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Research Online
D.R. Wilson and David L. Carlson Table of ContentsPart I. A Guide to Using the InternetIs the Information on the Net Reliable?
Part II. Researching Sociology on the InternetSocial Structure & Interaction
This guide is written for students who are generally familiar with the World Wide Web and the Internet. The Internet can be useful as a valuable tool for researching social topics. The goal of this resource is to help you use the Internet as a learning tool for your sociology course assignments. Part I of the guide provides you with the answers to some simple questions about the Internet and the World Wide Web. Basic tasks such as communicating, searching, and learning are covered in some detail with a focus on how to use the Internet to place the study of sociology into a broader context. The newest edition of the American Psychological Association Style Manual (APA 6th ed.) provides guidelines for the correct format for referencing Internet sources. Some of these guidelines are presented here. Part II focuses in more detail on parts of the World Wide Web that cover sociology. Research methods, socialization, culture, social groups, families, deviance, inequality, institutions, social dynamics and social change are all discussed. Within each of these fields, students are introduced to specific web sites as starting points for Internet research. In addition, there are sections on professional organizations and careers in sociology. If you are a student, this guide can help you to prepare for class and complete course assignments. The Internet is not a replacement for using the resources in your school library, but it can help you to find a wide variety of resources more effectively. It can also help you find material that is not readily available. You can use the Internet to keep up to date on current news reports or topics that are covered in your textbook or in class lectures. Accessing the kinds of information you can find on the Internet can help you to be a better student in several ways. You will be able to ask better questions in class and you will enhance your learning if you link your course content to what is going on in the world around you. Using the Internet to supplement your study of sociology can be a successful active learning strategy. You can join chat rooms and discussion boards. Evaluating these sites will strengthen your ability to interpret arguments and compare contrasting views. You will also develop better skills as a critical thinker, because you will find a variety of viewpoints on the web. If you are a sociology instructor, you may be looking for ways to incorporate this guide into your course. There are at least eight ways you can use the information in this guide to enhance classroom instruction.
These are just some starting points for researching social phenomena using the Internet. As you become more familiar with the web, you will certainly find other useful sites and more ways to integrate the web into your study of society. PART I. GUIDE TO USING THE INTERNETYou probably already use the Internet. It is mentioned on the news and in newspapers and magazines every day. It is either the greatest boon to modern civilization or the greatest curse. As a student of sociology, you probably have an opinion on this debate. This guide does not attempt to resolve that issue, but it does provide you with basic information concern-ing what is out there on the Internet and how you find it. Once you know how to locate information, you will be able to find out more about any of the topics discussed here. If you know little about the Internet, this guide is your first step. If you are already an experienced net surfer, this guide may give you some new ideas about how to use the web to enhance your education. The Internet does not render traditional methods of communica-tion and education obsolete; instead it supplements and amplifies them. In order to use the net you will need to develop new skills and refine ones that you already have. The Internet (or just "net") is a "network of networks." It is a standard method by which computers can communicate with one another regardless of whether they are large or small computers and regardless of the operating system they use. It is a kind of universal language for computers. At first the primary use of the net was for electronic mail, transferring files, and operating computers remotely. More recently, additional functions have been added to make it easier to exchange information and ideas over the net. The most important of these is a way of transferring pages of information containing text, multimedia, and links to other pages. These hypertext pages are retrieved and displayed by programs called "browsers." Collectively, these pages make up the part of the Internet called the "World Wide Web" (or just "web"). Although the Net refers to the interconnected networks and the Web refers to the interlinked hypertext pages, most people do not distinguish between the two consistently. In this guide I will use the terms interchangeably.
These Quick Tips are based on information provided by Laura Cohen. A more detailed
description can be found at this website: As long as you take sensible precautions, the net is safe. Growing up in contemporary society, we are accustomed to interacting with strangers in public settings. Since we access the net from the privacy of our homes or offices, it is easy to forget that the net is a public place. Information on the net does not travel directly from your computer to the computer you are contacting. It travels a circuitous route through many other computers. Each step along the route involves making a copy of your information, sending it to the next computer along the way, and then deleting the copy. Unless the information is encrypted, someone else can view it. Online vendors now generally encrypt all sensitive information (such as name, address, credit card number) and web browsers use an icon (usually some kind of padlock) to let you know that the information is being encrypted. On the other hand, it is rare for email messages to be en-crypted. Unless you are encrypting your message, don't include information that you don't want others to see. Another security concern involves information that you provide to a company or vendor when you register at their web site, which means providing your name, email address, and possibly other information. Usually registration involves storing some information on your computer (a file called a cookie). Web pages use cookies to recognize when you return to their site. This allows them to customize their pages according to your interests (and to try to pick advertising that you would be more likely to find interesting). Cookie files are also needed when you customize a web page (for example, you set up a special version of Yahoo! called My Yahoo!). When you are at a shopping site, cookies are used to keep track of your selections until you complete your purchase. You can set your browser to notify you when a web page tries to store information on your computer, and you can set your browser to refuse all cookie files. Your name and email address are probably already available on the web unless you have had your account for a short time. Your university may include some information about you in a publicly accessible directory unless you specifically request that they not do so. You should be very careful with your social security number or credit card numbers. Before providing any information, make sure that the web site indicates how it will use the information. There are currently no U.S. laws protecting your privacy when you provide information to a web site. Legislation may be proposed in the future and the European Union has put strong restrictions in place that may eventually become a model for the U.S. A third area of concern involves computer viruses and other attacks on your computer as a result of your connection to the net. Again, taking reasonable precautions will protect you or will minimize the damage if your computer is infected. The most important precaution (and the one you are most likely to ignore) is to keep up-to-date backup copies of important files on your computers. You do not need to backup software programs since you have the original distribution disks, but you should backup text, graphics, and spreadsheet files that you have created. Computers are very reliable, but they all fail eventually. If you lose valuable information or work, it will be no consolation to know that a hard disk crash rather than a virus caused it. A computer virus is a small program that copies itself to the hard disk on your computer (and often to any floppy disk inserted in the computer). It typically hides itself by attaching to programs already present on your hard drive, particularly the system files that load whenever you turn your computer on. Some viruses simply put silly messages on your screen, others slow your computer down, and others deliberately damage or erase files. Software that detects viruses is readily available and should help you to avoid infection. Since a virus is a program, you generally cannot be infected from a text, graphic, or spreadsheet file. As computer software has become more complex, it has become possible to embed macro commands (small simple programs) into these files. Software manufactur-ers have taken steps to prevent these macro commands from being used to insert viruses, but no one can guarantee the continued effectiveness of these measures. Your computer can be a target for hackers if you are linked through an Ethernet connection or a cable modem and you leave your computer turned on. Make certain that you have set the security features in your operating system to restrict access to your disk drives. If you want others to be able to access files on your computer (such as your web pages), put them in a subdirectory and restrict access to that subdirectory. You will meet people on the net via email, electronic conferences, chat rooms, via web pages, or through personal ads that people place on the net (just like those found in newspapers). Remember that you do not have many of the cues that you subconsciously use to size people up. They control every statement that they make to you ("slips of the tongue" are much less likely) and they control how much or little you know about them (via their web page or the fact that you do not have acquaintances in common). They even control every aspect of their appearance since they can send you a copy of anyone's picture. You cannot be overly cautious in these situations and no one who is being honest with you would expect you to do otherwise. Be careful about divulging personal information about yourself. If you do decide to meet someone in person that you have met on the net, take a good friend along and meet only during the day in a busy, public setting.
