Social science

The study of communities and the connections among people within such societies is the focus of one of the sub-disciplines of the scientific discipline known as "social science." The discipline of sociology, which was considered the first "science of society" when it was founded in the 19th century, was referred to by this word in the past. In modern times, sociology has expanded to include a vast number of other academic fields, such as anthropology, archaeology, economics, human geography, linguistics, management science, communication science, and political science.

As a result of using approaches to the study of society that are analogous to those used in the scientific sciences, positivist social scientists define science in the narrower, more contemporary definition. Interpretivist social scientists, on the other hand, may choose to engage in social criticism or symbolic interpretation rather than the construction of empirically falsifiable hypotheses, and as a result, they approach science in its expanded meaning. In contemporary academic practise, researchers often use a variety of research approaches, demonstrating an eclectic approach (for instance, by combining both quantitative and qualitative research). As a result of researchers from a wide variety of fields having similar objectives and approaches, the phrase "social research" has also gained some degree of autonomy.