Social Work: Community Research

...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.

Not quite scholarly -but really great for information
CQ Researcher (What is important to U.S. voters right now: Brief)
CQ Magazine (What is important to U.S. voters right now: Long Form)
Roper iPoll
Nexis Uni (news, law, business, people)
US Newsstream (newspapers all across the U.S. -lots of local info, opinion, policy commentary)
 

google contextual searching: find organizations working towards solutions: (mix and match your own keywords for open-web ideas)
community:social justice
community:environmental justice participation
social justice:utah organizations
community:social justice "air pollution" activism
 

Discipline-Specific Research: Lots of scholarship (note: some non-academic sources appear, too)
Sociological Abstracts (sociology & social work -one of my favorites)
Social Science Premium Collection
Social Work Abstracts (social work theory, practice, case studies)
Social Services Abstracts (social services)
PsycINFO (psychology, but with many applications in social sciences)
Education Full Text & ERIC (education, family development)
Business Source Premier (business)
PAIS (public policy and analysis)
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (politics)
CINAHL (nursing -medical policy, procedure, intervention)

Good mix of disciplines (generic)
EBSCO -interface for many many databases 
​Library Catalog: USearch (everything -highly recommended)


High Level Systematic Search Tools sort search results by "highest cited"
Scopus
Web of Science

IMAGINE being able to find more examples on Simon Bell's work?
Here's a search that worked for me
(how can I edit this search? -and other searches?)

Community AND...
Shared vision OR consensus
participation/participatory
engagement OR involvement
resilience
discourse
development
sustainability
"Participatory research"
"sustainability indicators",
"Collaborative governance"
decision-making

 From the developer of the IMAGINE method: A key device for the community to share ideas and perspectives on current and potential future situations, Rich Pictures provide a shared space for members to set out ideas and negotiate.
Rich Pictures: Encouraging Resilient Communities

(illustration: Utah's Congressional Districts since 2023)
Finding scholarly sources is great, but sometimes you need to find non-scholarly, but critically important data -like policies, case studies, public opinion, and more.  Here's local sources to try:

Utah Digital Newspapers
Free to the public and includes the Salt Lake Tribune up through 2004

Marriott Library Special Collections
-reach out to a librarian!

Google context search -try your own!
archives:salt lake city school district
archives:salt lake city government

Marriott Library Catalog
-use specific keywords, we have a lot of good stuff