---
title: "Social science"
chunk: 6/8
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_science"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:57:27.166489+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Archaeology, a science that is focused on the study of human cultures by means of the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, features, and landscapes.
Area studies, interdisciplinary fields of research and scholarship pertaining to particular geographical, national/federal, or cultural regions.
Behavioural science, which encompasses disciplines that explore the activities of and interactions among organisms in the natural world.
Computational social science, an umbrella field encompassing computational approaches within the social sciences.
Demography, the statistical study of human populations.
Development studies, a branch of social science that addresses issues of concern to developing countries.
Environmental social science, the broad study of interrelations between humans and the natural environment.
Environmental studies, which integrates social, humanistic, and natural science perspectives on the relation between humans and the natural environment.
Gender studies, which is focused on the study of gender identity, masculinity, femininity, transgender issues, and sexuality.
Information science, an interdisciplinary science primarily concerned with the collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information.
International studies, which covers both international relations (the study of foreign affairs and global issues among states within the international system) and international education.
Legal management, a social sciences discipline that is designed for students interested in the study of state and legal elements.
Library science, a field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; and the collection, organization, preservation and dissemination of information resources.
Management, which consists of various levels of leadership and administration of an organization in all business and human organizations. It is the effective execution of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives through adequate planning, executing and controlling activities.
Marketing, the identification of human needs and wants, defines and measures their magnitude for demand and understanding the process of consumer buying behaviour to formulate products and services, pricing, promotion and distribution to satisfy these needs and wants through exchange processes and building long-term relationships.
Political economy, the study of production, buying and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government.
Public administration, the development, implementation and study of branches of government policy. Though public administration has been historically referred to as government management, it increasingly encompasses non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that also operate with a similar, primary dedication to the betterment of humanity.
Religious studies and Western esoteric studies, which incorporate social-scientific research on phenomena deemed religious.

== Methodology ==

=== Social research ===

The origin of the survey can be traced back at least as early as the Domesday Book in 1086, while some scholars pinpoint the origin of demography to 1663 with the publication of John Graunt's Natural and Political Observations upon the Bills of Mortality. Social research began most intentionally, however, with the positivist philosophy of science in the 19th century.
In contemporary usage, "social research" is a relatively autonomous term, encompassing the work of practitioners from various disciplines that share in its aims and methods. Social scientists employ a range of methods in order to analyse a vast breadth of social phenomena; from census survey data derived from millions of individuals, to the in-depth analysis of a single agent's social experiences; from monitoring what is happening on contemporary streets, to the investigation of ancient historical documents. The methods originally rooted in classical sociology and statistical mathematics have formed the basis for research in other disciplines, such as political science, media studies, and marketing and market research.
Social research methods may be divided into two broad schools: