Social Sciences  (300)

Business Administration
Business administration is the process of organizing people and resources efficiently as to achieve desired goals and objectives.  Typical administrative functions include planning, organizing, coordinating, staffing, commanding, controlling, budgeting.

Criminology
Criminology is the study of criminal behavior in the individual and in society.  It involves behavioral science, sociology of deviancy, psychology, social anthropology and the writings of law.

Economics
Economics studies the production, distribution and consumption of good and services.  Microeconomics aims to explain how individual markets and agents interact (buyers & sellers, consumers & firms).  Macroeconomics aims to explain how issues affect an entire economy (unemployment, inflation, economic growth, monetary and fiscal policy).  ‘Positive Economics’ describes “what is” whereas “Normative Economics” advocates “what ought to be” (judgment about economic fairness).

Education
Education is the teaching of knowledge, skills and values.  Teachers instruct on many subjects including reading, writing, mathematics, science, history and the humanities.

Geography
Geography has been called the ‘bridge between the human and the physical science’.  Geography is divided into two main branches:  human geography and physical geography.  It is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants and phenomena of Earth.

Government
Government consists of administrative bureaucracy who controls a city, county, district, state or country.  Their function is to enforce laws, legislate new laws and arbitrate conflicts.  There are several types of governments including: authoritarian, constitutional monarchy, constitutional republic, democracy, dictatorship, monarchy, oligarchy, plutocracy (ruled by the wealthy), theocracy (ruled by a religious elite) and totalitarian (total control of public and private life).

International Relations
International relations is the study of relationships between countries and the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and multinational corporations (MNCs).  It is often considered a branch of political science.

Political Science
Political science is the study of the state, government and politics.  It intersects with other fields including anthropology, public policy, national politics, economics, international relations, comparative politics, psychology, sociology, history, law and political theory.  Political science is commonly categorized into three groups: 1) political philosophy (reasoning for a normative government), 2) comparative politics and 3) international relations.

Sociology
Sociology is the study of society and social activity.  Its traditional scope of study includes social class (upper, middle, lower), social mobility (enabled by economic, cultural, human, social, physical capital), religion, secularization, law and deviance. 

The central debate within social sciences is over the primacy of ‘agency’ or ‘structure’.  ‘Agency’ refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices.  ‘Structure’ refers to the role of the collective (‘patterned social arrangements’) under the limits of choices and opportunities available.  The ‘Agency-Structure’ debate is also known as “nature versus nurture” (ie, ‘the natural versus the social’).

Social Theory (Cultural Theory)
Social theory focuses mainly on commentary and critique of modern society rather than explanation.  Understanding cultural meaning is an interpretive affair.  It involves sympathetic resonance, sharing, talking – all dialogical.  It gets inside the ‘black box’ – the interior meaning.  Its goals can be intensively political.  Ideally it attempts to ask: "What does it mean?" (internal-view). 

Prominent social theorists include Jürgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, Erving Goffman, Michel Foucault, Dorothy Smith, Alfred Schutz, Jeffrey Alexander, and Jacques Derrida.

Sociological Theory
Sociological theory attempts to understand the society in a detached fashion (often using the scientific method): birthrates, modes of production, types of architecture, suicide rates, amount of money in circulation, the demographics, population spread, types of technology, etc.  No messy ‘black boxes’.  It does not presume to judge society.  Ideally it attempts to ask: "What is it doing" (external-view).

Prominent sociological theorists include Talcott Parsons, Robert K. Merton, Randall Collins, James Samuel Coleman, Peter Blau, Immanuel Wallerstein, George Homans, Harrison White, Theda Skocpol, Gerhard Lenski, Pierre van den Berghe and Jonathan H. Turner.

Social (Cultural) Theory vs. Sociological Theory - The Hopi Rain Dance

Investigating the Hopi Rain Dance illustrates the different approaches of the two ‘camps’.

The Cultural researchers explore the meaning of the Rain Dance.  What does it mean for the native people who engage in the Dance? Why do they value it? The interpretive investigator becomes the 'participant observer' and begins to understand that the Rain Dance is largely a way to celebrate the sacredness of nature, and a way to ask that sacredness to bless the Earth with rain.   

The Sociological researchers look at the function of the Dance and the overall behavior of the social system.  They are not so much interested in what the natives say what the meaning is.  They conclude that the Dance is actually functioning as a way to create social cohesion in the social action system - the Dance provides social integration. 

Both approaches have they validity.  The Cultural researchers seek to understand what the Dance means, its interior meaning and value, which can only be understood by standing within the culture.  The Sociological researchers seek to understand what the Dance does, its overall function in the observable behavior of the social system, which can only be determined by standing outside the system in a detached and impartial fashion.