Social Studies: Important Notes

Notes 2

Nuclear Family- Getting at the core of it. Nuclear family refers to the core members of a family, usually parents and children. Nuclear had a long history of figurative use before its main association with "nuclear energy," as nucleus has origins meaning "kernel" or more simply "something essential."

Extended Family- An extended family is a family that extends beyond the nuclear family, consisting of parents like father, mother, and their children, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, all living in the same household. Particular forms include the stem and joint families.

UN Core Values of Democracy: Democracy is a core value of the United Nations. The UN promotes good governance, monitors elections, supports the civil society to strengthen democratic institutions and accountability, ensures self-determination in decolonized countries, and assists in the drafting of new constitutions in post-conflict nations.

Cultural Assimilation- is the process in which a minority group

or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially. There are different forms of cultural assimilation. (Ex: A child sees a new type of dog that they've never seen before and immediately points to the animal and says, "Dog!" or a chef learns a new cooking technique, A computer programmer learns a new programming language.)

Cultural Accommodation- refers to the process by which individuals may take on values and beliefs of the host culture and accommodate them in the public sphere, while maintaining the parent culture in the private sphere. (Ex: Speaking the language of the dominant culture you live in while in public while maintaining your culture's language at home, dressing traditionally for cultural celebrations but differently for national events.)

Enculturation- is the process by which people learn the dynamics of their surrounding culture and acquire values and norms appropriate or necessary to that culture and its worldviews. As part of this process, the influences that limit, direct, or shape the individual include parents, other adults, and peers. (Ex: Observing how friends talk to each other to learn the acceptable language, learning slang or how to behave in certain situations by watching television.)

Acculturation- is a process of social, psychological, and cultural change that stems from the balancing of two cultures while adapting to the prevailing culture of the society. (Ex: Native Americans replacing or modifying certain societal or cultural elements such as dress, language, or religion upon contact with Europeans, The loss of some Native American customs and languages due to the influence of Europeans.)

Social Science Discipline

· Anthropology - is a social science discipline that deals with the study of human being. This study includes cultural anthropology (the study of contemporary human cultures), physical anthropology (the study of human genetics, evolution, and primatology), archaeology (the study of past cultures) and linguistics (the study of human communication).

Demography - is a social science discipline that deals with the interdisciplinary study of the size, growth, and distribution of human populations.

· Economics - is a social science discipline that deals with the study of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services. This can refer also to business and financial economics.

· Geography - is a social science discipline that deals with a place, location or simply the earth's surface which involves both physical and cultural geographic features in terms of humans and earth environment relationship.

· History - is a social science discipline that deals with the study of past about mankind.

· Linguistics - is a social science discipline that deals with the scientific study of language and its structure.

· Political Science - is a social science discipline that deals with the systematic study of politics. This includes study about government system, analysis of political activity and behavior.

· Psychology - is a social science discipline that deals with the scientific study of behavior and the mind.

· Sociology - is a social science discipline that deals with the scientific study social interactions in a human social relations or group life.

Holistic Approach- A holistic approach means to provide support that looks at the whole person, not just their mental health needs. The support should also consider their physical, emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing. A holistic approach focusses on a person's wellness and not just their illness or condition.

Holism- Holism is the idea that various systems should be viewed as wholes, not merely as a collection of parts. The term "holism" was coined by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book Holism and Evolution.

Louis Leakey- Kenyan-British paleoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in demonstrating that humans evolved in Africa, particularly through discoveries made at Olduvai Gorge with his wife, fellow paleontologist Mary Leakey. At Fort Ternan (east of Lake Victoria) in 1962, Leakey's team discovered the remains of Kenyapithecus, another link between apes and early man that lived about 14 million years ago. Leakey's discoveries formed the basis for the most important subsequent research into the earliest origins of human life.

Raymond Dart- was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominin closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the province Northwest. Dart came to the world's attention in 1925 with his announced discovery of the skull he named Australopithecus africanus, (South African ape). He had chanced on the skull of a 5-year-old child with baby teeth intact and adult molars just breaking through.

Richard Leakey- Kenyan anthropologist, conservationist, and political figure who was responsible for extensive fossil finds related to human evolution and who campaigned publicly for responsible management of the environment in East Africa.

Charles Darwin- was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended from common ancestors is now widely accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the foundation upon which modern evolutionary theory is built. The theory was outlined in Darwin's seminal work On the Origin of Species, published in 1859.

Homo erectus (Upright Man):

· Homo erectus is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago, and its specimens are among the first recognisable members of the genus Homo.

· H. erectus appears to have been the first human species to control , some 1,000,000 years ago.

· The extinct ancient human Homo erectus is a species of firsts. It was the first of our relatives to have human-like body proportions, with shorter arms and longer legs relative to its torso. It was also the first known hominin to migrate out of Africa, and possibly the first to cook food.

Java Man:

· Is an early human fossil discovered in 1891 and 1892 on the island of Java. Estimated to be between 700,000 and 1,000,000 years old, it was, at the time of its discovery, the oldest hominid fossils ever found, and it remains the type specimen for Homo erectus.

· Extinct (member of the lineage) known from remains found on the island of , .

Pekeng Man- Peking Man (Homo erectus pekinensis) is a subspecies of H. erectus which inhabited the Zhoukoudian Cave of northern China during the Middle Pleistocene. ... Peking Man was instrumental in the foundation of Chinese anthropology, and fostered an important dialogue between Western and Eastern science for decades to come.