The quality of the information on the net varies just as it does everywhere else. The constitutional protections of freedom of the press and freedom of speech are not restricted to truthful or accurate statements. You should assume that anyone can say or write anything on the web. Offensive and sexually explicit material does exist on the net. If you wish to block your access to such material, programs exist that will prevent your browser from retrieving pages from known sources of such material. Since we do not all agree on what is offensive, these programs may require some fine-tuning on your part. While we each recognize pretty quickly what offends us, we do not as readily recognize misleading or false information. In order to use the net effectively you must develop your critical facilities so that you can distinguish reliable from misleading information. The late Carl Sagan referred to this skill as "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection." It takes practice and as you might guess there are web pages that will help you learn about how to evaluate web pages.
Four characteristics are usually cited as important in evaluating print journalism. They apply equally well to web pages. They include the source of the information, the objectivity of the author, the logic of the argument, and independent sources of support for the argument or claim. The source of the information includes the author and the publisher of the web page or pages. In some cases they will be the same person. The fact that someone is an expert on a particular topic does not mean they are always correct, but it does indicate that they have spent considerable time studying and researching the topic. They are likely to have considered many alternative explanations and are likely to make appropriate judgments regarding relevant versus irrelevant facts. Authority is limited, however. A world-recognized authority on particle physics is not necessar-ily an authority on anything else. In print journalism, an important role of the publisher is to provide fact-checking and independent verification of the claims made by authors. In professional journals, other authorities review articles before they are published. However, on the net, it is not always easy to determine if there has been any independent evaluation of information. News organizations who depend on their reputations for accurate reporting are likely to have conducted some level of review on the material distributed on their web sites and some technical journals use peer reviews for articles published on the web. In most other cases, the fact that an organization hosts a web page should not be considered as evidence that the material on the page has been reviewed or verified by anyone. In some cases it may be difficult to determine the author of a web page. If there is no information about the author, you should be more skeptical of the accuracy of the material. Another clue to the reliability of information is the objectivity of the author. There are very few topics about which everyone in the world agrees. Look to see if the author is attempting to be objective and present both sides of the issue and is advocating one side. Some web pages are clearly intended to advocate a particular viewpoint with no effort to consider other sides of an issue. Such pages can be a source of information for the point of view presented, but should not be used as a source of information for other points of view (find other web pages advocating those points of view). Watch out for a tendency in advocacy pages to dismiss counter arguments or to demean people who do not hold the view being presented. You should also examine the logic of the arguments presented by the author. Ask yourself if the argument makes sense. Can you see simple alternative explanations that have been ignored or overlooked? Make certain that the arguments are complete enough for you to see how each step leads to the next one. Watch out for over-generalization where the author convinces you that a claim holds in one case, therefore it must be universally true. Also watch out for "burden of proof" tricks where the author tries to shift the burden of proof to the other side (e.g. "although many claims of visitation by extraterrestrials have been proven false, how could they all be false?"). Other tricks involve dismissing opposing viewpoints by questioning their proponents' motives (ad hominem attacks) or criticizing an extreme version of an opposing viewpoint that no one would support (straw man arguments). Statistics also provide opportunities to mislead. There are several common techniques for misdirection. One involves using raw counts rather than rates. For example, "evidence of our more violent society is provided by the fact that the number of homicides increased 50% from 1970 to 1990." Of course population increased as well. There was an increase in homicide rates, but it was about 20% not 50%. A second trick involves ignoring control groups, "in a large sample, 18% of the people who ate olestra (a fat substitute) complained of some form of stomach distress the following day." True, but almost 20% of the control group who did not eat olestra also complained of stomach distress. Finally, watch out for confusion of correlation with causation. Just because two variables increase over time, it does not follow that one causes the other. They could both be caused by a third factor that was not measured in the study. You should always consider independent sources of information that support or fail to support the claims made on the page. Are you are aware of opposing views or information that are not mentioned on the web page? If so, you should be skeptical of the author’s authority and doubt his or her objectivity. Check to see if the author provides references for factual claims or arguments. Search the web to look for other web pages that would support or contradict the claims made by the author. You should consider the evaluation of information to be a process not an event. As you find out more and more about a topic, use your new information to reevaluate materials you encountered earlier. Electronic mail and variations of it are the most heavily used aspect of the net. Like regular mail, your message travels to the person you have sent it to and waits to be retrieved and read. It has most of the advantages of regular mail, but it arrives at its destination much faster. One disadvan-tage of email is that you do not receive any confirmation that the message was read and many people still don't read their email regularly. If you receive a message from someone that you do not communicate with regularly, it doesn't hurt to respond with a simple note that you received the message. When you get a computer account, you will also get an email address. It will be something like "jsmith@bigu.edu." The part of your email address to the left of the "@" sign is your account name while the part on the right is the domain name. The domain name is used to route messages to a particular computer that saves the message in a directory associated with a particular account. The message stays in the directory until you retrieve, read, or delete it. There are two basic ways of handling email accounts. One involves using email software on your personal computer to retrieve all of the new messages from your mail account. You can then read, save, reply, or do whatever you want with each message. Generally the messages are deleted from the computer that stores the messages until you retrieve them. This is convenient if you want to store messages without worrying about using up the space allotted for your email account. The second way is to leave messages on your email account until you delete them. This is convenient if you access your email from different computers (at your campus computer lab or while traveling). You should remember that your messages occupy space on the computer that holds your email account and you have probably been allocated only a certain amount of space. If you receive many messages or a few big messages (with large files attached), your space allocation will fill up and any further messages will be returned to the sender. You may not receive any message when this occurs. For this reason, download your email regularly (method one) or check your email regularly and delete messages you no longer need (method two). In order to send a message to someone, you need to know their email address. While you can often find it by using some of the search engines on the web, it is usually easiest to ask for the address or have the person send you a message. If you attend a university, there will probably be a phonebook of email addresses on the university web page. When you send a message, include information on the subject line that will let the