy affects an individual's best.choice and vice versa (Ward 1995).

Rational choice theorists'explanations of individual actions and the outcomes they lead to are anchored on three pillars, namely:

1. strategies or courses of action open and available to them.
2. their preferences over the end-states to which combinations of actions chosen by the various players lead.
3. their beliefs about important parameters such as others' preferences.

Nonetheless,RCT has been the target of criticisms not only from political science but also from other disciplines in the social sciences. Ward grouped these criticisms into four modes, namely, 

1. the heretics' critique who wish to emphasize bounded rationality; 
2. the sociologists' critique of RCT's tendency to play down social structure and holistic modes of explanations; 
3. the psychologists'critique of RCT's main assumption that individuals often act rationally
4. critique from mainstream political science on the basis of the implausibility of the assumptions made and the predictive failures of the model.

Simon believes that individuals use standard operating procedures as a heuristic device and as a shorthand guide to rational action. For Simon, an action is procedurally rational if it is based on beliefs that are reasonable given the context the actor is in.

"Herbert Simon"

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism is a sociological framework that focuses on the different meanings individuals attach to objects, peoples, and interactions as well as the corresponding behaviors that reflect those meanings and/or interpretations. 

George Herbert Mead was an influential figure in the field of symbolic interactionism. Gestures, according to him, are important in communication. Mead's central concept is the self, "the part of an individual's personality composed of self-awareness and self-image".

"George Herbert Mead"

There are three  overarching premises that constitute symbolic interactionism: 

• The first assumes that meaning is an important element of human existence. 
• A second premise asserts that people identify and mold their unique symbolic reference through the process of socialization.  
• The third tenet of symbolic interactionism affirms that there is a cultural dimension that intertwines the symbolic "educational" development. 

Symbolic interaction has both "insider" and "outsider" critics. lnsiders' criticism focus on the method, and the central concepts of symbolic interactionism, particularly the ambiguity of major concepts used particularly the concept of the "self." These criticisms attack the utility of symbolic interactionism in the production of cumulative and generalizable knowledge. Outsiders'critique, on the other hand, highlights the astructural bias in symbolic interactionism. This bias refers to the claim that symbolic interactionism's perspective is a historical, noneconomic, and a limited view of social power and social organization.

Four of the most prominent contemporary varieties of symbolic interactionism include: 

• the Chicago School
• the Iowa school
• the dramaturgical approach'
• ethnomethodology

All these four schools of thought or orientations share the view that human beings construct their realities in a process of social interaction, and agree on the methodological implication of such, that is, the necessity of "getting inside" the reality of the actor in order to understand what is going on.

Dominant Approaches and Ideas in the Social Sciences

I. Empirical-Analytical Approaches in the Social Sciences

Microlevel Approaches in the Social Sciences

• Rational Choice Theory (RCT)
• Symbolic Interactionism

Macrolevel Approaches in the Social Sciences

• Structural-functionalism
• Institutionalism

Interdisciplinary Approach in the Social Sciences

• Human-environment system approach

II. Historical-Hermeneutic Approaches in the Social Sciences

• Psychoanalysis
• Hermeneutic-phenomonology

III. Empirical-Critical Approaches in the Social Sciences

• Marxism
• Feminist Theory

Sociology and Demography

Sociology

Sociology is the study of human social relationships and institutions. Sociology’s subject matter is diverse, ranging from crime to religion, from the family to the state, from the divisions of race and social class to the shared beliefs of a common culture, and from social stability to radical change in whole societies. Unifying the study of these diverse subjects of study is sociology’s purpose of understanding how human action and consciousness both shape and are shaped by surrounding cultural and social structures.

The range of social scientific methods has also expanded. Social researchers draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-twentieth century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and philosophic approaches towards the analysis of society. Conversely, the end of the 1990s and the beginning of 2000s have seen the rise of new analytically, mathematically and computationally rigorous techniques, such as agent-based modelling and social network analysis.

Sociologists emphasize the careful gathering and analysis of evidence about social life to develop and enrich our understanding of key social processes. The research methods sociologists use are varied. Sociologists observe the everyday life of groups, conduct large-scale surveys, interpret historical documents, analyze census data, study video-taped interactions, interview participants of groups, and conduct laboratory experiments. The research methods and theories of sociology yield powerful insights into the social processes shaping human lives and social problems and prospects in the contemporary world. 

