Human Society Course

Developing a creative sensibility that allows you to understand our society correctly.

Understanding our society from the perspectives of both theory and fieldwork

Although humans are biological existence with the body, their behaviors and actions cannot be explained only by the physical parts (such as genes) and instinct. This course focuses on the fact that humans are fundamentally social beings, and aims to understand their behaviors in various social and cultural environments and the social realities by means of both theory and fieldwork. Theories are important in analyzing and studying human societies, but this course also emphasizes fieldwork.

Using scenes of everyday life as the location of fieldwork

A place where everyday life is carried out is a specific example of the location of fieldwork.
For example, Yokohama, where Kanagawa University resides, is located in a complicated, multi-layered space consisting of local, national, regional and global layers, and historically, it has been an international port city. These factors make Yokohama an interesting place for field work. Locations of fieldwork can also be identified from the viewpoints of concepts such as ethnicity and gender, and social groups or networks such as those of foreign residents and elderly people.
The Human Society Course aims at helping students to develop broad perspective, creativity, ability to make decisions independently and rich sensibility, through studies and investigations on human societies that can be observed from the various perspectives described above.