ULibraries Research Guides: LEAP: Issues of Life & Death + War & Peace: Sociology

Objectives

1. Students will learn how perform their own social research using the scholarship of sociology, psychology and other social sciences.

2. Students will learn how scholars research social life, behavior & customs of specific populations around the world.

3. Students will learn about boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) and how they make life a bit easier

Introduction

I am a migrant: Gonzalo. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2019, from I Am a Migrant website: https://iamamigrant.org/stories/nicaragua/gonzalo-1

Note: there's no unifying consensus among sociology scholars on 'community' but I really liked the structure of this one.

community can be defined as a group of people
...Who have a sense of common purpose(s) and/or interest(s) for which they assume mutual responsibility,
...Who acknowledge their interconnectedness,
...Who respect the individual differences among members,
...Who commit themselves to the well-being of each other and the integrity and well-being of the group.

Wood, G. S., Jr., & Judikis, J. C. (2002). Conversations on community theory.
West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press (page 12).

LIBRARY DATABASES

Sociological Abstracts (Sociologists and their work -search by population, geographic location, social problem -try your own keywords at random, too!)

PsycINFO (psychology -how people think (or not :-| )

Social Science Premium Collection (there's tons (and tons) of dissertations here -check the "scholarly journal" facet when searching)

and don't forget to always try:
The Library Catalog (USearch)

policy from the U.S. and other countries

Searching the open web for resources.

Many worldwide governments would like you to know what they're working on related to policy as they're actively working on sustainability problems (maybe poverty, communications, health, pollution, etc.). Companies and engineers will look for large or small jobs by searching for these and then offer solutions on a wide scale from very small to country wide.
Search for "your technology" and RFP (or "request for proposals") on the open web for more.
Note: it may help to search for a specific country/government/company if you want to narrow down the search.

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Searching governments for resources.

Many governments also are legally obligated to put their policies (and policy considerations) online for the world to see -like the United States. Some typical starting places are:

USA.gov (first place to visit -contains everything below)

Department of Energy
Environmental Protection Agency
National Nanotechnology Initiative
Department of Transportation
Bureau of Reclamation -primarily about water, but take a look for your specific tech too.

OR
Search for "your technology" and "government policy" on the open web for governments outside the U.S.
Search for "your technology" and a specific state/nation for a more focused search (California has a ton, for example)

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Global resources.
Other online groups at an international level working on sustainability and policy research:

The World Bank

The United Nations

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Very local resources.
Other online groups at an international level working on sustainability and policy research:

SLC Green (local policy)

Also note that since states are responsible for enforcing EPA standards, most cities/states will have some sort of environmental/sustainability office (hopefully online). For example, here is the one for Utah: http://www.deq.utah.gov/