recipient know what the message is about. Due to spam and the possibility of receiving a virus by email, increasingly people are deleting messages without reading them if they come from strangers or have blank or suspicious subject lines. Most email programs also allow you to add a signature to the bottom of your email message. The signature can provide additional information about you such as your name, phone number, occupation, or web page. You can also delete the signature when you are replying to a message or sending mail to someone you know. Electronic mail introduces old problems in a new guise, such as, spam or electronic junk mail. People are still learning how to communicate by electronic mail. Many of the non-verbal cues that we use to evaluate what someone is saying are missing: the smile or wink that indicates a remark is intended to be humorous or sarcastic; the hesitation or stress in someone's voice that suggests a reply that might not be completely truthful; the flow of someone's handwriting as a clue to his or her emotional state. In addition, we lose the cues that tell us about the impact of our own words: the frown or scowl that indicates that our words have been interpreted as a threat or insult. Finally, electronic mail makes it easy to communicate with complete strangers who don't know anything about you (such as your sense of humor). Messages that depend on nonverbal qualities are often misunderstood in electronic communication. Sarcasm usually fails. It is easy to respond without thinking, and impossible to take the message back after it has been sent. A second element of electronic communication is that we have not yet developed effective filters for the flow of information. We are accustomed to filtering (ignoring) irrelevant information from television and radio, junk mail, and people around us without giving it much thought. Irrelevant electronic mail messages seem to provoke more hostility than irrelevant information from sources with which we are more accustomed. The best thing about irrelevant email is that simply deleting the message easily recycles lost disk space. Because you respond to someone without seeing them (and they do not see you when they respond) it is easier to ignore simple courtesies and respond in an insulting or offensive manner. Read messages you have composed from beginning to end, before you send them. If you receive an insulting message, delete it and resist the temptation to reply with equal venom. You will not teach the other person a lesson and you will simply make yourself a target for further insults. Develop the ability to shrug off minor insults without dwelling on them. It will serve you well later in life. Remember that the net is decentralized and chaotic. For more helpful hints on email Netiquette visit the Netiquette Home Page. If you receive threatening messages, do not delete them. Save them and forward copies to the system administrators (sysop) of the domain from which the threatening messages are coming. The domain is the part of the email address to the right of the "@" site. There is no standard email address for systems operators so you may have to try several ("sysop@Site.com" or "postmaster@" or "security@" or "abuse@"). Do not delete the message as your copy may contain additional information that your email software did not include in the forwarded copy. Also contact the sysop of you Internet provider or university computer center to get their advice and assistance on how to proceed. MAILING LISTSMailing lists make it easy to participate in a discussion with many other people. When you subscribe to a mailing list, you are asking to receive a copy of every message sent to the list. The messages will arrive as email. There are mailing lists covering nearly every conceivable topic. Lizst maintains an index to 90,000 mailing lists where you can search for ones of interest to you. There are several kinds of lists. Restricted lists require the permission of the listowner to subscribe. These lists are used for groups of people who are collaborating on some project and wish to restrict the use of the list very narrowly. For example, your instructor may create a mailing list for a course you are taking and subscription to the list would be limited to those in the class. Lists can also be moderated or unmoderated. In a moderated list, the list-owner reviews posts before they are distributed. Moderated lists provide a further check on messages before they are distributed so that only messages on the list topic are distributed. Unmoderated lists allow subscribers to post directly to the list. This speeds up the discussion, but it may result in a higher number of off-topic messages. If you are new to email, subscribing to a list is a good way to begin receiving email. Some lists generate many messages 50-100 day while other lists generate many fewer messages. A general rule of thumb is that the more general the topic, the more messages per day and the more subscribers, the more messages per day. If you subscribe to a busy list you should check your email daily since once the disk space assigned to your account fills, every message will be returned to the sender or to the listowner (or both). If this happens, you may be removed from the list. You can subscribe again once you have cleared your mailbox. Once you have found a list that you are interested in, you will need to learn how to subscribe. Most of the mailing lists are managed by one of three computer programs: listproc, listserv, or majordomo.
There are some web pages that allow you to subscribe to a list from the web. Follow the instructions and you will be added to the list. The program will send you a standard welcome message with instructions about the list and the list software. Keep this message since you will probably want to refer to it later (and it tells you how to unsubscribe from the list). CHAT AND INSTANT MESSAGINGIn 1988 the ability to link several people together so that they could simultaneously send messages to one another instantaneously (chat) was devised. Commercial network services such as Compuserve and America Online already had this capability. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) has expanded in size and flexibility and, to some degree, has been captured by the web. IRC is like a conference call except that everyone has to type what they want to say. Since you need to type quickly to keep up, people use a great variety of acronyms to express things compactly (for example, imho -"in my humble opinion" and rotfl "rolling on the floor laughing"). There are now two ways to chat. The first is through an IRC server that handles hundreds of separate chat rooms (or channels). In order to contact them you need IRC client software (for example Micro-soft Chat, available free from Microsoft). After you log into a server, you select the room you want to enter. The second way is through a web site that offers chat capabilities inside your web browser. For these you may not need any additional software or the site may download a program that will work inside your browser to handle the chat features. Yahoo! Chat and MSNBC Chat are two examples. You will have to register before you will be able to chat by providing a handle or alias (the name you want to be known by in the chat room) and your email address. Most chats are simply collections of people who have come together to discuss a particular topic. There is no moderator and no way to keep the discussion on a particular topic. If you find yourself in a room with someone who makes you uncomfortable, just exit the room. Other chat rooms have moderators who keep the discussion on topic and can disconnect people who are offensive or obscene. Finally, some chats are organized around a celebrity guest. In these chats, you will probably need to submit your question to a moderator to get it passed on to the celebrity guest. Your instructor may use chat sessions to allow people to discuss a topic outside class or to allow you to chat with sociology students in another class (or university). Before getting started you should look at Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Help and Chat Etiquette/Chat Protocol. The latest development in chat is instant messaging or paging. Instant messaging allows you to send a message to another person who is online as long as that person is running compatible software. The message generally arrives more quickly than email and the software will tell you if the other person is online. The concept was first popularized by a program called ICQ (“I seek you”). AOL Instant Messenger (America Online) is one of the most popular and is freely available to anyone. Ask your sociology instructor if he or she uses instant messaging. It can be a quick way to get an answer to a question while studying for an exam.
