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This guide will provide selected databases for journal articles as well as strategies on how to find books and statistical data on families.
Contact info
For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Sociology / Anthropology by email () or Ask a librarian.
Guides of interest: Violence Against Women and Children, GERO 408 Families and Aging, GSWS 312 - Immigrants, Women and Transnational Migration
Essay
Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.
Writing the annotated bibliography
Check the SFU Library guide, Annotated bibliographies.
University of Toronto's guide provides examples of useful terms to use when creating the annotations: Writing an annotated bibliography
Selected encyclopedias
Use encyclopedias, handbooks or textbook for overviews, definitions, and to identify key authors or concepts.
- Cambridge handbook of parenting : interdisciplinary research and application
- Family in Society: Essential Primary Sources
- Handbook of Family Policy
- Handbook of Intellectual Disabilities: Integrating Theory, Research, and Practice
- Handbook of transnational families around the world
- Handbook on migration and the family
- International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family
- International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences
- International handbook on the demography of marriage and the family
- Palgrave Handbook of Family Sociology in Europe
- Research Handbook of global families: implications for theory and practice
- Routledge companion to romantic love
- Routledge Handbook of Family Communication
- Routledge Handbook of Family Law and Policy
- Routledge handbook of families in Asia
- Sage handbook of global childhoods
- Sage eReference
Research question
How does divorce affect children in later life?
Identify the main concepts:
1) "Divorce"
2) "children in later life" OR "adult children"
Keyword combinations
divorce AND ("children in later life" OR "adult children")
Journal articles
How to find journal articles tutorial
The first three databases (below) will provide articles from sociological and anthropological journals. If the full-text of the article is not available, use the "Get@SFU" link to find it.
- Sociological Abstracts - main database for all aspects of sociology
- Social Sciences Full Text - indexes social sciences journals including sociology and anthropology
- Anthropology Plus - main database for for all aspects of anthropology
- Ageline for all aspects of "ageing" including eldercare, grandparents
- PsycInfo -- for "psychological" angle of topics
- Education Source [search tips] - covers all levels of education from early childhood to higher education. Includes journals, books, conference papers, book reviews and educational tests.
- Canada Commons (formerly, Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris) - for public policy documents from Canadian institutes, think-tanks and research groups.
- CBCA Complete - Canadian content. News and popular magazine articles as well as academic journal articles.
Limit results to "scholarly" articles
For a more complete list of Sociology databases
Find books in the Library
Library Catalogue search guide
Search the SFU Library Catalogue: Advanced keyword
For the searches below, you can further limit the search results by "Subject" or "Resource type" (such as "books)
- divorce AND ("children in later life" OR "adult children")
- (childcare OR child-care OR daycare) AND (Canad* or British Columbia)
- (family OR families) AND (gay OR lesbian* OR LGBT* OR queer OR transgender*) AND (Canad* OR British Columbia)
- (family OR families) AND (aborig* OR indigen* OR "First Nations") AND (Canad* OR British Columbia)
- (family OR families) AND (aborig* OR indigen* OR "First Nations") AND (canad* OR British Columbia) AND decolon*
- (family OR families) AND (poor OR low income) AND Canad*
- (family OR families) AND (poor OR low income) AND Canad* AND (food OR meals OR lunch)
- (family OR families) AND (immigrant OR ethni* OR "visible minor*") AND Canad*
- (family OR families) AND ("single parent*" OR "lone parent*" OR "single mother*" OR "single father*") AND Canad*
- (family OR families) AND (foster OR adopt*) AND Canad*
- (family OR families) AND (non-nuclear OR step)
- (family OR families) AND (special needs OR autis* OR disab*) AND (child* OR adolesc* OR boy* OR girl*)
- (family OR families) AND ("intimate partner violence" OR IPV OR "wife abuse" OR "spousal abuse" OR "wife batter*" OR "domestic abuse*")
- (family OR families) AND (tech* OR social media OR facebook OR twitter OR instagram OR tik tok)
- (family OR families) AND (intergeneration* OR grandparent* OR grandmother* OR grandfather* OR grandchild*) AND (dynamic* OR relations* OR friendship*)
- marriage AND arrang*
- (dating OR courtship OR love OR romance OR romantic) AND (marri* OR spous* OR husband OR wife OR co-habit* OR common-law OR couple*)
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
Note: For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")
Look at the titles in the "results list" and for those books that look relevant, click on their subject headings.
