Introduction to Social Sciences - Essay Example

Introduction to Social Sciences Introduction This paper highlights some of the aspects that are evident is the field of social sciences. It covers several aspects and issues that are discussed in the introduction to the social sciences class. The paper is well presented to cover topics in a way for the reader to understand the concepts explained. Carrying extensive Internet research, reading and gathering a lot of information from related articles from other sources gave the information in this paper. Social challenges of our communities and country There are several social challenges that the country is facing presently that include racism, classism and freedom of speech, the use of drugs, disability, insecurity and conspiracies. It is a sad thing to notice that, the authorities always catch about one of the four people who use coke while the same authority catches one in every seven white people who use the same resources. The statistics clearly shows that racism is evident in the country. The people in the society are concerned more about their social class than any other thing. The result of this is that the people have opted for a higher living standard that exceeds what they get to sustain them leading to other social problems like crime and insecurity in the region too. The freedom of speech is not well utilized in the country as people have the general fear that the government and the authorities will victimize them for what they say. Therefore, what an individual says is totally kept for them and it is said in low tones. The majority of the citizens provide the government with almost what is said negatively about the authority by individuals. The use of drugs and rise of insecurity is a major problem in the country. Well-organized gangs who pose a threat to the security of the whole region do the importation of drugs and morals of those who use the drugs are undermined. There is a lot of false information about the existence of aliens that makes most of the people to live in fear of the unknown thus posing a threat to the society. The issue of globalization has also led a major problem of insecurity due to the emergence of cyber-bullying and cyber-crime. The existence of this is itself a threat to the whole nation and the society too. Unequal employment opportunities based on sexuality and discrimination due to disability is a problem to the nation. Men tend to be given more jobs than women and the disabled do not have a place in the society as they are seen to be the minorities and thus denied opportunities to develop in most of the societies. Bases of legitimacy and what might cause legitimacy to breakdown Legitimacy refers to the belief that an institution, a rule or a governor is given the right to rule the people. Almost all the governments require legitimacy to last. The phenomenon has its bases in several aspects of tradition, habits of the people, history and ethnic identity among others. Based on the tradition, legitimacy mostly comes into existence with authorities that have stayed for quite a long period. The citizens can also give their authorities legitimacy and power because of what has been going through time. As a result of what the country has been going through history, legitimacy may be given to obey the authority and experience some historical pride. Some community members may respect the authorities because of their connection to their ethnicity. Legitimacy is affected by several factors like political and economic stability of a country, media, the use of coercion, law absence or presence and the role-played by the external agencies. Most of these factors are responsible and can cause legitimacy to breakdown. The breakdown can also be initiated when a large proportion of the country’s population lose their faith in the country’s institutions. Challenges and rewards in schooling in a multicultural university Various benefits arise when an individual gets his or studies from a multicultural institution. Some of the benefits that a student obtains from these institutions have been found to include those of a student improving his or her cognitive development, a great satisfaction of the student from the institution. The student also has a greater ability to develop his or her leadership abilities while studying in these types of institutions. The students are availed of an opportunity to confront multicultural and racial issues in both their extracurricular and classroom setting. As there are benefits of such institutions, so there are challenges that arise like those of the minority student’s getting less satisfied and they are not more likely to secure job with the type of education that they get from the institution. There have been reported cases of exclusion, alienation, isolation and racism in most of the universities with white students. The minority may also experience the differential treatment from their professors and may go through sexual harassment. The majority students may treat the minority students with hostility or even avoid interacting with them at all. The current disciplines of social sciences teach theories that if utilized may bring long-lasting solutions to the experienced problems in the society presently. Causes of the fall of communism Communism as a practice has not had its roots down to the people of the community and it has failed due to several reasons like. Most of the states that have ever practiced communism led to economic collapse thus making the system ineffective in their governance. The majority of people think about their development before they think about the community hence making it hard for the system of communism to make any significant impacts on the society. Lack of infrastructure combined with economic reinvestment is also another reason for the collapse of the communist system. Communism does not have a place in the ideologies that exist in the twenty-first century since majorities of people fail to think about the society but think about themselves. Ideology and our daily behaviors Ideology is used to refer to the system of vague meaning useful to communal issues thus making the concept core to politics. A relationship exists between the ideology and the way with which people carry out their daily activities. Ideology is always used as a tool of social reproduction and it is imperative to the sociology of knowledge. Ideologies tend to make us come with ideas that enable us make sound decisions. Multiculturalism Many states are made up of different ethnic groups with different cultures making them be multicultural. The interactions of these cultures bring up the issue of multi-culture that may be beneficial or detrimental to the society. Multi- culture in many countries brings lots of social harmony problems or even social clashes within the concerned ethnic groups. Due to the variations in the beliefs of different groups, the society may end up being less harmonious and this may lead to delayed development programs. Governing a state with different ethnic groups is always hard because of the varied ways of living among the groups and the difference in the faith of the groups (Office, 2015). The benefits of multi-culture can be seen when the different ethnic groups learn from each other and obtain the positive attitudes of the different cultures. The practice leads to the enrichment of the countries culture and it creates stimulating inspirations from the interactions. It also leads to art enrichment from the interactions that happen such as the formation of distinct songs and other forms of entertainment. Difference between beliefs, values, norms and religion A belief refers to any concept that the society holds to be true and it may come from a religion while values are ideas that people hold on as being relevant to them and the society. Values tend to govern the way of our behaviors, how we communicate and the way that we interact with each other. Norms refer to the rules that we are supposed to follow and respect whether they correspond to our values or not. The government always enforces these norms. Religion, on the other hand, the different ways through which different people interact with the supernatural being that they believe in (Office, 2015). There are aspects of universal values that are uniform across all cultures and they are embraced almost across all the cultures in the whole world. Values that are geared toward the morality of the society do exist in almost all the cultures across the world. I think that society problems are best solved at a local level since the locals have the exact knowledge of the values that they embrace in their society and they are in a proper position to judge soundly than the courts. Impacts of globalization Globalization as a process has led to the establishment of more efficient markets that provide a state of equilibrium between the buyers and the sellers. The supply and demand for products tend to be improved by the process of globalization. Globalization leads an increment in the competition that has resulted in the production of high-quality products in the market. The increase in competition has also resulted in lower prices of products in the market. Globalization has also led to stabilized security and led to more wealth equality throughout the world (Kiely, 2005). Conclusion All the aspects that are present and important in a social science class have been discussed briefly in this paper. Some of the social issues that are experienced in the society have been discussed, differentiated between the terms, which are majorly used in the unit, the relationship between ideology and the behaviour of humans in their daily activities too. The paper has also discussed the benefits and challenges of multiculturalism. Finally, it has discussed the issue of globalization briefly. References Berg, B. (2001). Qualitative research methods for the social sciences. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Office, S. (2015). Acknowledgment to Reviewers of Social Sciences in 2014. Social Sciences, 4(1), 83-84. Themed Issue of Contemporary Social Science: Social Death. (2015). Contemporary Social Science, 1-1. Read More