LibGuides: Sociology: Articles

Sociological databases serve as invaluable repositories of primary sources, scholarly research, and archival materials, granting researchers, students, and enthusiasts unprecedented access to the intricacies of human society. These databases aggregate various sociological documents, including scholarly articles, ethnographic studies, government reports, statistical data, and multimedia resources, spanning multiple periods, regions, and themes.

Researchers harness sociological databases to unveil hidden narratives, contextualize social phenomena, and analyze societal dynamics across different contexts. Users gain direct insight into social structures, cultural norms, and lived experiences by immersing themselves in digitized primary sources, facilitating nuanced interpretations and critical analysis.

Furthermore, sociological databases foster interdisciplinary research by enabling scholars to explore intersections between sociology and other fields, such as psychology, economics, political science, and anthropology. Through advanced search functionalities and data visualization tools, researchers can identify patterns, correlations, and trends within extensive datasets, shedding light on complex social phenomena.

Educators utilize sociological databases to enrich classroom instruction, allowing students to engage with primary sources and develop firsthand critical thinking skills. Instructors cultivate sociological literacy by integrating primary documents into lesson plans and empowering students to construct their interpretations of societal issues.

In essence, sociological databases play a pivotal role in democratizing access to sociological knowledge, promoting scholarly inquiry, and preserving the cultural heritage of human societies for future generations. Below is a curated list of databases tailored to sociology, serving as an excellent starting point for your exploration:

Sociology Databases: A - G

Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA) This link opens in a new window An indexing and abstracting tool covering health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education. Updated monthly, ASSIA provides a comprehensive source of social science and health information for the practical and academic professional.
Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940 (Parts 1 & 2) This link opens in a new window Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940 (Parts 1 & 2) presents aspects of LGBTQ life in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. It illuminates the experiences not just of the LGBTQ community as a whole, but of individuals of different races, ethnicities, ages, religions, political orientations, and geographical locations. Historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals are included, as well as publications by and for lesbians and gays, and coverage of governmental responses to the AIDS crisis. The archive also includes gay and lesbian newspapers from more than 35 countries, reports, policy statements, and other documents related to gay rights and health, including the worldwide impact of AIDS, materials tracing LGBTQ activism in Britain from 1950 through 1980, and more.
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window This resource provides access to the published works of numerous historically important black leaders and features unique, fugitive, and never-before-published materials. Subjects include segregation, poverty, education, religion, civil rights, and more.
Cambridge Books (found in Cambridge Core) This link opens in a new window Cambridge Books offers access to FAU's purchased eBooks in Psychology and other Social Sciences from Cambridge University Press.
Criminal Justice (Gale OneFile) This link opens in a new window This collection offers more than 700 journals in the legal and criminal justice field.
eHRAF World Cultures This link opens in a new window A cross-cultural database that contains information on all aspects of cultural and social life. The annually-growing eHRAF database is unique in that the information is organized into cultures and ethnic groups and the full-text sources are subject-indexed at the paragraph level.
Ethnographic Video Online This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Video Online provides a comprehensive resource for the study of human culture and behavior. The collection covers every region of the world and feature the work of many of the influential documentary filmmakers of the 20th century, including interviews, previously unreleased raw footage, field notes, study guides, and more.
DemographicsNow (Gale Business) This link opens in a new window Library Edition A comprehensive tool that provides highly sought after demographic data including income, housing, race, age, education, consumer expenditures, and more.
Filmakers Library Online This link opens in a new window This multidisciplinary collection provides award-winning documentaries with relevance across the curriculumrace and gender studies, human rights, globalization and global studies, multiculturalism, international relations, criminal justice, the environment, bioethics, health, political science and current events, psychology, arts, literature, and more. It presents points of view and historical and current experiences from diverse cultures and traditions world-wide.
glbtq This link opens in a new window Open Access An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, & queer culture.

