5 You and your world

In the previous sections, you looked at social issues which you may have come across many times in your daily life, but not thought about systematically or with the use of social scientific ideas and concepts. When you spend time thinking about aspects of social life in this manner, you are likely to find that the deeper you look, the more there is to notice – and potentially the more interesting it becomes! Therefore, an important part of starting to think like a social scientist, is developing your curiosity.

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A graphic showing the representation of a world map formed by a large crowd of people.

Developing your sense of curiosity can lead you to:

• starting to ask more questions and identify new directions in your thinking that you have not thought of before
• an improvement in your motivation to study and to seek understanding of the world around you
• an improvement in your engagement with, attention to, and memory of what you are learning
• better problem-solving skills – when someone is curious, they will often be driven to explore multiple perspectives and ways of solving problems (this is a key employability skill too)
• the development of critical thinking skills – asking questions and questioning assumptions means you are engaging in active learning, rather than just passively absorbing information without thinking about it much.

To start cultivating these skills, the following activity asks you to begin thinking about what makes you curious.