According to Durkheim, the three branches of sociology include:

• Social morphology - refers to the geographical setting and population density of specific areas and how those aspects affect social society.
• Social physiology - refers to the religion, morals, law, economic and political aspects of society and they way in which each discipline affects human society as a whole.
• General sociology - referred to by Durkheim as the philosophical part of sociology as it works to discover social laws that come from specialized social associations.

Demography

"demos" - the people

Demography is the study of statistics such as births, deaths, income, or the incidence of disease, which illustrate the changing structure of human populations. It is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings.

Demographic analysis can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as education, nationality, religion, and ethnicity. Educational institutions usually treat demography as a field of sociology, though there are a number of independent demography departments.

Formal demography limits its object of study to the measurement of population processes, while the broader field of social demography or population studies also analyses the relationships between economic, social, cultural, and biological processes influencing a population.

Psychology

Psychology is the study of behavior and mind, embracing all aspects of conscious and unconscious experience as well as thought. It is an academic discipline and a social science which seeks to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles and researching specific cases.

Psychology is really a very new science, with most advances happening over the past 150 years or so.  However, it's origins can be traced back to ancient Greece, 400 – 500 years BC.  The emphasis was a philosophical one, with great thinkers such as Socrates influencing Plato, who in turn influenced Aristotle.

Psychology is a multifaceted discipline and includes many sub-fields of study such areas as:

• Human development
• Sports
• Health
• Clinical
• Social Behavior
• Cognitive Processes

Because psychology is a science it attempts to investigate the causes of behavior using systematic and objective procedures for observation, measurement and analysis,backed-up by theoretical interpretations, generalizations, explanations and predictions.

The classic contemporary perspectives in psychology to adopt these strategies were the behaviorists, who were renowned for their reliance on controlled laboratory experiment and rejection of any unseen or subconscious forces as causes of behavior.  And later,cognitive psychology adopted this rigorous, scientific, lab based scientific approach too.

With its broad scope, psychology investigates an enormous range of phenomena:

• learning and memory
• sensation and perception
• motivation and emotion
• thinking and language
• personality and social behavior
• intelligence
• child development
• mental illness

Furthermore, psychologists examine these topics from a variety of complementary psychological perspectives.

Each psychological perspective is underpinned by a shared set of assumptions of what people are like, what is important to study and how to study it.  Some conduct detailed biological studies of the brain, others explore how we process information; others analyze the role of evolution, and still others study the influence of culture and society.

Political Science

Political science is a social science which deals with systems of government, and the analysis of political activities, political thoughts and political behavior. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics which is commonly thought of as determining of the distribution of power and resources. Political scientists "see themselves engaged in revealing the relationships underlying political events and conditions, and from these revelations they attempt to construct general principles about the way the world of politics works."

Political science, as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: primary sources such as historical documents and official records, secondary sources such as scholarly journal articles, survey research, statistical analysis, case studies, experimental research and model building.

Approaches include:

• Positivism - a philosophical theory stating that positive knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations.
• Interpretivism - a concept and a method central to a rejection of positivistic social science.
• Rational Choice Theory - a framework for understanding and often formally modeling social and economic behavior.
• Behavioralism - seeks to examine the behavior, actions, and acts of individuals – rather than the characteristics of institutions such as legislatures, executives, and judiciaries – and groups in different social settings and explain this behavior as it relates to the political system.
• Structuralism - the methodology that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure.
• Post-Structuralism - the rejection of the self-sufficiency of the structures that structuralism posits and an interrogation of the binary oppositions that constitute those structures.
• Realism - the belief that some aspects of reality are ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, perceptions, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc.
• Institutionalism - uses institutions to find sequences of social, political, economic behavior and change across time. It is a comparative approach to the study of all aspects of human organizations and does so by relying heavily on case studies.

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and involves an analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context. Linguists traditionally analyse human language by observing an interplay between sound and meaning.

Linguists focusing on structure attempt to understand the rules regarding language use that native speakers know (not always consciously). All linguistic structures can be broken down into component parts that are combined according to (sub)conscious rules, over multiple levels of analysis. Linguistics has many sub-fields concerned with particular aspects of linguistic structure.

