Research Guides: Sociology: Articles and Databases

Live Help

What's a Database?

Article databases contain information about articles, and often include the full-text of the articles as well.

While searching our discovery service will find articles for you, databases allow you do more controlled and precise searching.

Sociology Journals

You may be asked to find articles that are from sociology journals. Searching in a sociology database, like Sociological Abstracts, is a good place to get started, but not every journal in that database is sociological. (There are many journals that focus on social work or psychology, for example).

Here are some tips for evaluating journals:

Check the journal title. Sometimes it will be obvious if it is sociological or not:
- Sociology of Health and Illness - a sociology journal
- American Journal of Community Psychology - a psychology journal
Search for the journal title in Google to go to the journal's homepage. Most journals will have an "about" section that indicates what disciplines are covered by the journal.
- Journals about sociology may use different key phrases, such as "social interactions," "social structure," or "society."

There is not a simple checkbox you can select to limit yourself to sociology journals, so make sure to give yourself time to think critically about your sources.

Specialized databases for finding articles in Sociology

Best Bets
Other Suggestions

Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,700 serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Updated monthly.
Informit Indigenous Collection This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
The Informit Indigenous Collection provides access to emergent and groundbreaking research within the global community. This database will benefit professionals and researchers involved with Indigenous issues including anthropologists, archaeologists, people working in government departments, health services, legal services, as well as Aboriginal land councils and other Indigenous organisations. [Publisher's description]
Social Sciences Citation Index This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Current and retrospective bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references found in over 1,700 of the world's leading scholarly social sciences journals covering more than 50 disciplines. They also cover individually selected, relevant items from approximately 3,300 of the world's leading science and technology journals.
Academic Search Complete
- This link opens in a new window
Scholarly collection, spans nearly every area of academic study. Updated daily.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
JSTOR represents over 600 journals in the arts, humanities and social sciences. NOTE: Does not provide access to current issues of periodicals. JSTOR provides archival access to journals and access to journals varies from publisher to publisher. In most cases two to five years plus the current calendar year are excluded.
Sage Journals Online This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
More than 350 journals from 10 disciplines: education, health sciences, management, communication, sociology, psychology, political science, materials science, criminology, urban studies, with extensive back files

SocArXiv
Free open archive of social sciences research

TRUSpace This link opens in a new window
TRUSpace is Thompson Rivers University's institutional repository. You will find scholarly research materials from faculty and students and other digital assets like newsletters, images, multimedia, and much more.

ERIC: Educational Resources Information Center This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Consists of both the Resources in Education (RIE) file of document citations and the Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE) file of journal article citations from more than 1,000 educational and education-related journals. Updated quarterly
Canadian Business and Current Affairs This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Canadian Business & Current Affairs™ Database combines full text and indexed content from a broad range of Canadian sources. Subject coverage: Canadian current events, business, science and technology, education, health, humanities and the arts, politics.
Social Services Abstracts This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development. Abstracts and indexes more than 1,400 publications and includes abstracts of journal articles and dissertations, and citations to book reviews. Updated monthly.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
The NCJRS: National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts Database is published by the U.S. Department of Justice's and can be used for research, policy, and practice related to criminal and juvenile justice. Contains summaries of over 210,000 U.S. and international publications. Updated monthly.
PILOTS This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Includes citations to all literature on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental-health sequelae of traumatic events, without disciplinary, linguistic, or geographical limitations, while offering both current and retrospective coverage.