What is critical social science?
The social sciences represent a diverse collection of various academic disciplines devoted to the systematic study of humanity. These disciplines include sociology, anthropology, psychology, economics, political science, social philosophy, and many other sub-disciplines and applied fields. More importantly, the social sciences reflect a shared human enterprise which resides at the center of all human affairs.
The centrality of the social sciences in human life highlights an irrefutable truth: both social scientists, and non-social scientists, share a responsibility in the social construction of our lives. It is this viewpoint which makes up the foundation of critical social science. To borrow from sociologist W. Lawrence Neuman, critical social science, in praxis, is the act of using social scientific knowledge in order to critique and transform unjust social relations. It is an act which demands empowering the marginalized and exploited by revealing to them social hypocrisies, maladaptive social control structures, unjust and dangerous power relations, perverse mythologies, and inequities which actively operate against their interests. In short, the purpose of critical social science is to assist all people in improving the quality of their existence through the beauty and wonder of social scientific knowledge and social scientific wisdom.