Sociology Databases: H - Z

Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984 This link opens in a new window This resource offers a broad range of subject coverage in the humanities and social sciences with high-quality indexing of more than 1,300,000 articles in nearly 1,100 periodicals, dating as far back as 1907, as well as citations of over 240,000 book reviews.
Humanities Source This link opens in a new window Includes Humanities Full Text, Humanities Index Retrospective and additional content. Subject areas include archaeology, area studies, art, classical studies, communications, dance, film, folklore, gender studies, history, journalism, linguistics, literary and social criticism literature, music, performing arts, philosophy, religion and theology. Funded by statewide allocation.
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research This link opens in a new window Downloading and viewing of data files may require proprietary software. An archive of computer-based research and instructional data for the social sciences administered by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new window This database includes over 3 million bibliographic references to journal articles and to books, reviews and selected chapters dating back to 1951. It is unique in its broad coverage of international material and incorporates over 100 languages and countries.
LGBT Studies in Video This link opens in a new window LGBT Studies in Video is a cinematic survey of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as well as the cultural and political evolution of the LGBT community. This collection features award-winning documentaries, interviews, archival footage, and select feature films exploring LGBT history, gay culture and subcultures, civil rights, marriage equality, LGBT families, AIDS, transgender issues, religious perspectives on homosexuality, global comparative experiences, and other topics.
Media Education Foundation (MEF) Collection This link opens in a new window The films in this collection encourage critical thinking about the social, political, and cultural impact of American mass media. With a special focus on representations of gender and race, and the effect these representations have on identity and culture, MEF films are especially well-suited for use in Women's Studies, Sociology, Race Studies, Communication, Anthropology, Education, and Psychology courses.
Pop Culture Studies (Gale OneFile) This link opens in a new window This collection provides useful information for any researcher in a social science, history, art or liberal arts course. This collection is made up of more than 100 subject-appropriate full-text periodicals.
Routledge Handbooks Online This link opens in a new window Routledge Handbooks Online brings together leading scholars to provide an overview of classic and current research and future trends in the Social Sciences and Humanities.
Social Science Premium Collection (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window This collection provides access to databases covering the international literature in the social sciences, including politics, sociology, social services, anthropology, criminology, and education. Funded by statewide allocation.
Social Services Abstracts This link opens in a new window Provides bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development.
Social Theory This link opens in a new window Social Theory offers an extensive selection of documents that explore the complexities and interpret the nature of social behavior and organization. This final release features more than 150,000 pages of content by such major theorists as Theodor Adorno, Jean Baudrillard, Simone de Beauvoir, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, mile Durkheim, Michel Foucault, Jrgen Habermas, Robert Merton, Dorothy E. Smith , and Talcott Parsons.
SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window The database features more than 1,660,000 records with subject headings from a 19,300 term sociological thesaurus designed by subject experts and expert lexicographers. SocINDEX with Full Text contains full text for 344 "core" coverage journals dating back to 1895, and 129 "priority" coverage journals. This database also includes full text for more than 700 books and monographs, and full text for 6,800 conference papers.
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window Sociological Abstracts indexes and abstracts the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.
Twentieth Century Advice Literature: North American Guides on Race, Gender, Sex, and the Family This link opens in a new window Brings together the instructional, prescriptive, behavioral, and etiquette literature that defined standards of personal conduct for millions of Americans and reflected the prevailing social mores across the twentieth century. When complete, the collection will contain 150,000 pages of fully searchable handbooks, manuals, textbooks, etiquette guides, self-help books, instructional pamphlets, and how-to books that illustrate both how Americans actually behaved and how they felt they ought to behave.
Women's Studies Archive: Women's Issues and Identities This link opens in a new window Student Tech Fee Funded Womens Studies Archive: Womens Issues and Identities provides the opportunity to witness history from the female perspective. Global in scope and offering coverage of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the archive presents materials covering the social, political, and professional aspects of women's lives and offers a look at the roles, experiences, and achievements of women in society. A wide range of primary sources provide a close look at some of the pioneers of women's history, a deep dive into the issues that have affected women, and the many contributions they have made to society. Within the archive can be found fascinating historical records from Europe, North and South America, Africa, India, East Asia, and the Pacific Rim with content in English, French, German, and Dutch.
Women and Social Movements in the United States Scholar's Edition This link opens in a new window The resource, which examines perspectives on women's social movements from Colonial times to the present, brings together books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women's reform activities. This edition includes the Women's Commission Reports.