NEWSGROUPSNewsgroups are similar to bulletin boards. The original USENET newsgroups were developed early in the history of the Internet and were expanded and reorganized in 1986 ("The Great Renaming"). You do not actually subscribe to a newsgroup, although that fact is often unclear because the software for reading and posting to newsgroups has com-mands for "subscribing." Actually, "monitoring" would be a better term. The messages on a bulletin board stay on the computer systems of your university or ISP until you retrieve them. When you use your software to "subscribe" to a newsgroup, you are only telling the software to check that group for new messages. You can download all of the new messages in a group or just retrieve the subject lines from the messages to see if any are interesting enough to retrieve. To unsubscribe, you simply tell your software to stop downloading the messages from that group. Newsgroups do not have owners or moderators (except in a few cases) and no one knows when you subscribe or unsubscribe. Newsgroups are a good way to monitor subjects that you are generally interested in, but do not want to receive every message every person sends. Since you do not actually receive the messages, you have to visit the group regularly as messages last only a day or a week depending on how much traffic there is on the group. Newsgroups are organized around a loose hierarchy. Groups that begin with "comp." are about computers, networks, and software. Groups that begin with "rec." are about recreational activities, "sci." groups cover science, "soc." groups are about social groups and society, "talk." groups are for wide ranging discussion and debate about topics that often trigger passionate responses. Groups beginning with "alt." (Alternate) overlap with the other groups. The group started out as a renegade hierarchy for topics that were originally banned from usenet. Sexually explicit groups are present in the "alt." hierarchy, but so are groups on many other topics. In addition to usenet, there are also newsgroups maintained by major software companies. These news-groups provide a means for people to ask for assistance and to make suggestions about new features or new products. There are over 50,000 newsgroups archived at DejaNews, but there are also regional and local groups bringing the total even higher. However, you really only need to know about the groups that are available from your ISP or university. Most will offer access to some newsgroups, but do not offer access to all of them. Maintaining storage space and access for newsgroups is costly so ISPs and universities limit access to their local users. Once you have configured your software to connect to the newsgroup server (if your university is myu.edu, the newsgroup server will often be news.myu.edu), you can retrieve the list of news-groups carried by your system. Once you have the list, you can select the ones you want to "subscribe" to, but recall that the subscription is only a way of telling your software to check for new messages to that group whenever you check for new newsgroup messages.
With an estimated one billion pages and counting, it can be difficult to find exactly what you want on the web. You can reduce the time it takes by analyzing what you are looking for. If you are looking for web sites that focus on a particular subject, your best option is to use a web site that classifies many sites by subject. If you are looking for specific facts and figures, try an encyclopedia or a reference desk. If these don’t work or your question is very specific, try a web search engine. WEB SITE CLASSIFICATIONSMany searches involve fairly general questions such as "What web sites are there on sociology (or ethnomusicology)?" or "What web sites provide information on genealogy?" These kinds of questions are best answered by web sites that have classified a large number of web sites into subject categories and by topical guides to the web. The original subject classification of the web is Yahoo! It begins by dividing web sites into 14 categories ranging from "Arts & Humanities" to "News & Media" to "Society & Culture." Each of these categories is subdivided and subdivided again so that you can browse to increasingly specific kinds of sites. Yahoo! searches the subject categories as well as the web page titles and their descriptions. Yahoo! gathers information about new web sites from many sources and the creators of web sites usually notify Yahoo! of new web sites to add to the classification. There are other subject classification web sites, but in my experience Yahoo! is the most complete. A good guide for academic topics is the UniGuide Academic Guide to the Internet. Using a subject classification, this web site is similar to the subject classification of your library catalog. You will find books relating to specific topics, but you will not necessarily find where a particular fact is located in the book. The founders of the World Wide Web realized that information distributed all over the globe would be difficult to find unless there were some guides. They created the World Wide Web Virtual Library by selecting volunteers to catalog major web sites for various subjects. If you look at the list of subjects, you will see that some categories are quite broad while others are quite specific. Since they are produced by volun-teers whose workload varies, they may or may not be completely up-to-date. They are a good place to start, and often the sites are described more completely than the single line descriptions in Yahoo! Another useful resource for broad subject searches is the Internet Public Library, a public service learning and teaching environment maintained by the University Of Michigan School Of Information. For sociology there are a number of subject guides. The best include the following: WCSU List: Sociology Internet Resources a site maintained by Western Connecticut State University; the World Wide Web Virtual Library: Sociology; now maintained by Dr. Carl Cuneo, Dept. of Sociology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; and finally for a more global search, the SocioSite based at the University of Amsterdam is an entire information system with subjects, sociologists, data archives, research tools and much more.
There are a handful of general sociology sites where you can get your feet wet in the discipline. The second section of this book goes into all the detail of the many subcategories that look more like the table of contents in your introduction to sociology text. Sometimes when you are beginning the whole process of research it can seem overwhelming. These sites are general enough to help you become familiar with what is available out on the Internet and most importantly, what this kind of research “looks like.” Here are just a few that you might want to bookmark on your computer while you’re taking sociology courses.
