On this page
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.
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.
- Family in Society: Essential Primary Sources
- Handbook of Family Policies Across the Globe
- Handbook of Family Policy
- International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family
- International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences
- Research Handbook on the Sociology of the Family
- Routledge Handbook of Family Communication
- Routledge Handbook of Family Law and Policy
- Routledge handbook of families in Asia
- Sage eReference
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
- Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris Canadian public policy documents
- 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)
- (family OR families) AND (sociopolitical OR socio-political)
- (family OR families) AND (political OR social) AND (inclusion OR illigibility OR in-eligibil* OR exclusion)
- (family OR families) AND (political OR social) AND power
- (childcare OR child-care OR daycare) AND (Canad* or British Columbia)
- (family OR families) AND [name of group OR name of country]
- (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 (poor OR low income) AND Canad*
- (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*
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
- Contemporary African American families : achievements, challenges, and empowerment strategies in the twenty-first century
- Families apart: migrant mothers and the conflicts of labor and love
- Family matters: an introduction to family sociology in Canada / Barbara A. Mitchell [print]
- Family Policy in Transformation US and UK Policies
- Global Families, Inequality and Transnational Adoption The De-Kinning of First Mothers
- Grandparents in Cultural Context
- Marginalized mothers, mothering from the margins
- Marrying Kind?: Debating Same-Sex Marriage within the Lesbian and Gay Movement
- Notions of family : intersectional perspectives [print]
- Nuclear family values, extended family lives : the power of race, class, and gender
- Parenting Across Cultures: Childrearing, Motherhood and Fatherhood in Non-Western Cultures
- Population development challenges in China : family planning policy and provincial population difference
- Queer families and relationships after marriage equality
- Queering Families: The Postmodern Partnerships of Cisgender Women and Transgender Men
- Sacred space of womanhood : mothering across the generations : a national showcase on First Nations, Inuit, and Métis women and mothering : report
- Social, Political and Historical Contours of Deportation
- Transnational aging and reconfigurations of kin work
- Understanding family meanings : a reflective text [print]
Browse by subject
Browse by subject (change the default "Browse by title" to ""Browse by subject" using the pull-down menu)
- Child Care -- Canada
- Child Care -- Government policy -- Canada
- Day Care Centers -- Canada
- Divorce -- Canada
- Families
- Families -- Canada
- Family policy
- Family policy -- Canada
- Families -- Philippines
- Families -- Sociological aspects
- Father and Child -- Canada
- Gay parents
- Grandparents
- Grandparents as parents
- Immigrant Families -- Canada
- Intergenerational relations
- Marriage -- Canada
- Parenting
- Parenting -- Cross-cultural studies
- Single-parent families
- Social exclusion See Marginality, social
- Sociology of family, youth and aging
- 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