Westfield State University Ely Library

Sociology Web Resources

Background Information  |  Children and Adolescents  |  Education  |  Family  |  Gerontology  |  Poverty
Criminology & Deviance  |  Women & Minorities  |  Public Opinion  |  Research Methods  |  Statistics

See also the guides to Web sources in:
Social Work; Psychology; Education; Women's Studies; Criminal Justice; Polls & Public Opinion

For a Guide to Ely Library Reference Sources in Sociology see Sociology: Reference Sources.

To locate journal articles related to Sociology see Sociology: Databases.


Background Information

American Sociological Association
http://www.asanet.org/
Useful site for information about sociology as a profession. See especially the many career materials for current and prospective students on the page of ASA Research Index. The site works best with Internet Explorer.

Research Resources for the Social Sciences
http://www.socsciresearch.com/
Links to hundreds of sites classified in eighteen categories.

Sociological Tour through Cyberspace
http://www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/
Aimed at undergraduate Sociology students, the "tour" begins with links to the major subject directories for Sociology, followed by links to: resources for theory construction; data sets; materials on research methods and statistics; resources on writing the research paper; and selected sites in related subject areas.

Sociology Dictionary
http://www.webref.org/sociology/sociology.htm
Created by Iverson Software Co., this website provides access to brief definitions of terms frequently used in Sociology.

SocioSite - Social Science Information System
http://www.sociosite.net/
Based at the faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, this site attempts "to provide a comprehensive listing of all sociology resources on the Internet."

Sociology Timeline
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/timeline.html
Provides a chronology of major events in sociology.  Includes links to more information about leading scholars in the field and their publications.

SocioWeb
http://www.socioweb.com/
"A Sociological Resource Center" organized into ten sections. Includes a good section on the "Giants of Sociology".

WWW Virtual Library: Sociology
http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/w3virtsoclib/
Links to many Internet resources, including: Associations & Organizations; Directories of Resources; Databases & Archives; Courses & Curricula Resources; Journals & Newsletters; and Theories.

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Children and Adolescents

The Future of Children
http://www.futureofchildren.org
"The Future of Children is a publication of The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and The Brookings Institution.  [It] seeks to promote effective policies and programs for children by providing... objective information based on the best available research."  Articles are arranged chronologically by the publication date of each journal issue.  Each publication, however, is dedicated to a particular topic affecting children and thus may be used to access journal articles by subject.  Also available are figures and charts from The Future of Children journal articles arranged by topic.

Monitoring the Future
http://monitoringthefuture.org/
"Monitoring the Future is an ongoing study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of American secondary school students, college students, and young adults."  This website provides access to data on "national trends in smoking, drinking, and illicit drug use among American secondary school students."

National Center for Children in Poverty
http://www.nccp.org/
"The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization at Columbia University. [Their] mission is to identify and promote strategies that prevent child poverty in the United States and that improve the lives of low-income children and families."  This website provides access to research on policies relating to Economic Security, Early Care and Learning, Family Stability, and Demographics.  The Data Wizard assists with identify policies that fulfill state's needs and calculates the work supports potentially available to families.

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Education

National Center for Educational Statistics
http://nces.ed.gov/
The National Center for Educational Statistics is the "primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data that are related to education in the United States and other nations."  This website provides access to a searchable catalog of various studies, publications, and statistics addressing major issues in education.

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Family

The Clearinghouse on International Developments in Child, Youth and Family Policies
http://www.childpolicyintl.org/
Columbia University's Clearinghouse "provides cross-national comparative information about the policies, programs, benefits and services available in 23 advanced industrialized countries that address child, youth, and family needs."  Information about policies and programs, including statistics, is available on topics such as parental leave, child & adolescent health, and child support.

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Gerontology

AARP
http://www.aarp.org
The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is a nonprofit, membership organization for people over the age of 50.  This website provides links to AARP newsletters and research.

The Health and Retirement Study
http://hrsonline.isr.umich.edu/
"The University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study (HRS) surveys more than 22,000 Americans over the age of 50 every two years. Supported by the National Institute on Aging, the study paints an emerging portrait of an aging America's physical and mental health, insurance coverage, financial status, family support systems, labor market status, and retirement planning."

National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACDA/index.jsp
The University of Michigan's National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA) provides data to support research on aging.  This searchable website gives access to various datasets, including polls, census statistics, and studies conducted by such organizations as the National Council on Aging.

Social Gerontology and The Aging Revolution
http://www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/geron.html
Comprehensive site covering gerontological issues. Offers information and links to almost every issue affecting older people.

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Poverty

Institute for Policy Research on Poverty, Race and Inequality
http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/research/respoverty1.html
A research center based at Northwestern University, this website offers working papers, newsletters and policy briefs related to poverty.  The IPR website holds information that was previously posted on the Joint Center for Poverty's site.

