Recent trends, Challenges and Issues in Social Science

Abstract

Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 19th century. In addition to sociology, it now encompasses a wide array of academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, human geography, linguistics, management science, communication science and political science. Universities like Nalanda and Takshashila were noted centres of higher learning and research, particularly in Social Sciences and humanities, in ancient India. Scholars from world over used to come to Indian Universities. But in the last decade Social Sciences and humanities have suffered a lot in India. Though not listed in the top 200 universities in the world, many science and technology institutions in India are known globally but institutions of social sciences and humanities are not. In the post industrialisation era, market driven and career oriented education took the top slots. The authorities could not realize that the social sciences only can tell us of our roots. One must realize that the social sciences frame us for the values, within whose parameters we shall use the newly acquired knowledge. There shall be a balance between natural sciences and social sciences. Almost all the Universities have departments in various specializations of social sciences. But over the time there is qualitative and quantitative decline in the standards of research in the social sciences due to various reasons such as lesser position in the hierarchy among disciplines, retirement of senior committed qualified social scientists, below average students opting for these disciplines, lesser opportunities for degree holders in these disciplines, lesser funding and less incentives, lack of support from industry etc. As a consequence, research output has become sub standard. The efforts of statutory bodies like UGC and ICSSR in association with UNESCO through provision of monetary support to encourage research in social sciences are giving results. Still there is a large gap. In this paper an attempt is made to analyse various factors for declining standards in social sciences teaching and research and remedies are suggested.