Contact info

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Sociology / Anthropology by email moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

Research process

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.

Selected reference works

Encyclopedias, handbooks or textbooks provide overviews, definitions and identify key authors and ideas.

• Blackwell companion to social inequalities
• Encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender & queer culture
• Encyclopedia of gender in media 
• Encyclopedia of race and racism
• Encyclopedia of sex and gender
• Encyclopedia of Sexuality and Gender
• Global encyclopedia of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) history
• Greenwood encyclopedia of LGBT issues worldwide
• Handbook on gender and health
• Handbook of the Sociology of Gender
• Handbook of the Sociology of Health, Illness, and Healing: A Blueprint for the 21st Century
• Handbook of the Sociology of Sexualities
• Oxford handbook of stigma, discrimination, and health
• Palgrave handbook of gender and healthcare
• Palgrave handbook of masculinity and sport
• Routledge handbook of sexuality, health and rights
• Rowman & Littlefield handbook of transgender studies
• Sage encyclopedia of LGBTQ studies
• Transgender : a reference handbook

Find journal articles

Searching the "Databases for a discipline" is a great strategy to view articles that have been written within the scholarly journals of that discipline.  For help, refer to the How to find journal articles, What is a scholarly journal?, and Finding articles: Advanced search techniques [video 3:13 mins]

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

• ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science.
• Social Sciences Full Text 
• Women's Studies International  - for issues related to gender, sexuality and women's studies

Find books

The Library Catalogue provides access to books, journal articles, videos, government documents and much more.  To limit the search results to "books", use the filter (left-hand column in search results) to "resource type" of "books."

Library Catalogue search guide

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

Note: In the searches below, search results have been limited by "Resource type" of "Books" and selected "Subjects"

• race AND class AND gender AND canad*
• (sexualit* OR mascuilin* OR feminit*) AND (theor* OR debat* OR issue*)
• (gender OR masculin* OR feminin*)  AND sociolog*
• gender AND ethnic* AND (racial* OR racism)
• gender AND (sexual OR reproductive) AND (health OR rights)
• gender AND reproductive AND (technologies OR rights)
• masculin*  AND sociolog*
• gender AND (work OR jobs OR employ*)
• ("domestic labor" OR "care labor" OR "house work" OR housework OR "household work" OR chores)
• ("domestic labor" OR "care labor" OR "house work" OR housework OR "household work" OR chores) AND (gender OR women OR men)
• (immigra* OR migra*) AND (domestic OR "household work" OR housework OR "house work" OR carework* OR "care work* OR childcare OR "child care" OR "elder care")

Proper syntax for Boolean logic (words that allow you to combine concepts)

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")

Selected books

• Anthropological Perspectives on Care : Work, Kinship, and the Life-Course 
• Asian women as transnational domestic workers [print]
• Behind Closed Doors : Protecting and Promoting the Human Rights of Migrant Domestic Workers in an Irregular Situation
• Bringing Household Services Out of the Shadows Formalising Non-Care Work in and Around the House
• Care activism : migrant domestic workers, movement-building, and communities of care 
• Caring on the Clock : The Complexities and Contradictions of Paid Care Work 
• The Cultural Politics of U.S. Immigration: Gender, Race, and Media
• Depletion : the human costs of caring 
• Disrupting queer inclusion : Canadian homonationalisms and the politics of belonging
• Dividing the domestic : men, women, and household work in cross-national perspective 
• The economic costs of care to family/friend caregivers : a synthesis of findings 
• Female gaze : essays on gender, society and media 
• Ethnicisation and Domesticisation: The Impact of Care, Gender and Migration Regimes on Paid Domestic Work in Europe
• Freedom to care : liberalism, dependency care, and culture 
• Gender and Time Use in a Global Context: The Economics of Employment and Unpaid Labor
• Gender Capital at Work : Intersections of Femininity, Masculinity, Class and Occupation
• Gender perspectives and gender impacts of the global economic crisis
• Gender Work : Feminism after Neoliberalism
• Global Masculinities and Manhood
• Global Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage A Neo-Institutional Approach
• Hard Work Is Not Enough: Gender and Racial Inequality in an Urban Workspace
• Home sweat home : perspectives on housework and modern relationships 
• Immigrant care workers in aging societies : the Canadian context and experience
• Infertility around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies
• LGBT Athletes in the Sports Media
• LGBT Transnational Identity and the Media
• Liberalism, neutrality, and the gendered division of labor
• Marginality and Global LGBT Communities Conflicts, Civil Rights and Controversy
• Migration and Domestic Work: IMISCOE Short Reader
• Migration and Domestic Work: The Collective Organisation of Women and Their Voices from the City
• Migration, gender and care economy
• Misogyny in American culture : causes, trends, and solutions
• (nannies OR domestic work*) AND (employ* OR jobs OR labour OR labor) AND canad*
• Part-time for all : a care manifesto 
• Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale : women in the international division of labour 
• Re-negotiating Gender: Household Division of Labor when She Earns More than He Does
• Solidarity & care : domestic worker activism in New York City 
• Something's got to give : balancing work, childcare and eldercare 
• Talking Bodies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Embodiment, Gender and Identity
• Thinking queerly : race, sex, gender, and the ethics of identity
• The third job : employed couples' management of household work contradictions
• The transgender studies reader / edited by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle
• Unfree : Migrant Domestic Work in Arab States 
• What even is gender?
• When care work goes global : locating the social relations of domestic work
• Who cares : the hidden crisis of caregiving, and how we solve it 
• Why who cleans counts : what housework tells us about American family life 
• Work, labour and cleaning : the social contexts of outsourcing housework 

Browse search

Choose: Browse tab, change "title" to "subject"

• Caregivers
• Caregivers -- Canada
• Division of labor
• Gay Liberation Movement Canada
• Gay Rights -- Canada
• Gay Rights United States
• Gender and sexuality
• Gender identity
• Heterosexism
• Household employees
• Queer Theory
• Transsexual Men
• Transgender People
• Racism -- Canada
• Sex change
• Sex role
• Sexual division of labor
• Transsexualism
• Transsexuals
• Transvestism
• Transsexuals -- Civil rights
• Transsexuals -- Legal status, laws, etc.
• Women household employees

Presentation skills and writing help

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.

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

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