Newspaper Databases A - G

Access World News (Newsbank) This link opens in a new window Research diverse perspectives, topics and trends that align with curricular areas such as Political Science, English, Sociology, Humanities, Business, International Studies, and more. Features reliable, credible information from a wide variety of international, national, and local news sources including the including the Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post, and others.
African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window This resource enables users to search more than 270 African American newspapers published in the 19th and 20th centuries. Created in partnership with the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Kansas State Historical Society and the Library of Congress, African American Newspapers chronicles a century and a half of the African American experience.
America's Historical Newspapers, 1690-1900 This link opens in a new window Early American newspapers including titles from all 50 present states. Includes: Early American Newspapers, Series I (1690-1876) and Series II (1758-1900).
Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876 This link opens in a new window Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876 enables users to search more than 66 newspaper titles from 22 islands, including Bermuda, published in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Chicago Tribune This link opens in a new window Complete full-text content of local and regional news, including community events, schools, politics, government policies, cultural activities, local companies, state industries, and people in the community. Paid advertisements are excluded.
Christian Science Monitor This link opens in a new window Full-text coverage of the Christian Science Monitor. Funded by statewide allocation.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window Open Access This site allows you to search and read newspaper pages from 1900-1910 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).
CQ Researcher Plus Archive This link opens in a new window The CQ Researcher explores a single "hot" issue in the news in depth each week. Topics range from social and teen issues to environment, health, education and science, and technology. There are 44 reports produced each year, including four expanded reports. Funded by statewide allocation.
Current Affairs in Video This link opens in a new window Current Affairs in Video features award-winning films and documentaries emphasizing detailed analysis and discussion of the critical issues of the day.
Education Week This link opens in a new window Independent, non-profit newspaper covering K-12 education. Published 37 times a year, including three issues of annual reports.
Ethnic NewsWatch and Ethnic NewsWatch: A History This link opens in a new window Ethnic NewsWatch is an interdisciplinary, bilingual (English and Spanish) and comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. Designed to provide the "other side of the story," ENW full-text titles offer additional viewpoints from those proffered by the mainstream
Florida Digital Newspaper Library This link opens in a new window Open Access The Florida Digital Newspaper Library exists to provide access to the news and history of Florida.
Florida Newspaper Database This link opens in a new window Indexing to news resources from around the state. Includes some full text.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports, 1974-1996 This link opens in a new window FBIS Daily Reports consists of translated broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals and government statements from nations around the globe.

Newspapers Databases H - Z

HarpWeek This link opens in a new window This resource provides electronic access to Harper's Weekly: 1857-1912.
Historical Atlanta Daily World This link opens in a new window This database offers full-page and article images with searchable full text. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue. Coverage spans 1931- 2003.
Historical Chicago Defender This link opens in a new window Black Studies Center provides the full-text backfile, from 1910 to 1975, of the influential black newspaper The Chicago Defender.
Historical Los Angeles Sentinel This link opens in a new window This database offers full-page and article images with searchable full text, covering 1934 -2005. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue.
Historical Los Angeles Times This link opens in a new window This database offers full-page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue. Coverage spans 1881- 2000.
Historical New York Amsterdam News This link opens in a new window The Amsterdam News was founded as a six-page weekly covering local news by James Henry Anderson in 1909. Under the ownership of C. B. Powell and Philip M. H. Savory from 1938, it became the largest black community weekly in the United States. Contributors to the newspaper have included W. E. B. Du Bois, Roy Wilkins and Malcolm X. Our coverage spans 1922-1993.
Historical New York Times This link opens in a new window This database offers full-page and article images from the New York Times from its first issue in 1851 to 2020. The collection includes digital reproductions of every page from every issue, cover to cover, in downloadable PDF files. The database is an ongoing project.
Historical Pittsburgh Courier This link opens in a new window This database offers full-page and article images with searchable full text. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue. Coverage spans 1911- 2002.

Historical U.S. Newspapers (Primary Source Guide) The United States Historical Newspaper Research Subject Guide provides the research with links to historical American Newspapers.

Historical Wall Street Journal This link opens in a new window Each issue is indexed for easy searching; and this resource offers complete pages and images from the run dating back to the first 1889 issue through 2012.

Historical World Newspapers (Primary Source Guide) This resource is a Subject Research Guide that links historical newspapers worldwide.

Illustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines This link opens in a new window The Illustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines website makes it possible for you to discover the lively news stories, illustrations, cartoons, editorials, biographies, literature, and even advertisements that shaped and reflected public opinion in this era.
Latin American Newspapers This link opens in a new window This collection provides more than 35 fully searchable key Latin American newspapers published in the 19th and 20th centuries, featuring titles from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and elsewhere.
Los Angeles Times This link opens in a new window Also see Historical Los Angeles Times. Major daily newspaper from Los Angeles. With the nation's largest editorial department, it offers extensive coverage of national, international, and local news.
Meet the Press This link opens in a new window Network television's longest running program (premiering in 1947), Meet the Press, is now searchable on a single platform, and includes thousands of interviews, panels, and debates. Many episodes have not been seen since their original broadcast.
Miami Herald Collection with Historical Archive This link opens in a new window Complete full-text content of local and regional news, including archive years of the Miami Herald from 1911 to 1982.
Miami Herald Historical Archive This link opens in a new window Archive years of the Miami Herald from 1911 to 1982, with full-text content of local and regional news.
Nation Archive This link opens in a new window This database contains indexing & abstracting and full text for the complete archive of The Nation beginning with its first issue in 1865 through to the present.
New York Times This link opens in a new window Also see Historical New York Times. Provides coverage of national and international news, plus coverage of important speeches and documents, Supreme Court decisions and presidential press conference transcripts.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window Accesses over a billion full-text news, magazine, legal, and business articles and reports, including newspapers, magazines, state and federal laws and regulations, case law, newsletters, and company and industry information. Funded by statewide allocation.
Palm Beach Post This link opens in a new window Complete full text of local and regional news.
Readex AllSearch This link opens in a new window Cross-search historical collections containing books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents, and ephemera. This resource provides access to America's Historical Imprints, including Early American Imprints Series I: Evans, Early American Imprints Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, American Civil War Collection, and American Slavery Collection; America's Historical Newspapers, including African American Newspapers and Caribbean Newspapers; Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports; and World Newspaper Archive: Latin American Newspapers.
Regional Business News This link opens in a new window Provides comprehensive full-text coverage for regional business publications, including business journals, newspapers, and newswires from all metropolitan and rural areas within the United States.
Sun Sentinel This link opens in a new window Complete full-text content of local and regional news, including community events, schools, politics, government policies, cultural activities, local companies, state industries, and people in the community. Paid advertisements are excluded.
Times Digital Archive This link opens in a new window Search with the Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive on Gale NewsVault. Researchers can search through the complete digital edition of The Times (London), using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full-facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching.
Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive This link opens in a new window Search with the Times Digital Archive on Gale NewsVault. Includes the complete run of The Times Literary Supplement from 1902 to 2008, including reviews, letters, poems, articles and literary criticism. The TLS has attracted the contributions of the worlds most influential writers and critics, from T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf in the 1920s and 30s to A.N. Wilson and Christopher Hitchens in the 1990s and 2000s.
USA Today This link opens in a new window With daily circulation exceeding 2 million in all 50 states, USA TODAY is the most widely read newspaper in the country.
Wall Street Journal This link opens in a new window Also see Historical Wall Street Journal. The paper is considered the preeminent publication for business news and information on financial markets worldwide. Each issue of every newspaper is indexed thoroughly, so researchers can access not only top news stories but also detailed information from all the paper's sections. For each article cited in the database, an abstract of up to 75 words helps the researcher know if the complete text will meet his or her needs.
Washington Post This link opens in a new window Coverage of national, international, and local news. The Washington Post is renowned for its political reporting, editorials and columnists.
Westlaw This link opens in a new window Westlaw enables students and faculty to research law-related issues. This comprehensive collection of legal content includes expert's analysis from hundreds of law reviews and journals, encyclopedias, treatises and full-text legislation, regulations, and court decisions.

