SS 111-Foundation of Social Studies Dr.

Victoria R. Arce First Term/A.Y. 2023-2024

Instructor
Chapter IV
Social Studies and Other Disciplines
A. Social Studies and Social Sciences
Social studies- is a field which deals with human behavior, relationships, resources, and
institutions.
Aims and Purposes of Social Studies
The main goal of teaching social studies is to teach students to become good citizens. We
are living in a diverse society — one that requires knowledge of social studies to succeed. With a
social studies background, children become adults that can participate civilly in our democratic
society.
“The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and
reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in
an interdependent world.” – National Council for Social Studies
The Importance of Social Studies in the School Curriculum
All children who go through the school curriculum become something when they graduate. And
no matter what that something is, they will need to interact with others from different cultural
and socioeconomic backgrounds. Students must study how society works, and how people work
in a society in order for it all to work once they enter society after graduation.
1. Anthropology
 derived from the Geek word “Anthropos” meaning “humankind” and “logos” meaning
“the study of”.
 it is the study of ancient societies and their cultural traditions. This deals with the studies
of man's physical and cultural characteristics, distribution, customs, and social
relationships.
Anthropology has two broad fields:
1. Physical-also called biological anthropology which studies the biological evolution of
man.
2. Cultural-investigates and seeks to understand the cultural features of the societies under
study.
Anthropology and social sciences are two interconnected fields that study human behavior and
society. Anthropology focuses on studying humans as a biological and cultural species while
social sciences are concerned with the ways in which humans interact with one another in
society.
Studying anthropology fosters broad knowledge of other cultures, skills in observation and
analysis, critical thinking, clear communications and applied problem-solving. Anthropology
encourages us to extend our perspectives beyond familiar social contexts to view things from the
perspectives of others. (Why is Anthropology Important? Socialsci.libretexts.org.)
2. Economics
 the study of the efficient allocation of scarce resources in order to satisfy unlimited
human needs and wants.
 the word Economics came from the two Greek words, oikos meaning “home” and nomos
meaning “management”.
 this deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth and with the
various related problems of labor, finance, and taxation. Man labors to satisfy human
wants.
3. Geography
 Geography studies the interaction between the natural environment and the people living
in it.
 Geography comes from the Greek words geo meaning “Earth” and graphos meaning
“charting or mapping”. Geography is divided into two main branches: physical and
human.
Two Fields
1. Physical geography studies the natural features of the earth like climate, water, vegetation
and soil.
2. Human geography studies human population and the impact of its activities on the
planet.
4.History
 History is traditionally regarded as the study of recorded past. It comes from the Greek
noun iotopia or historia, meaning “learning”. This concerns what has happened in the life
or development of a people, country, or individual. Man's story is a continuous narrative
of man's progress.
5. Linguistics
 Linguistics came from the Latin word lingua, meaning “language”. Linguistics studies
the nature of language through an examination of the formal properties of natural
language, grammar, and the process of language acquisition.
6. Sociology
 It is the systematic study of human society. It comes from the Latin word socius meaning
“friend” or “companion” and the Greek word logos meaning “study”. Sociology studies
how people relate to each other and how they work as a whole in the larger society. This
deals with the studies of the beliefs, values, and relationships of groups and the principles
governing social acceptance.
 Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and
consequences of human behavior. Sociologists investigate the structure of groups,
organizations, and societies, and how people interact within these contexts.
 Sociology provides many distinctive perspectives on the world, generating new ideas and
critiquing the old. The field also offers a range of research techniques that can be applied
to virtually any aspect of social life: street crime and delinquency, corporate downsizing,
how people express emotions, welfare or education reform, how families differ and
flourish, or problems of peace and war.
7. Psychology
 It is the study of behavior and mental process. This includes the physical state and how
this all relates to the environment of the individual. It comes from the Greek words
psyche meaning “soul or spirit” and logos meaning “study”.
 Psychologists are actively involved in studying and understanding mental processes,
brain functions, and behavior. Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior.
Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including
feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the
boundaries between the natural and social sciences.
 Psychology includes four major areas: clinical psychology (counseling for mental and
behavioral health), cognitive psychology (the study of the mental processes), behavioral
psychology (understanding behavior through different types of conditioning), and
biopsychology (research on the brain, behavior, and evolution).
8. Political Science
 is the study of politics, power, and government. The word politics comes from the Greek
word politea, or a person who participates in the polis.
 This concerns the determining of the form of government, choosing the officials, making
the laws, and performing the function of one's government.
 Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with
systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political
thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and laws.
 B. Social Studies and the Arts
Relationship between Social Studies and the Arts
The symbiotic relationship between the arts and social studies suggests them for
compatible pairing in an integrated curriculum. Knowledge of both the arts and social studies
may be developed sequentially and cumulatively.
Social Studies was introduced at schools to examine the immediate environment and
local community. It progresses to a study of global issues and events.
Knowledge of art begins with recognition of basic elements: line, color, value, texture,
form, and space. It progresses to an exploration of their arrangement into meaningful
relationship of balance, emphasis, rhythm, and unity. The formal language of art like the
dates of human events, depends upon knowledge of context to accommodate meaning.
