For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies by email moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

Essay

Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process and steps to take to find resources for your essay.

Selected encyclopedias and handbooks

Get overviews, summaries, key authors, debates and ideas from encyclopedias, handbooks or textbooks. 

• Data journalism handbook : towards a critical data practice

Databases for journal articles

How to find journal articles tutorial. 

What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?

If the full-text of the article is not available within the database then use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

• Women's Studies International - key database for the discipline
• Academic Search Premier - Multidisciplinary index to academic & popular journals. Limit to "scholarly" or "peer-reviewed" articles
• ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science. For information of immigrants, racism, society, structural barriers, etc.

Find books in the Library

Library Catalogue search guide 

Search the SFU Library Catalogue, using either the Basic or the Advanced search

Note: In the searches below, search results can be limited to "Online Resources only" and "Resource type" of "Books" and selected "Subjects"

• data AND (women OR gender OR feminis*)
• statistics AND (women OR gender OR feminis*)
  • limited by selected subjects and date, from 2010 on
• quanti* AND (women OR gender OR feminis*)
• metrics AND (women OR gender OR feminis*)
• (critical OR critique OR analys*) AND (data OR statistic* OR quantitative) AND (women OR gender OR feminis*) AND [add your topic words]

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Use pull-down menu and select, "Source Types" as "Books"

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

When you find a useful book, click on its "subject" to find more books on the same topic.

Selected books

• Aligning perspectives in gender mainstreaming : gender, health, safety, and wellbeing
• Big data : how the information revolution is transforming our lives [print]
• Compromised data : from social media to big data 
• Damned lies and statistics untangling numbers from the media, politicians, and activists 
• Data feminism (Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein)
• Data journalism handbook : towards a critical data practice
• Data lives : how data are made and shape our world
• Data Visualization in Society
• Explaining the gender wage gap : the missing aspects of discrimination
• Gender and practice : knowledge, policy, organizations 
• Gender pay gap : understanding the numbers
• Gender visibility and erasure 
• Intersectional perspective on the Canadian gender wage gap
• Leadership and women in statistics 
• Measuring Gender Equality: A Multidisciplinary Analysis of Some EU Countries
• New Perspectives in Critical Data Studies: The Ambivalences of Data Power
• Open Data and the Knowledge Society 
• Pay transparency tools to close the gender wage gap 
• Queer data studies
• Researching gender violence: feminist methodology in action
• Seductions of quantification : measuring human rights, gender violence, and sex trafficking [print]
• We, the data : human rights in the digital age
• What works : gender equality by design
• When women didn't count : the chronic mismeasure and marginalization of American women in federal statistics 
• Women and Labour Market Dynamics: New Insights and Evidences
• Women's lived experiences of the gender gap : gender inequalities from multiple global perspectives

Browse Books Using Subject Headings

Catalogue Search / Browse then change "Title" to "Subject" and enter your subject term

• Data mining -- Moral and ethical aspects
• Data mining -- Social aspects
• Gender mainstreaming
• Gender mainstreaming -- Canada
• Quantitative research
• Social indicators -- Canada
• Wages -- Women

Government data and statistics

Canadian

Guides:  Statistical resources: Data & statistics information

• BCSTATS
• The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Status of Women (FFEW)
• Statistics Canada 
  • Use their search engine. E.g. "gender"
    • Gender, diversity and inclusion statistics
  • Subjects 
  • Data
• Canada. Open Government Portal [data]
  • Search: (women OR gender OR female) AND (labor OR labour OR work OR jobs OR wage* OR pay)
  • You can limit by govenmental jurisdiction (such as British Columbia, Alberta, etc.)

International

• UN Women
  • Search: gender statistics
  • Measuring violence against women with disability: Data availability, methodological issues, and recommendations for good practice
  • Progress of the World’s Women (series)
  • Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2023
  • Violence against women 60 years and older: Data availability, methodological issues, and recommendations for good practice
• World Economic Forum
  • The Global Gender Gap Report (annual)

Library guides

• Library Research Tutorials. Animated tutorials on search techniques for finding books and journal articles.
• Annotated bibliographies
• Evaluating sources
• How to find journal articles
• Library Catalogue search guide
• What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?
• What is plagiarism?  Guide to common forms of plagiarism and how to avoid them

Presentation skills

• Resources on developing your participation skills
• Resources to help you improve your presentation skills

Writing help

Student Learning Commons provides assistance and numerous, helpful guides.

• Academic writing resources
• Library Catalogue search: Academic writing
  • E.g. Writing effective course assignments : a guide to non-degree and undergraduate students
• Book a consultation