FACTS AND FIGURESIf you want to know the current ruler of a particular country or the population of the world explore one of the virtual reference desks or encyclopedias. A spectacular resource is Encyclopedia Britannica which provides the full text of the encyclopedia and links to other resources on the web. My Virtual Reference Desk and Martindale's 'The Reference Desk' are the most extensive and complete of the reference desks. You will find links to a broad range of sources for factual information. Information Please allows you to search its almanac, dictionary, and encyclope-dia. Two good sources of information on other countries are the United Nations Infonation by the UN (although the interface takes some practice). A good source of maps is National Geographic's Map Machine. The Dead Sociologists Index and Biography.com provide capsule biographies for many of your favorite social thinkers and sociologists. Government publications, such as the CIA World Factbook and the Library of Congress Country Studies Series are also available for collecting both statistical information and culturally specific content. From the U.S. Census you can download the tables from the Statistical Abstract of the U.S. in Adobe Acrobat format.
WEB SEARCH ENGINESAs you become more specific about the information you want to find, you will probably turn to one of the search engines on the web that have indexed millions of web pages. Imagine if all the indexes from all the books in the library were combined into a single giant index. You could then find not only the book, but also the page you wanted in a single search. That is what search engines try to do. While Yahoo! classifies web sites, search engines index web pages. Most search engines also provide subject categories of web sites so that the difference between the two is blurring. The indexes are constructed by software robots that travel around the web 24 hours a day discovering and indexing web pages. The coverage that each search engine offers is slightly different. Some try to be as comprehensive as possible, but no one engine has indexed all of the web pages. AltaVista and Fast Search are recognized for the sizes of their databases. This means that they may index 350 million pages of the roughly one billion pages on the web. NorthernLight allows you to search a database of articles from journals in addition to searching web pages. You can then also purchase a copy of the article if it is not in your local library. Some of the most effective search engine sites include, Google, MSN and Netscape. You can designate these as the “home page” of your computer. Ask Jeeves is a site where you can actually type in a specific question and you will get a number of suggested sites that might contain useful answers. You might even discover some sites that you wouldn’t have thought to include in your general search.
TOPICAL GUIDES TO SOCIOLOGYMost subjects have guides to the web. As mentioned before, a great starting point for sociological searches is a site created by Dr. Michael Kearl at Trinity University named A Sociological Tour Through Cyberspace. Other useful guides include: The SocioWeb created and maintained by Mark Blair of Pacific Web, or the University of California at San Diego’s site at Data on the Net. At About.com guides review interesting web sites and give suggestions. Virtual Society is Wadsworths’ online sociology site. It provides information and links related to sociology, the web, and Wadsworth texts.
WEB RINGSA good way to begin browsing the web if you don't have a clear idea of what you want to find is to use a web ring. Web rings are collections of related web sites. Each site in the web ring has a link to the site before it and the site after it in the list. Often the site also has a way to randomly select a site from the web ring. Below are several web rings that relate to sociology. Adding a site to a web ring is completely voluntary and you may find sites that do not really seem to fit, but this is a good way to begin to surf the net.
LIBRARY CATALOGSMany colleges and universities have made their catalogs available for online access. While some may require a special program to access, increasingly they are designed for use with any web browser. The Academic Libraries web index Yahoo! lists over 450 academic libraries around the world including Harvard University and Cambridge University. LibWeb is even more comprehensive listing 3500 libraries in 100 countries. These catalogs can help you locate books in your campus library and can help you find references that are not available locally (so that you can request them through interlibrary loan). Library catalogs are a good place to find out what resources are available for a term paper topic or a presentation. Often they will also tell you if the book you need is checked out and when it is due back to the library. Not really a library catalog, but nearly as useful are the web pages for booksellers such as Amazon.com. If the book is no longer in print, try the used book search engines such as abebooks.com and Bibliofind. These sites allow you to search for books that are currently in print. They often provide a picture of the cover of the book and may include review comments and a table of contents. This can be particularly helpful if the book you need is not at your library and you don't have enough time to get it through interlibrary loan.
ONLINE BOOKSA number of books and articles are available directly on the Internet. You can download them to a disk and read them at your leisure. While reading a book on a computer screen is not as pleasant as reading a physical book, it does have one advantage. With an online book, you can search for any word or phrase. This is useful if you think that the author mentions a topic that you are interested in, but you don't want to read the whole book to find a single phrase or paragraph. Because of copyright restrictions, most online books are older books whose copyright has expired. It is a good place to look for works that are primarily of historical interest such as the works of Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, or Karl Marx. The Internet Public Library and The Online Books Page let you search thousands of online titles including books and shorter pieces. For books relating to the United States, try Making of America, a collection of 1,600 books and 50,000 articles relating to American social history published during the nineteenth century.
JOURNALS AND JOURNAL INDEXESTo locate recently published articles relating to a particular topic, check Ingenta, a database of current article information taken from well over 17,000 multi-disciplinary journals spanning the years from 1988 to the present. A relatively new web search site Northern Light allows you to search for magazine articles and order copies over the web. Sociological Research Online publishes high quality applied sociology, focusing on theoretical, empirical and methodological discussions which engage with current political, cultural and intellectual topics and debates. The University of Chicago Press has made the table of contents for the American Journal of Sociology available on line as well as an electronic edition of Public Opinion Quarterly. Other indices such as the Social Sciences Periodical Index or Current Contents on the web are available as subscription services. However, many academic libraries subscribe to these services so you may be able to search them by connecting to your university library web page. More and more university libraries are subscribing to electronic versions of professional journals. Electronic versions of a journal allow you to download an article in Adobe Acrobat® format. You can print out the article or read it on your computer screen. You should find out what journals your library gets in electronic format since it can save you a trip to the library and the information is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
WRITING RESOURCESWhen you have to write a paper, there are several web resources that can help answer your questions about grammar and style, copyright and fair use, and how to cite digital information. A great place to start is Dushkin/ McGraw-Hill’s How to Write Term Papers written by John T. Rourke. An old standby writing style manual by William Strunk is available on the Net, the 1918 version of The Elements of Style. For questions about grammar you can try two different handbooks on the web, the Grammar Handbook at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and the Online English Grammar by the Digital Education Network. If an idea is not yours you need to cite its source. Dartmouth College has a nice web site called Sources: Their Use and Acknowledgment that will give you the basics. How do you cite electronic resources? The Modern Language Association (MLA) has the basics at MLA Style frequently asked questions page. The American Psychological Association in Electronic Reference Formats describes the approach you will need to use when completing sociology papers. If you need more details about copyright and fair use, try Fair Use of Copyrighted Works by the Consortium for Educational Technology for University Systems (CETUS). The U.S. Copyright Office: FAQ has a page with answers to your frequently asked questions as well.