Institute for Research on Poverty
http://www.irp.wisc.edu/
A research center based at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Institute for Research on Poverty's (IRP) "principal activities are sponsoship of original research...on the causes and consequences of poverty and social inequity in the United States."  This website enables access to IRP research via broad categories such as "Child & Family," "Health & Poverty," and "Low-wage Earners."  Searchable.

National Center for Children in Poverty
http://www.nccp.org/
"The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization at Columbia University. [Their] mission is to identify and promote strategies that prevent child poverty in the United States and that improve the lives of low-income children and families."  This website provides access to research on policies relating to Economic Security, Early Care and Learning, Family Stability, and Demographics.  The Data Wizard assists with identify policies that fulfill state's needs and calculates the work supports potentially available to families.

Panel Study on Income Dynamics
http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/
"A nationally representative longitudinal study of nearly 8,000 U.S. families...[that collects] data on economic, health and social behavior."

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Criminology & Deviance

National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/
"The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) preserves and distributes computerized crime and justice data from Federal agencies, state agencies, and investigator initiated research projects to users for secondary statistical analysis."

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/SAMHDA/
"The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHDA) is an initiative of...the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The goal of the archive is to provide ready access to substance abuse and mental health research data."

For more information, consult the Criminal Justice Web Guide.

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Women & Minorities

Institute for Women's Policy Issues
http://www.iwpr.org
The Institute of Women's Policy Issues (IWPR) is a public policy research organization.  This website provides access to research and public policy in the areas of employment, earnings, democracy, poverty, welfare, health, and safety, among others.  Included is the Status of Women in the States.

Migration and Ethnic Relations
http://www.ercomer.eu/wwwvl/index.html
A collection of links to major Internet resources in the field of migration and ethnic relations. It is part of the much larger WWW Virtual Library covering many subjects. Maintained by the EDCOMER - the European Documentation Centre and Observatory on Migration and Ethnic Relations.

National Organization for Women
http://www.now.org
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the "largest feminist activist organization in the United States."

Women's Labor History
http://www.afscme.org/publications/12441.cfm

For additional resources on women and minorities, see the Women Studies Web Resources and  African American History Web Resources.

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Public Opinion

Gallup Polls
http://www.gallup.com/
Established in 1935 by Dr. George H. Gallup (1901-1984), the Gallup Organization is best known for its public opinion polls which provide "measurement and analysis of people's attitudes, opinions, and behavior." This searchable site provides a full-text poll archive on various topics. Click on Newsflash for a daily update on politics, business, and social issues in the latest polls. Press releases from 1998 and tracking polls back to 1936.

For more websites on public opinion, consult Polls & Public Opinion Web Resources.

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Research Methods

Resources for Methods in Evaluation and Social Research
http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods/
"This page lists free resources for methods in evaluation and social research.  The focus is on "how-to" do evaluation research and the methods used: surveys, focus groups, sampling, interviews, and other methods.  Most of these links are to resources that can be read over the web."

Survey Methods Newsletter
http://www.natcen.ac.uk/natcen/pages/nm_newsletters.htm#smunews
Published by the National Centre for Social Research, the Survey Methods Newsletter "focuses on methodological aspects of surveys and evaluation."  Currently, only the most recent issue is available online, but the Centre intends to post back-issues in the coming months.

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Statistics

Below, you will find links to websites providing access to statistics of general use to sociology researchers, for more specific statistics, see the other sections of this guide.

Current Population Survey
http://www.census.gov/cps/
"The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a monthly survey of about 50,000 households conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics...The CPS is the primary source of information on the labor force characteristics of the U.S. population."

Data on the Net
http://3stages.org/idata
Comprised of a "listing of 361 Internet sites of numeric Social Science statistical data, data catalogs, data libraries, social science gateways, addresses and more."

FedStats
http://www.fedstats.gov/
Provides a "gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. Federal agencies."

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) "maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction."  Data may be search or accessed by keyword through the database's thesaurus.

Population Index
http://popindex.princeton.edu/
"Population Index is the primary reference tool to the world's population literature. It presents an annotated bibliography of recently published books, journal articles, working papers, and other materials on population topics. This website provides a searchable and browsable database containing 46,035 abstracts of demographic literature published in Population Index in the period 1986-2000."

Population Studies
http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/dis/data/datapages.html
The Data Archive and Data Support arm of the Center for Population Studies at the University of Michigan, provides access to a variety of population data, geographical and longitudinal population data in the U.S., and international data.

Statistical Resources on the Web -- Sociology
http://www.lib.umich.edu/government-documents-center/explore/browse/statistics+sociology/943/search/
Links to statistics on topics such as adoption, divorce, poverty, religion, television, etc.

For additional statistics resources, consult the Statistics section of Ely Library's General Reference Web Guide, and Government Documents Websites.

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Last updated April 7, 2010 (ph)