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A society is a group of people who form a semi-closed system. At its simplest, the term society refers to a large group of people sharing their own culture and institutions. A society is a network of relationships between people. The English word society is derived from the French société, which had its origin in the Latin societas, a "friendly association with others," from socius meaning "companion, associate, comrade or business partner." Thus, the meaning of society is closely related to what is considered to be social. Implicit in the meaning of society is that its members may share some mutual concern or interest, a common objective or common characteristics. The social sciences generally use the term society to mean a group of people who form a semi-closed social system, in which most interactions are with other individuals belonging to the group. More abstractly, a society is defined as a network of relationships between social entities. A society is also sometimes defined as an interdependent community, but the sociologist Tönnies sought to draw a contrast between society and community. An important feature of society is social structure, aspects of which include roles and social ranking.

The social science are a group of academic disciplines that study human aspects of the world. They differ from the arts and the humanities, in that the social science tend to emphasize the use of the scientific method in the study of humanity, including quantitative and qualitative methods.

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Contents/Society and social sciences: Overview • Lists • Outlines • Portals • Categories • Glossaries • Indexes

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Overview (see for all subject areas)

Main articles: Social sciences and Society See also Science and Scientific method

Social sciences – Anthropology • Archaeology • Cognitive science • Communication studies • Critical theory • Cultural studies • Development studies • Economics (Unsolved problems in economics) • Education • Geography • History • Linguistics (Unsolved problems in linguistics) • Law • Political science • Psychology • Social policy • Sociology

Society – Ethnic groups • Group • Infrastructure • People

Community – Structure and agency • Socialization • Sense of community • Communitarianism • Social capital • Community development

Social development – Decadence • Social progress • Technological evolution

Sociocultural evolution : Hunter-gatherer bands → Social rank → Tribes → Social stratification → Chiefdoms → Neolithic Revolution → Civilization → Agrarian society → Pre-industrial society → Agrarian villages → Towns → Cities → City-states → Nation-states → Industrial Revolution → (Modern) Industrial society → (Postmodern) Post-industrial society → Informational Revolution → Information society → Digital Revolution → Globalization → World government? → Space colonization? → Technological singularity?

Social institutions – Organization

Family – Daughter • Extended family • Father • Grandparent • Home • Human bonding • Mother • Nuclear family • Parent • Son

Religion – (see Religion and belief systems above)

Infrastructure

Public infrastructure – Highways • Streets • Roads • Bridges • Mass transit • Airports and Airways • Rail transport • Water supply and Water resources • Wastewater management • Solid-waste treatment and disposal • Electric power

Private infrastructure – Automobiles • Homes • Personal computers • Personal property • Real estate

Economy and Business – Finance • Management • Marketing • Franchising

Education – Academia • Academic misconduct • Homework • Learning • Pedagogy • School • Student • Study skills • Teacher

Civil society

Government and Politics – Politics by country • International relations • Public affairs

Law – Criminal justice

Social network – Communication • Journalism • Social capital

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Outlines (see for all subject areas)

Social science – study of the world and its cultures and civilizations. Social science has many branches, each called a "social science". Some of the major social sciences are:

Anthropology – study of how humans developed biologically and culturally.
Archaeology – study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation, and analysis of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes.
Economics – study of how people satisfy their wants and needs. Economics is also the study of supply and demand.
Futures studies – seeks to understand what is likely to continue and what could plausibly change
Geography – study of physical environments and how people live in them.
History – study of the past.
Law – set of rules and principles by which a society is governed. (For branches, see Law under Society below).
Linguistics – study of natural languages.
- Principles of interpretation –
Political science – study of different forms of government and the ways citizens relate to them.
Psychology – study of mental processes and behavior.
- Human intelligence – mental capacities of human beings to reason, plan, problem solve, think, comprehend ideas, use languages, and learn.
- Human sexuality –Sexuality also impacts and is impacted upon by cultural, political, legal, philosophical, moral, ethical, and religious aspects of life. Sexual activity is a vital principle of human living that connects the desires, pleasures, and energy of the body with a knowledge of human intimacy.
Semiotics – study of symbols and how they relate to one another.
Sociology – study of the formation of human societies and social organizations, their structure, and the interaction and behavior of people in organized groups.

Society – group of people sharing the same geographical or virtual territory and therefore subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Such people share a distinctive culture and institutions, which characterize the patterns of social relations between them.

Community – group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household.
- LGBT – lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community
Business – organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers for the purpose of making a profit.
- Economics – analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. It aims to explain how economies work and how economic agents interact.
- Industrial organization – studies the structure of and boundaries between firms and markets and the strategic interactions of firms.
- Finance – study of funds management.
- Management – comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal.
- Actuarial science – discipline that applies mathematical and statistical methods to assess risk in the insurance and finance industries.
- Projects –In contemporary business and science a project is a collaborative enterprise, involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.
- Marketing – process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments.
- Production – creating 'use' value or 'utility' that can satisfy a want or need. Any effort directed toward the realization of a desired product or service is a "productive" effort and the performance of such an act is production.
Communication – activity of conveying meaningful information, which requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient.
- Journalism – gathering, processing, and dissemination of news and information related to the news to an audience. It includes both the method of inquiring for news and the literary style which is used to disseminate it.
  - Environmental journalism – collection, verification, production, distribution and exhibition of information regarding current events, trends, issues and people that are associated with the non-human world with which humans necessarily interact.
- Public relations – practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) and the public.
Education – any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character, or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills, and values from one generation to another. Education can also be defined as the process of becoming an educated person.
- Academia – nationally and internationally recognized establishment of professional scholars and students, usually centered around colleges and universities, who are engaged in higher education and research.
  - Harvard University – private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation (officially The President and Fellows of Harvard College) chartered in that country.
- Open educational resources –
- Second-language acquisition – process by which people learn a second language.
Globalization – process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture.
Politics – process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the corporate, academic, and religious segments of society.
- Political ideologies:
  - Environmentalism – broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements.
  - Green politics – political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy.
- Government types:
  - Democracy – form of government in which all the people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.
- International organizations:
  - United Nations
- Political movements:
  - Psychiatric survivors movement
- Public affairs – public policy and public administration. Public policy is a principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of a state with regard to issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. Public administration is "the management of public programs"; the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day"; and "the study of government decision making, the analysis of the policies themselves, the various inputs that have produced them, and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies."
Law – A set of rules and principles by which a society is governed.
- Commercial law – body of law that governs business and commercial transactions.
- Criminal justice – system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts. Those accused of crime have protections against abuse of investigatory and prosecution powers.
  - Crime –
    - Domestic violence – violence between partners in a close relationship (marriage, family, dating and so on). This form of violence can manifest itself in a variety of ways.
    - Forgery –
  - Law enforcement – any system by which some members of society act in an organized manner to promote adherence to the law by discovering and punishing persons who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term usually refers to organizations that engage in patrols or surveillance to dissuade and discover criminal activity, and to those who investigate crimes and apprehend offenders.
- Intellectual property – distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law.
  - Patents –
- Tort law – laws and legal procedures dealing with torts. In common law jurisdictions, a tort is a civil wrong that involves a breach of a civil duty (other than a contractual duty) owed to someone else. A tort is differentiated from a crime, which involves a breach of a duty owed to society in general. Though many acts are both torts and crimes, prosecutions for crime are mostly the responsibility of the state; whereas any party who has been injured may bring a lawsuit for tort.
- Law of the United States
  - Evidence law in the United States –
  - United States federal Indian law and policy –
Rights – legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.