AVOIDING PLAGIARISMFor students, one of the most difficult aspects of academic writing is diligently paying attention to avoiding plagiarism. Your professor will not know if you have made this error deliberately or as an accident. You must diligently work to avoid these kinds of problems. Remember that your professor has seen the kinds of papers that you are writing many times before and is usually very familiar with the resources and current research that you will use. According to the University of Indiana Avoiding Plagiarism website, plagiarism is using others' ideas and words without clearly acknowledging the source of that information. Western Illinois University has created a website called Plagiarism on the Web that provides a brief history of this new academic deviance and some helpful suggestions. Finally, the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University has a very helpful tool that you should bookmark and use when you are writing papers.
CITING INFORMATION FROM THE INTERNETOne of the most problematic aspects of research for students using the Internet is learning the correct way to cite references. The resource that is used for writing style by the field of sociology is the American Psychological Association Publication Manual. The most recent version is the APA Publication Manual is the 5th edition. This edition has been updated with an extensive section on how to correctly cite material that has been accessed online. Earlier editions do not contain this information – you need to use the 5th edition. The APA has a website that contains very useful information about referencing material in your research papers.
You can follow current events on the web by visiting the web pages of newspapers and broadcast news organizations. For national and world news my favorites are ABC News, BBC News and The New York Times, but try others to see which ones you prefer. The New York Times requires that you register to browse the site, but registration is free. You can find an extensive listing of online U. S. papers at US Newspaper Links. There are many other news sites on the web from all over the world. You should be able to locate them at Yahoo! To find other news stories, you can visit a topical news page or use a news search engine. Topical news pages provide links to news items covering a particular subject. For links to news stories that relate to all aspects of sociology visit SocioNews. This page, based out of Great Britain, contains current headlines as well as links to scores of news sources, journals and internet links from Europe and the U.S. Other topical news pages include Artigen and NewsHub. News search engines allow you to search recent news stories that include a particular word or phrase in the title or in the text of the story. Most news web sites allow you to search their site, but some charge for retrieving older stories from their archives. There are a couple of search engines that search over several sites. These include Excite News and Total News.
There are a number of ways to learn on the net. One simple way is to subscribe to mailing lists or to monitor newsgroups on subjects that you want to learn more about. There are also a variety of short tutorials on the web that help you to learn about the Internet, the World Wide Web, and how to create web pages. Microsoft has tutorial pages for the Internet and the web (Internet Guide & Web Tutorial). A nice set of tutorials on how to develop your own web resources is Webmonkey: A How To Guide for Web Developers. Specifically, there are some very helpful Internet sites that you can access to help you improve your learning while in college. The Taxonomy of Socratic Questions website would be a valuable resource if you are organizing a class presentation. Use Benjamin Bloom’s Critical Thinking Questioning Strategies when you are assigned a small group discussion or a general class discussion. Learning how to ask the right kinds of questions should make learning more productive for you. Dan Kurland teaches freshman and developmental reading/writing courses at the university level. His website, Critical-Reading.com, can help you to develop some important thinking skills to improve your reading comprehension. From online courses to textbook specific sites, there are hundreds of sociology learning experiences on the web. As you will discover, the great majority of these resources have been created as supplements to college courses. First of all, you should take some time to surf Wadsworth’s Virtual Society website. Here you will find a number of learning tools tailored to fit your specific textbook. The Center for Teaching and Learning – Sociology contains links to dozens of useful websites especially if you’re working on a research paper or class presentation. Washington State University is producing a number of online learning modules. Try their What is Culture? module for a subject outline, discussions, student hypertext presentations and a glossary. At the World Lecture Hall you can find online course materials for sociology courses arranged according to major topics (and for other subjects as well).
The second half of this site is divided topically. Most of these major topics will match specific chapters in your introduction to sociology textbook. Search through each section and find the topics that are of interest to you. You may be assigned projects, papers or presentations in your sociology class. Use these Internet sites to inform your more general review of literature. Many of the sites referenced on the following pages can be used to stimulate your thinking as you explore the study of the social world. PART II
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The Study of Society |
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The Tour Through Cyber Society is an information packed website created and maintained by Professor Michael Kearl who is at Trinity University. This is a highly recommended starting point for students who are just beginning their study of sociology. |
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This is the address for the Social Science Hub: Sociology. The site is maintained by Sharyn Clarkson from Canberra Australia. From this site you can access links to dozens of other information sources. If you're just beginning a research topic or simply looking for a topic to study -start at this website. |
| The Sociology Web Hawk is an enormous site from which you can access links to newspapers, libraries, journals, magazines and dozens of other sites of interest to sociology students. You should bookmark this site and use it as the starting point for preparing for class and any research project assignments. |
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
One of the most popular sites among students and instructors alike has been The Dead Sociologist’s Society constructed by Larry Ridener currently at Pfeiffer University. On the web page you will be able to access the Dead Sociologists Index where you will find biographical sketches, a summary of ideas and examples of original work for most of the significant classical social thinkers. This is one of the most comprehensive theory sites out there. In addition to an index of classical social thinkers, you will find images, lectures, passages from core texts, and a very comprehensive list of sociology links. This site makes a great companion to introductory texts in social theory.
Surfing these pages is a good way for students to prepare for exams, complete background searches for writing research papers, and collecting data for class presentations. I have been able to use this site to collect extensive information for class discussions. Students also have found this site to be very useful for writing papers about the development of significant ideas. My students report that they feel like they have a better grasp of the material after spending time actively engaged in learning projects that send them to the Internet. You will also find at this site a link to a paper presented by Ridener entitled; The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly in Cyberspace: Ups and Downs of the Dead Sociologist’s Society. It’s a very good account of his own experiences using the web to teach sociology.