Sub-fields that focus on a grammatical study of language include the following:

• Phonetics - the study of the physical properties of speech sound production and perception.
• Phonology - the study of sounds as abstract elements in the speaker's mind that distinguish meaning (phonemes)
• Morphology - the study of morphemes, or the internal structures of words and how they can be modified
• Syntax - the study of how words combine to form grammatical phrases and sentences
• Semantics - the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and fixed word combinations (phraseology), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences
• Pragmatics - the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts, and the role played by context and non-linguistic knowledge in the transmission of meaning
• Discourse analysis - the analysis of language use in texts (spoken, written, or signed)
• Stylistics - the study of linguistic factors (rhetoric, diction, stress) that place a discourse in context
• Semiotics - the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication.

History

History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation") is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory.

Primary Source

In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called original source or evidence) is an artifact, a document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, a recording, or other source of information that was created at the time under study. Although many primary sources remain in private hands or first hand information, others are located in archives, libraries, museums, historical societies, and special collections. These can be public or private. Some are affiliated with universities and colleges, while others are government entities. Materials relating to one area might be spread over a large number of different institutions. History as an academic discipline is based on primary sources, as evaluated by the community of scholars, who report their findings in books, articles and papers.

Secondary Source

A secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with a primary source, which is an original source of the information being discussed; a primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document created by such a person. However, as discussed in detail in the section below on classification, how to classify a source is not always an obvious decision.Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information. Primary and secondary are relative terms, and some sources may be classified as primary or secondary, depending on how they are used.

Herodotus

"Father of History"

A Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus in the Persian Empire (modern-day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC (c. 484–c. 425 BC). He was the first historian known to have broken from Homeric tradition to treat historical subjects as a method of investigation—specifically, by collecting his materials systematically and critically, and then arranging them into a historiographic narrative. 

The Histories is the only work which he is known to have produced, a record of his "inquiry" (or historía) on the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars, including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information.

Geography

Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments.Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earth’s surface and the human societies spread across it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment, and the way that locations and places can have an impact on people. Geography seeks to understand where things are found, why they are there, and how they develop and change over time.

"geo" - earth
"graphor" - mapping/graph

Geography is divided into two main branches:

• Human geography 
• Physical geography

Human Geography

Human geography is concerned with the distribution and networks of people and cultures on Earth’s surface. Human geographers also study how people use and alter their environments. Finally, human geographers study how political, social, and economic systems are organized across geographical space. These include governments, religious organizations, and trade partnerships. The boundaries of these groups constantly change.

Physical Geography

The natural environment is the primary concern of physical geographers, although many physical geographers also look at how humans have altered natural systems. Physical geographers study Earth’s seasons, climate, atmosphere, soil, streams, landforms, and oceans. 

Eratosthenes

"Father of Geography"

A Greek Scholar that is first to use the word geography and  had a small-scale notion of the planet that led him to be able to determine the circumference of the earth.

Economics

Economics is the study of efficient allocation of scarce resources in order to satisfy the unlimited needs and wants.

Types of Resources

• Natural
• Human (labor force)
• Physical (man-made)

Production - making products & services

• What to produce?
• How much to produce?
• To whom to produce?

Factors of Production

1. Land
2. Labor
3. Capital
4. Entreprenuership

Microeconomics

Microeconomics examines the behaviour of basic elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. 

The study of microeconomics involves several "key" areas:

• Law of Demand - a microeconomic law that states, all other factors being equal, as the price of a good or service increases, consumer demand for the good or service will decrease, and vice versa.
• Law of Supply - a microeconomic law that states that, all other factors being equal, as the price of a good or service increases, the quantity of goods or services that suppliers offer will increase, and vice versa.
• Elasticity - the measurement of how responsive an economic variable is to a change in another variable. Elasticity can be quantified as the ratio of the percentage change in one variable to the percentage change in another variable, when the later variable has a causal influence on the former. It is a tool for measuring the responsiveness of a variable, or of the function that determines it, to changes in causative variables in unit-less ways.
• Equilibrium - a state where economic forces such as supply and demand are balanced and in the absence of external influences the (equilibrium) values of economic variables will not change.