Selected books
- Ageing, Care Need and Quality of Life The Perspective of Care Givers and People in Need of Care
- Arranging Marriage : Conjugal Agency in the South Asian Diaspora
- Canadian families today : new perspectives [2018, print]
- Children with Special Needs: An Overview of Knowledge on Disability
- Cohabitation Nation: Gender, Class, and the Remaking of Relationships
- Connecting families? : information & communication technologies, generations, and the life course
- Creative Families: Gender and Technologies of Everyday Life
- Current collegiate hookup culture : dating apps, hookup scripts, and sexual outcomes
- Dating
- Divorce, separation, and remarriage the transformation of family
- Effects of intimate partner violence on children
- Family Dynamics over the Life Course: Foundations, Turning Points and Outcomes
- Family matters : an introduction to family sociology in Canada / Barbara A. Mitchell [print]
- Fathering and poverty : uncovering men's participation in low-income family life
- First Nations 101 [print]
- Global Families, Inequality and Transnational Adoption The De-Kinning of First Mothers
- Great myths of intimate relationships : dating, sex, and marriage
- Helping couples and families navigate illness and disability : an integrated approach
- Imagining Child Welfare in the Spirit of Reconciliation
- Impact of parental separation on young children's mental health
- Intergenerational Bonds: The Contributions of Older Adults to Young Children's Lives
- Intergenerational Connections in Digital Families
- LGBTQI Parented Families and Schools : Visibility, Representation, and Pride
- Lives of children and adolescents with disabilities
- Love, intimacy and online dating : how a global pandemic redefined romantic relationships
- Marriage Paradox: Why Emerging Adults Love Marriage Yet Push it Aside
- Marrying Kind?: Debating Same-Sex Marriage within the Lesbian and Gay Movement
- Matchmaking in Middle Class India: Beyond Arranged and Love Marriage
- Men, Families, and Poverty: Tracing the Intergenerational Trajectories of Place-Based Hardship
- Modern Relationships: Romance, Friendship, and Family in the 21st Century
- Non-binary family configurations : intersections of queerness and homonormativity
- Opting out : women messing with marriage around the world
- Parenting Across Cultures: Childrearing, Motherhood and Fatherhood in Non-Western Cultures
- Parenting in the 21st Century
- Parents and Caregivers Across Cultures: Positive Development from Infancy Through Adulthood
- Prevalence of low income among persons in one-parent families headed by an immigrant parent : an intersectional analysis (2024)
- Raising Grandkids: Inside Skipped-Generation Families
- Queer families and relationships after marriage equality
- Queering Families: The Postmodern Partnerships of Cisgender Women and Transgender Men
- Racism, colonialism, and indigeneity in Canada : a reader [print]
- Sacred space of womanhood : mothering across the generations : a national showcase on First Nations, Inuit, and Métis women and mothering : report
- Social science of same-sex marriage : LGBT people and their relationships in the era of marriage equality
- Social dynamics of family violence
- Social Media and Personal Relationships : Online Intimacies and Networked Friendship
- Sociocultural context of romantic relationships
- Stepfamily Relationships: Development, Dynamics, and Interventions
- Transnational marriage and partner migration : constellations of security, citizenship, and rights [print]
- Understanding The Everyday Digital Lives of Children and Young People
- What about the family? : practices of responsibility in care
- Who divorces?
- Why don't you just talk to him? : the politics of domestic abuse
- Wife, Inc. : The Business of Marriage in the Twenty-First Century
Browse by subject
Browse by subject (change the default "Browse by title" to ""Browse by subject" using the pull-down menu)
- Abused Wives
- Abused Women
- Child Care -- Canada
- Child Care -- Government policy -- Canada
- Children with developmental disabilities
- Children with Disabilities
- Courtship
- Dating (Social customs)
- Day Care Centers -- Canada
- Divorce
- Divorce -- Canada
- Domestic violence
- Family violence
- Families
- Families -- Canada
- Family policy
- Family policy -- Canada
- Families -- Philippines
- Father and Child -- Canada
- Gay parents
- Grandparents
- Grandparents as parents
- Immigrant Families -- Canada
- Intergenerational relations
- Intimate partner violence
- Marital violence
- Marriage
- Marriage -- Canada
- Media sociology
- Parenting
- Parenting -- Cross-cultural studies
- Poor families
- Same-sex marriage
- Sexual minority parents
- Single-parent families
- Sociology of family, youth and aging
- Spouse abuse
- Spousal abuse
- Unmarried couples
- Wife abuse
- Work and family -- Canada
- Working mothers -- Canada
Government and statistics
British Columbia
- Family & Social Support
- BC Statistics
- B.C.'s Key Indicators
- People, Population, Community
- Employment & Labour Market
Canada
Statistics Canada is the main statistical agency with responsibility to gather statistical data on Canadians. Explore their "subject", "data", and "analysis" sections as well as trying keyword searches on your topic.
- Publications by subject
- Data
- Dimensions of Poverty Hub
- brings together data on the 12 indicators of Canada's Official Poverty Dashboard from the Government of Canada.
- Gender, diversity and inclusion statistics
- Aboriginal Peoples Survey (1)
Use the Search engine to search for topics.
Estimates of the number of census families as of July 1st
Portrait of children’s family life in Canada in 2016 (98-200-X2016006) This article in the Census in Brief series describes the family situations of children living in a lone-parent family, in a stepfamily or without their biological or adoptive parents. This document also ...
Surveys
- Families, households and marital status
- Insights on Canadian Society (75-006-X) From Dec 2012 onwards
- Diversity of young adults living with their parents
Guides
- Annotated bibliographies
- What is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal?,
- Finding and evaluating resources on the web
- Understanding and Avoiding Plagiariasm (tutorial)
- Library Catalogue search guide
- Library research tutorials and guides