Sociology Online provides another very useful web page full of information about both classical and contemporary social thinkers. This British site contains indexes, biographies, photographs, references, texts, chat rooms, quizzes, slideshows and a set of links to relevant sites. The site offers online instruction in a number of sociological fields. The theory section allows students to study lecture notes and then choose from a number of quizzes or play sociology hangman. While the site does include foundational information about classical theory it’s the contemporary and postmodern theory emphasis that will help students most. It would be easy to spend hours in these pages. I would recommend it as course supplement to contemporary theory classes to be used for reference and tutorials throughout the semester.
The University of Amsterdam has a comprehensive site called SocioSite that includes references to classical and contemporary sociologists as well as links to specific theories and homepages of practicing sociologists. On these pages you will find an index of subject categories in sociology. These pages are going to provide you with a real global perspective in sociology by allowing access to a number of European theorists that might not be available to students any other way.
The above sites are appropriate for undergraduate students who are just beginning to explore social theory as well as graduate students who are ready to delve deeper in their reading and exploring. The sites are wide-ranging enough so that students can make comparisons among thinkers and many of the core ideas in social theory. These sites are constructed in such a way as to afford the researcher with some fun and adventure - even with social theory!
For more advanced study and for graduate students there are any number of web pages that specifically target social theory in much more detail. Many include actual selections from important works in social theory. There are also links to the web pages of contemporary sociologists across the globe. It’s possible for your students to engage in dialogue with sociologists at other universities and with other students in related chat rooms.
For online texts of classical social thinkers go to the University of Chicago’s Classical Sociology Theory site. So often students are trapped in reading secondary sources. If your class text does not contain the primary sources you’re looking for, this is an excellent source to search through. The Voice of the Shuttle site has references to a wide range of current sociological thinkers many specifically oriented toward cultural theories. The site contains links to Millennium Studies, Generation Wars, Culture Wars, Popular and Mass Culture to name a few. For more detailed research about specific theories and social thinkers try these sites:
- The Marxists Internet Archive
- The Marxism Page
- The Mead Project
- Cooley’s The Looking Glass Self
- The Durkheim Pages
- Michel Foucault
- Power And Bureaucracy(Weber)
- Verstehen: Max Weber’s Homepage
Another fabulous Weber site is the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism created by Japanese sociologist Moriyuki Abukuma. The web page focuses on this pivotal economic theory Weber used to wrestle with the ghost of Marx. The page contains an outline, the original text and commentary by Abukuma – all in three separate windows appearing on the screen simultaneously. Please see similar references to Weber in the section on Social Organizations and Institutions.
Jessica Champlin has created and maintains a site called Sociology Resources on the Net (SocioWeb) where you can find links to sites on Marx, Durkheim, Simmel, Weber and Rousseau, as well as more extensive links to contemporary theorists such as Baudrillard, Becker, Berger, Goffman, Merton, and Parsons. The site also includes links to several postmodernist pages. This would be good place to start an exploration of modern social theory and move backwards to see the links with classical foundations. An entire class project could be accomplished from this one web site.
The internet has several sites specific to the major sociological paradigms. These are great places to send students for an exploration mission. They will discover the major figures in the field and be exposed to important terms and concepts. Many of these sites represent academic societies that are open for membership. Students should be encouraged to pursue their intellectual interests by interacting with others through the internet. The Society for the Study of Symbolic Interactionism has papers, on-line discussions, and teaching resources. The University of Regina has an online course page with notes on Structural-Functionalism and Parsons. Anyone who has tried to read Parsons would appreciate any notes on the subject. The University of Alabama has pages up on the World Wide Web designed by students for students. From their anthropology department you will find a very comprehensive page on Functionalism containing vocabulary, references, key figures, and basic premises.
Take a look at the World Socialist Web to find out how people are putting Marxist and socialist theory to use in real world political situations. The site contains editorials, news reports, and scholarly papers. What better way to see how people have put theory into practice? Cultural Logic is an electronic journal of Marxist theory and practice. At this site you will find interviews, book reviews, and articles all in the vein of Marxist theory. Students can scan this web site to learn about current issues that Marxist theory seeks to address.
Finally, if you will go the Spoons Webpage you will find ongoing discussions about political and philosophical issues. This is a list site that you sign up for and that allows you to take part in ongoing discussions. There are a number of lists that pertain to contemporary social theory such as Baudrillard, culture, the Frankfurt School, or women in the third world. The site currently has several open lists. You could begin your own social theory discussion topic.
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Sociological Theory |
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The Dead Sociologists Society is an especially helpful site if you're doing research on specific social theorists. Access the Dead Sociologists Index from this page. There are a wide variety of general sociology links at the bottom of the page as well. |
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Access resources from the Sociology Online web page by using the menu on the left. This is an interactive site that will help you prepare for course exams. |
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This page of the extensive SocioSite will link you to specific resources about social theorists. |
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A no frills website with links to primary sources of social theory from the University of Chicago. |
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The Voice of the Shuttle has a search option and contains specific links to Gender and Cultural studies. This is a very postmodern temple of knowledge. |
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The Marxist Internet Archive should be your starting point when exploring the social conflict paradigm. |
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The Marxism Page will provide you with resources on current Marxist social theory. |
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The Mead Pages advertises itself as a source of foundational documents in social psychology. Here you can find the writing of Mead, Cooley, Dewey and Veblen in addition to others. |
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An analysis of Max Weber's ideas about bureaucracy and power. |
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Charles Horton Cooley introduces and explains his concept of the social production of the self - the Looking Glass Self |
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The Durkheim Page contains a general introduction to Functionalism and the major theoretical ideas of Emile Durkheim. |
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This site will link you to a number of works about and by Michel Foucault. |
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http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moriyuki/abukuma/weber/world/ethic/pro_eth_frame.html |
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This website provides a mechanism to analyze Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. |
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http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Weber/Whome.htm |
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Verstehen: Max Weber's Webpage provides links to all of the German social philosopher's major theoretical works. |
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SocioWeb provides links to major categories within sociology, including social theory. |
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The Society for the Study of Symbolic Interactionism web page offers links archives, notes and teaching resources. |
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This site on Functionalism and Talcott Parsons provides a solid supplement to assigned text readings. |
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This web site on Functionalism is a superb introduction to this theoretical paradigm. |
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Surf The World Socialist Web Site to learn about the application of conflict theory to modern political philosophy. |
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Cultural Logic provides an electronic journal format for Marxist theory. |
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The Spoon Collective is an index of mailing lists that promote interactive discussion on a number of social and political topics. |
RESEARCH METHODS
In this section I want to introduce you to several sites that can be useful as you begin to do research. The other sections of this guide will provide you with web pages related to specific research findings. This section contains Internet sites to assist you with your research methods.