Social studies present knowledge of human experiences, while art has the power to
provide an intimate understanding of human experiences through personal encounters that
yield insights. Art, as a way of knowing, presents a kind of knowledge that the facts and
abstractions of the social studies cannot make known.
Social Studies in the Context of Art
When students have the opportunity to study artworks from the past, they begin to
understand how art reflects the values of society and how the arts have been influenced by
social, political, and economic beliefs of a society.
Artworks may record how people, places, and things looked. Materials and production
techniques of past eras may give indications of geographic environment and societal structure.
Aesthetic choices made in form and decoration may reveal philosophic or religlous beliefs.
An art of object reflects the historic time and cultural context of its origin. Indeed, much
of what is known or surmised of ancient cultures comes from art and architectural evidence.
History comes alive, and far-away cultures come lose to home, as students are able to
conceptualize historic dates and factual events through period-correlated artifacts and visual
images. The visual arts are specifically useful in the teaching of history courses of historic
themes. Visual images, which encourage visual thinking, allow students to imagine the
progression of historic events as having interconnected structural patterns of form and meaning.
The history component of social studies can be seen as a powerful area of art integration.
History is an integrative subject with a profound capacity for incorporating the study of other
subjects, such as art.
 It has been indicated that art is a product of its unique historic and cultural origin. It is
also a window back into conceptual understanding of that context.
Arts Potential and Power to Shape Contemporary Attitudes and Values
Images can be used to lull viewers into complacency, urge patriotic fervor, enrage against
injustice, or inspire spiritual devotion. The arts are a living expression, an empowered and
empowering voice of contemporary society, urging and molding society as well as reflecting it.
Tyrants, who seek to control the hearts and minds of people, understand that artists may
use symbols powerfully to convey feelings and ideas that speak to the deepest human emotions.
Advertisers, entertainers, politicians, and private interest groups bombard public
audiences daily with visual messages that persuade, cajole, direct, entice, and seduce viewers to
think and act in predetermined ways.
A student's understanding of the meaning of an artwork increases when the student
experiences working with the materials and processes that artists use to create art. Understanding
also broadens with knowledge of when and where the work was made, the creator, the function it
served in society, and what experts said about it. This approach to art education is called
discipline-based art education (DBAE). The DBAE construct (Clark I991) gives four
components to the study of visual arts.
• AESTHETICS
• ART CRITISICM
• ART PRODUCTION
• ART HISTORY
“Art is a critical component of Social Studies in addition to being an effective way to
teach."
A society that would be democratic and free requires a public capable of deciphering and
criticizing nonverbal messages. Understanding the visual message empowers viewers to accept
or reject the message or transform the message. Controversies concerning censorship, which
voices will be allowed to be heard, the appropriateness of funding for divergent voices even
questions of what does or does not constitute art are ongoing issues that require response from a
visually literate, critically thoughtful society.
C. Social Studies and Some other Disciplines
1. Natural Sciences
Social Sciences/Studies is different from natural sciences and the humanities because its
primary interest lies in understanding and explaining human behavior both in the individual and
collective level. Natural Science studies and explains systematically the occurrence of all natural
phenomena based from a scientist's investigation of material entities in an experimentally-
controlled condition.
Hard science involves experiments that undertake objective measurements and use controlled
variables. Soft Science deals with people, may have relative measurements and the variables are
not controlled or isolated and therefore, may result varying outcomes.
2. Religious Studies
Throughout history, and in societies across the world, leaders have used religious
narratives, symbols, and traditions in an attempt to give more meaning to life and understand the
universe. Some form of religion is found in every known culture, and it is usually practiced in a
public way by a group. The practice of religion can include feasts and festivals, intercession with
God or gods, marriage and funeral services, music and art, meditation or initiation, sacrifice or
service, and other aspects of culture.
3.Law
Law is a form of social science. Society and law are closely related to each other. Law
tells the nature to live the social life and this also increases with the economics, Scientific and
technological progress. Law also changes with social changes and plays an important role in the
fulfillment of social need. Social sciences and law are extraordinarily interconnected with each
other. Law is a prolific shape of social sciences. It acts as an indicator of social change.
4. Health Education
Health education has evolved into health promotion. Health education is any combination
of learning experiences designed to facilitate voluntary actions conducive to health. Health
promotion is the combination of educational and environmental supports for actions and
conditions of living conducive to health, thereby including health education. With the need for
planning, the importance of evaluation, the use of social and behavioral science theories in the
development of health promotion interventions.
5. Medicine
Medical and social studies have become increasingly close collaborators in the search for
reliable knowledge about human behavior in health and illness. Medical research, teaching and
practice are markedly affected by the recent entry of social psychology, sociology and
anthropology into the health fields. The social scientific disciplines are in turn strongly
influenced by the data and experiences of psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, physiology and
indeed the whole range of medical specialties. The development of medical sciences has been
influenced by developments taking place in other sciences including social studies.