General Reference Databases:

Academic OneFile (Gale) This link opens in a new window Academic OneFile is a source for peer-reviewed, full-text articles from the world's leading journals and reference sources with extensive coverage of the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature and other subjects. Includes full-text coverage of the New York Times back to 1985.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window The world's largest scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database. This scholarly collection offers information in nearly every area of academic study including computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies.
Academic Video Online: Premium This link opens in a new window Academic Video Online brings together over 40 multidisciplinary video collections from Alexander Street Press, covering art and architecture, diversity, health sciences, history, music and performing arts, psychology and counseling, sciences and engineering, and social sciences. See separate collection titles and the mulitmedia platform -Alexander Street Press- within our A-Z Database List.
Alexander Street Press Video This link opens in a new window ProQuest's Alexander Street Video contains Alexander Street's streaming video content. Subject matter spans across the curriculum —in literature; music; social and cultural history; film; the performing arts; religion; sociology; and other areas. This platform contains our owned collections and our subscription to Academic Video Online: Premium.
Biography (Gale In Context) This link opens in a new window Biography (Gale In Context) merges Gale's reference content with periodicals and multimedia. Users can search based on name, occupation, role, historical period, dates and places, and other aspects. These entries cover international figures from all time periods and areas of study. Funded by statewide allocation.
Gale General Reference Center Gold This link opens in a new window A general interest database that integrates a variety of sources in one easy-to-use interface. Use General Reference Center Gold to find articles from newspapers, reference books, and periodicals, many with full text and images. Find the latest current events, popular culture, business and industry coverage, the arts and sciences, sports, hobbies, and more.
Gale Virtual Reference Library This link opens in a new window A database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. These reference materials once were accessible only in the library, but now you can access them online from the library or remotely 24/7. Because each library creates its own eBook collection, the content you see may vary if you use the database at different libraries (your school, your public library, or your office).
General OneFile (Gale) This link opens in a new window A one-stop source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics: business, computers, current events, economics, education, environmental issues, health care, hobbies, humanities, law, literature and art, politics, science, social science, sports, technology, and many general interest topics.
HathiTrust This link opens in a new window Open Access. FAU users may log in with FAUNet ID to download ebooks. HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of books digitized from libraries around the world. FAU is a partner institution.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window More than 2000 scholarly journals in education, humanities, mathematics, science, and social science disciplines. Most full-text access is archival; some current full text. Also includes a collection of over 500 Spanish-language e-books, which are student tech fee funded.
JSTOR Sustainability Collection This link opens in a new window Includes a wide range of journals, ebooks, and more than 5,400 Open Access research reports in the field of sustainability. Explores resilience and sustainability, and covers research on environmental stresses and their impact on society. Generously funded by the FAU Student Government Association.
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary This link opens in a new window College level English language dictionary.
NYPL Digital Gallery This link opens in a new window Open Access NYPL Digital Gallery is the New York Public Library's image database, developed to provide free and open online access to thousands of images from the original and rare holdings of the Research Libraries. Spanning a wide range of visual media, NYPL Digital Gallery offers digital images of drawings, illuminated manuscripts, maps, photographs, posters, prints, rare illustrated books, and more. Encompassing the subject strengths of the vast collections of the Research Libraries, these materials represent the applied sciences, fine and decorative arts, history, performing arts, and social sciences.
Opposing Viewpoints (Gale In Context) This link opens in a new window This database covers today's hottest social issues, from offshore drilling to climate change, health care to immigration. It includes pro/con viewpoint essays, topic overviews, primary documents, biographies, periodical articles and more. This is a good source for students to start research or analysis of an issue, to complete writing assignments, prepare for a debate, or create a presentation.
Points of View Reference Center This link opens in a new window This database contains resources that present multiple sides of an issue, aiding students in developing persuasive arguments and essays. Covering many subjects, each topic includes an overview (objective background/description), point (argument) and counterpoint (opposing argument).
ProQuest This link opens in a new window An all-inclusive list of databases availble to FAU from this vendor.
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global This link opens in a new window ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global includes international dissertations and theses as well as all previous content. It is the world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, spanning from 1743 to the present day and offering full text for graduate works added since 1997, along with selected full text for works written prior to 1997. It contains a significant amount of new international dissertations and theses both in citations and in full text.
Social Science Premium Collection (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window This collection provides access to databases covering the international literature in the social sciences, including politics, sociology, social services, anthropology, criminology, and education. Funded by statewide allocation.
Taylor & Francis Online This link opens in a new window The Taylor & Francis Online journal collection includes scholarly journals in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science and Technology. Imprints include Psychology Press and Routledge.
WorldCat This link opens in a new window WorldCat is now available on the new WorldCat Discovery platform. A comprehensive catalog with over 179 million bibliographic records representing library collections from around the world. The catalog includes books, print journals, DVDs, historic photos, video games, musical scores, newspapers, webpages and other items.