Best Bets: Top Sociology Databases for Journal Articles
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- Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new windowProvides access to the international literature in sociology and related disciplines. Covers 1800+ journals, back to 1952.
- SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new windowIndexes 1,800 sociology-related journals & magazines back to 1895, with full text for 620 of them, plus indexing for books, etc.
More About Sociology Databases
Library databases (also known as "indexes") identify articles published on a particular topics. In addition to journal articles, many databases will also identify book chapters, dissertations, and other reports.
We have several databases specific to sociology content:
- SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
- This database is on the EBSCO interface
- Indexes 1,800 sociology-related journals & magazines back to 1895, with full text for 620 of them, plus indexing for books, etc.
- The default search will look for your terms in the records that summarize the articles, i.e., it matches your search terms in the title, abstract, author-supplied keywords, subject terms, etc., but not in the full text
- You can expand your search to include looking for terms in the full text of articles by changing the search field in the drop-down menu to "TX All Text"
- Compared to Sociological Abstracts, SocINDEX searches a slightly broader range of literature across related fields.
- Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
- This database is on the ProQuest interface
- Sociological Abstracts is an indexing and abstracting database of approximately 1,000 journals plus additional publications, meaning that it provides robust indexing details (i.e., subject classifications) and article abstracts.
- Links are provided to the full text (and it is seamlessly imported when available via ProQuest Sociology), and the full text is searched.
- You can limit your search to "no full text" to increase the relevance by matching search terms to only the article title, abstract, and indexing details.
- It contains abstracts for all articles in ProQuest Sociology, plus many, many more.
- For everything you ever wanted to know about content and search options: Guide to Sociological Abstracts from ProQuest.
- Sociology Database This link opens in a new window
- ProQuest Sociology is a full text article database of approximately 300 journals.
- It does not use the Sociological Abstracts thesaurus of subject classifications.
- It provides the full text that is seamlessly integrated into Sociological Abstracts.
- The scope is much more limited, so it is not recommended for most general searches of the sociological literature.
- Sociological Abstracts also searches the full text of articles.
Pro Tip: Search Sociological Abstracts and ProQuest Sociology simultaneously by using the ProQuest "change databases" option at the top of the screen to select multiple databases.
More Databases with Sociology Content
Topics in sociology often overlap with complementary areas of inquiry.
It may be useful to search within a multidisiplinary database/index, or other subject specific indexes.
Multidisciplinary Databases
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowCovering 12,000+ scholarly journals, plus selected books and published conference proceedings in all academic disciplines, the Web of Science Core Collection combines seven citation indexes which permit searching for articles that cite a known author or work, as well as searching by subject, author, journal, and author address.
- ProQuest This link opens in a new window
Combined access to all ProQuest databases, covering many different fields and full text articles.
- Google Scholar @ U-M (with U-M Ann Arbor MGet It Links) This link opens in a new windowSearches for scholarly documents on the web, with the added feature of "Availability at UMichigan" links.
- Scopus This link opens in a new windowInternational multi-disciplinary indexing & abstracting database for scientific, medical, technical, and social sciences.
General Social Sciences Databases
- Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Science) This link opens in a new windowA multidisciplinary database with searchable author abstracts covering over 1700 journals in the social sciences.
- Social Sciences Abstracts (with Full Text) This link opens in a new windowCovers 625 of the most important English-language journals across all the social sciences.
Subject Specific Social Science Databases
Selected list of complementary subject specific indexes that may be useful for interdisciplinary sociology research. For a complete list of all subject specific databases, use Library Search.
- ABI/INFORM Collection This link opens in a new windowCombined access to all three ABI/INFORM business databases: Global, Dateline, and Trade & Industry.
- AgeLine (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowIndexes aging-related content from the health sciences, psychology, sociology, social work, economics, and public policy.
- AGRICOLA This link opens in a new windowA bibliographic database of the agricultural literature, containing records of materials acquired by the National Agriculture Library (NAL) and cooperating institutions. Index to articles in agriculture, soil sciences, forestry, and related areas.
- Agricultural & Environmental Science Database This link opens in a new windowA multidisciplinary database providing comprehensive coverage of the environmental sciences.
- Business Source Complete (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window2,000+ business-related periodicals (1,200+ peer-reviewed), including Harvard Business Review, plus reports, videos, etc.
- Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new windowCoverage of more than 500 full-text journals in the communication and mass media fields.
- Criminal Justice Abstracts (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowProvides comprehensive coverage of the international literature on criminology (incl. journals, books, reports, dissertations, and more).
- ERIC [ProQuest] This link opens in a new windowU.S. Dept. of Education database providing extensive access to educational-related literature.
- Family & Society Studies Worldwide (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowComprehensive resource of research, policy and practice literature in the fields of family science, human ecology and development, and social welfare.
- Gender Studies Database (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowCovers the full spectrum of gender-engaged scholarship inside and outside academia. Several thousand links to freely available and indexed full-text articles and documents on the Web are available.
- LGBTQ+ Source This link opens in a new windowIndexes the popular and scholarly literature addressing issues related to the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender community.
- PAIS Index This link opens in a new windowContains references to nearly 2 million journal articles and other resources on public affairs and public policy worldwide.
- Political Science Complete (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowProvides indexing and abstracts for 2900 journals, and full-text articles for 500 top-ranked scholarly journals.
- PsycInfo (APA) This link opens in a new windowPremier resource for surveying the literature of psychology and adjunct fields. Covers 1887-present. Produced by the APA.
- Social Services Abstracts This link opens in a new windowAn index and abstract of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas.
- Urban Studies Abstracts This link opens in a new windowIncludes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to urban studies, including urban affairs, community development, urban history, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.
Literature Review Journals
- Annual Review of SociologyPublished since 1975. "Topics covered in the journal include major theoretical and methodological developments as well as current research in the major subfields. "
- Sociology CompassPublished since 2007. Online-only, peer-reviewed journal providing reviews of current research on topics from across the discipline.
Top-Ranked Sociology Journals
- Journal Citation Reports This link opens in a new windowProvides citation impact factors for 8,400+ scholarly and technical journals worldwide.
Select "Sociology" from the Category facet and click Submit at the bottom of the page.
- Google Scholar Metrics - Top Publications - SociologyRankings are based on the h index metric
- Research Impact Metrics: Citation Analysis: Ranking JournalsConsult this guide for more information on journal rankings
- Scopus CiteScoreCiteScore is a simple way of measuring the citation impact of sources, such as journals.
***Click on "Sources" (top of page), then choose a Subject Area.
Full text with MGet It
Use the MGet It links in Sociological Abstracts and other databases to connect to the online full text of articles.
Already have a citation? Search by article title using the Library Search for Articles.
Search for journals by title using the Library Online Journals Search, or in the Library Catalog.
If the library does not own the journal you need, submit a document delivery (interlibrary loan) request for the article.