Macroeconomics

Macroeconomics analyzes the entire economy (meaning aggregated production, consumption, savings, and investment) and issues affecting it, including unemployment of resources (labour, capital, and land), inflation, economic growth, and the public policies that address these issues (monetary, fiscal, and other policies).

Macroeconomists study aggregated indicators such as:

• GDP (Gross Domestic Product) - one of the primary indicators used to gauge the health of a country's economy. It is the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period. Though GDP is usually calculated on an annual basis, it can be calculated on a quarterly basis as well.
• GNP (Gross National Product) - a broad measure of a nation's total economic activity. It is an estimate of total value of all the final products and services produced in a given period by the means of production owned by a country's residents plus any income earned by residents from overseas investments minus income earned within the domestic economy by overseas residents.
• CPI (Consumer Price Index) - a measure that examines the weighted average of prices of a basket of consumer goods and services, such as transportation, food and medical care. It is calculated by taking price changes for each item in the predetermined basket of goods and averaging them. Changes in the CPI are used to assess price changes associated with the cost of living; the CPI is one of the most frequently used statistics for identifying periods of inflation or deflation.
• Inflation rate - In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. When the price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services.
• Deflation Rate - In economics, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0% (a negative inflation rate).

Economists

Some influencial economists and thier works/contribution:

1. David Ricardo - Political Economy
2. Thomas Malthus - Population to the Economy
3. Adam Smith - Theory of Price Creation

Anthropology

Anthropology is the holistic "science of man", a science of the totality of human existence. The discipline deals with the integration of different aspects of the social sciences, humanities, and human biology.The word anthropos is from the Greek for "human being" or "person." Eric Wolf described sociocultural anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the sciences." 

“The science of humanity,” which studies human beings in aspects ranging from the biology and origins. -- a science of the totality of human existence.

 The goal of anthropology is to provide a holistic account of humans and human nature.

FOUR MAIN SUBDIVISIONS (AREAS)

• Physical Anthropology 
• Theory of Evolution
• Origin of Humans
• Archaeology
• Definition and Aspects of Culture
• Race and Adaptation
• Cultural Anthropology
• Culture and Traditions of a group
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Human Communication Process

PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Biological Anthropology and Physical Anthropology are synonymous terms to describe anthropological research focused on the study of humans and non-human primates in their biological, evolutionary, and demographic dimensions. It examines the biological and social factors that have affected the evolution of humans and other primates, and that generate, maintain or change contemporary genetic and physiological variation.

ARCHAEOLOGY

Archaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains. Artifacts, faunal remains, and human altered landscapes are evidence of the cultural and material lives of past societies. Archaeologists examine these material remains in order to deduce patterns of past human behavior and cultural practices. Ethnoarchaeology is a type of archaeology that studies the practices and material remains of living human groups in order to gain a better understanding of the evidence left behind by past human groups, who are presumed to have lived in similar ways.

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of the anthropological constant.

LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY

Linguistic anthropology (also called anthropological linguistics) seeks to understand the processes of human communications, verbal and non-verbal, variation in language across time and space, the social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture. It is the branch of anthropology that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems, linking the analysis of linguistic forms and processes to the interpretation of sociocultural processes. Linguistic anthropologists often draw on related fields including sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, semiotics, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis.

Defining Social Science

Social Sciences

• Fields of scholarship that study society. 

Other definitions:

• Study of how social organization work and to identify the problem that result form the fact that they do not work perfectly (Gordon, 1991)
• It is an attempt to replicate the scientific success of the natural sciences in Social Organizations.
• Social Science is a study of how scientific attitude exercised in the natural sciences is applied in the different social organizations.

History of Social Science

The history of the social sciences begins in the roots of ancient philosophy. In ancient history, there was no difference between mathematics and study of history, poetry or politics.The term "social science" may refer either to the specific sciences of society established by thinkers such as Comte, Durkheim, Marx, and Weber, or more generally to all disciplines outside of "noble science" and arts.

Social Science Disciplines

The social science disciplines are branches of knowledge taught and researched at the college or university level. Social science disciplines are defined and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned social science societies and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong.

• Anthropology
• Economics
• Geography
• History
• Linguistics
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Sociology & Demography