social science
Let an agent handle the social sciences as a family of disciplines with methods and evidence standards, and locate questions within the right discipline.
Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled
4 bundles · 8 layers · 8 findings · 16 questions
Discipline Which field.
Field
Sociology, economics, etc.
Field
The discipline.
- Which social science discipline addresses this question? definition
- Which neighbouring fields are relevant? definition
Approach
Theoretical approach.
Approach
Theoretical perspective.
- Which theoretical approach is used? provenance
- What alternatives exist? boundary
Methods How evidence is produced.
Data
Surveys, interviews, records.
Data
Data sources.
- Which data were used, and how representative are they? provenance
- How were participants protected? boundary
Analysis
Quantitative or qualitative.
Analysis
Analytic method.
- Which analytic methods were used? provenance
- Do they support causal claims? boundary
Findings What is known.
Strength
Replication.
Strength
Robustness of findings.
- How robust and replicated is the finding? measurement
- In which contexts does it hold? boundary
Debate
Contestation.
Debate
Scholarly debate.
- Where do scholars disagree? boundary
- How should both sides be represented? action
Use Policy and practice.
Policy
Evidence for policy.
Policy
Policy relevance.
- How is this evidence used in policy? definition
- What caveats apply? boundary
Ethics
Human participants.
Ethics
Ethical safeguards.
- Which ethics approvals were needed? provenance
- Is personal data protected? boundary
Classifiers Filled
- Family
- Thing Registry
- Category
- Information and virtual systems
- Entry kind
- thing
- Plane
- INF
- Domain
- INF.KNW
- Other names and narrower kinds
- cognitive elite fraudster, public health nutrition, intersectionality, Mythical norm, patent law, European patent law, patent law of the European Union, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sciences, Pacific Peoples sciences, educational sciences, premilitary instruction, social data science
What it is Filled
The group of academic disciplines that study human society and social relationships, such as sociology, economics, political science, anthropology, psychology, law and geography.
Why it exists Filled
Let an agent handle the social sciences as a family of disciplines with methods and evidence standards, and locate questions within the right discipline.
Distinguishing features Filled
- Studies society and social relations
- Uses quantitative and qualitative methods
- Evidence is often contested and context-bound
- Overlaps with humanities and natural sciences
What robots and AI may and may not do Filled
Must not
- Present findings about groups as fixed traits of individuals.
- Run experiments on people without their informed consent and ethical approval.
- Re-identify people in anonymised research data.
- Fabricate or misreport data.
Only with a human decision
- Using social science models to make decisions about individuals.
May
- Explain social science findings with sources, methods and limits.
- Distinguish established findings from contested or failed-to-replicate ones.
Moral aspects Filled
- Social science findings shape policy affecting whole populations.
- Research participants trust that their data will be protected.
Who is affected
- Research participants
- Groups studied
- The public
Owners Filled
Steward
Nobody: a field of study; research institutions and ethics committees oversee research.
Links to other meta-models Filled
parent
- Q33122512 - registry parent class
- Q97929320 - registry parent class
related
- economics and psychology - disciplines
- science - field
- society - subject
- government and policy - use
What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled
Identity and identifiers required Filled
- Vercy registry: vr.tr.social-science
- Wikidata: Q34749 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34749)
- field classification: OECD FORD 5 Social sciences research classification
Direct properties not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
Plane INF: no invented physical properties.
Recognition optional Filled
- Discipline labels and journals
- Survey and administrative data
- Interdisciplinary fields such as public health nutrition
- Departments, journals, surveys, datasets and reports.
Capabilities and actions required Filled
- research and teach it
- inform policy with evidence
- survey and analyse populations
- evaluate programmes
Hazards and failure modes required Filled
- Overgeneralising from small or biased samples
- Ideological framing presented as findings
- Replication problems
Standards and interfaces required Filled
- Research ethics for human participants
- Official statistics codes of practice
- Data protection law
Context of use required Filled
- Understanding societies and informing policy.
- sociology
- economics
- political science
- anthropology
- social psychology
- law and legal studies
- human geography
Sources Filled
- Wikidata item Q34749: social science - identity and sense of the item
- Wikipedia: Social science - general description of the item
Open questions
- Should disciplines be separate entries?
- How should agents present contested social science findings?
- The registry entry has merged aliases such as patent law; should they be split off?
Machine files
Provenance
thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed
Built from: models/things/publications/thing-q34749/spec.json