Students at Cornell University have put together a web page containing Research Methods Tutorials. The lessons include sampling, field research multivariate analysis and analysis of variance techniques. Linda Lambert has put together a web page called Methods and Measurements that serves as a great primer for foundational statistical procedures. In addition to clearly presented definitions and tutorials the site has clever graphics and an extensive list of methodological links and online statistical tools. This site is a gem and should be book-marked on your computer.
There are a number of Internet sites that will help you with statistical calculations. One of the best sites is called StatPages.net where you will find a guide to pages that help you perform statistical calculations from ANOVA, cross-tabs and regression analyses. When you are introducing statistics to your classes, whether in an introductory class or a full-blown research methods class, you could use these students as a introduction to some of the most essential statistical procedures used in the social sciences.
What I find most useful is finding ways to get students to be actively involved in the learning process. For so many students statistics may seem like a foreign language. Resources such as these pages help students to get their hands dirty and allow them a great opportunity for practice. Other useful statistical sites include: Basic Statistics (designed for reporters), and Bill Trochim’s Center for Social Research Methods (lots of stuff!).
The University of Surrey (U.K.) electronically publishes the Social Research Update. Each issue covers one topic in sufficient depth to indicate the main directions of recent developments in social research and provide a bibliography for further reading. The web page currently contains an archive of past issues. Issues on the site range from analyzing qualitative data by computer to telephone interviewing.
Using the Internet as a source of information for research papers has led to all kinds of problems with citation formats. Trinity University has put together a webpage on constructing a Research Paper. William Patterson University has a brief version of the APA style format on its Guide for Citing Electronic Information web page.
The Social Science Paper Publisher is an international, informal electronic journal that seeks to electronically publish broadly sociological writings and research. While you’re working on that research paper you should check into the American Sociological Association's Style Guidelines and Manuscript Preparation Checklist. This is a PDF file and you will need to have the right plug in device to download it. Your search engine should automatically suggest options for you.
Several of the more comprehensive sociology sites on the Internet have links to methodological web pages. The SocioSite at the University of Amsterdam has links to global research centers, data archives and search tools. Two other large sites with extensive research methodology links are: A Sociological Tour Through Cyberspace, and The Dead Sociologist’s Society. These are good places to start especially if you are taking a research methods course and want to see some actual research. The Survey Research Center at Princeton is a university based comprehensive site with links to web based research programs, data sets, methodologies, and leading research centers and organizations in the U.S.
There are a number of research organizations that have web sites. Accessing any of these pages will give you a good idea of the breadth and scope of research currently being conducted by some of the largest organizations in the country. The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) conducts survey research in the public interest for government agencies, educational institutions, private foundations, non-profit organizations, and private corporations. At the NORC site you will find information about the General Social Survey (GSS). The mission of the GSS is to make timely, high-quality, scientifically relevant data available to the social science research community. Since 1972 the GSS has conducted 22 independent cross-sectional surveys of the adult household population of the United States. These surveys have been widely distributed and extensively analyzed by social scientists around the world. To date, NORC has documented the publication of more than 4,500 articles using the data.
The Gallup Research Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln concentrates on all areas of survey research and quantitative methods, including public opinion, consumer and employee satisfaction, and data utilization in the workplace. Visit this web site to learn about recent symposiums conducted on research methodology. The Indiana University at Bloomington has a social science research facility that focuses on academic, social science, and public policy research. From this page you can link to dozens of research entities sponsored by the university.
The Institute for Public Opinion Research (IPOR) at Florida International University provides professional services in all aspects of survey research including study and sample design, questionnaire development, interviewing, data entry, data analysis, and report writing. From their web page you can view public opinion polls conducted in Florida and among Cuban Americans. There are also some helpful research oriented links. Finally, the Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research (University of Michigan) conducts interdisciplinary social science research involving the collection or analysis of data from scientific sample surveys. The page contains an index of research projects. Each research project has its own web page that you can access directly from the index.
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Research Methods |
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This website provides Research Methods tutorials - we all could use a tour of sites like this to keep analytical skills sharp! |
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Linda Lambert at the University of Texas at San Antonio has put together a basic review of some of the most important research methods used in social science - Methods and Measurements. |
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StatPages is an interactive statistics help for students and professors trying to select the correct statistical procedure for their data analysis. |
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Robert Niles has put together a combo journalism and statistical procedures Internet site. You can select online statistics lessons to help you brush up on your skills. |
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This website is for people involved in applied social research and evaluation. Here you will also find lots of links to other locations on the Web that deal in applied social research methods. |
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The Social Research Update is a publication of the University of Surrey (U.K.). You can access articles on all of the basics of social research methodology. |
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From Trinity University, the very basics on putting together a sociology research paper. |
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A guide to citing online research sources. |
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The Social Science Paper Publisher is an informal electronic journal serving as an academic resource and opportunity for scholars who would like to find a readership for broadly sociological work. |
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This is a PDF file from the American Sociological Association on publication specifications - how to format your research paper correctly. |
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The SocioSite is from the University of Amsterdam and contains links to a number of useful sites including data sets, research methods and journals. |
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This is Michael Kearl's Tour through Cyberspace site. There are links here to data resources and methods/statistics pages. |
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The Dead Sociologists Society has a link to a Research Methods page with links to many basic and useful sources of information. |
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The University of Indiana Office of Research and Graduate School |
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The Survey Research Center at Princeton University has links to dozens of the major data source and research centers. |
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The University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center (NORC) has a number of reports available to use as models and data sources for your own research projects. |
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Any student of social research must take a tour of the Gallup Research Center web site. |
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The Institute for Public Opinion Research at Florida International University has research reports available from their archive - the special focus is on disaster research. |
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The Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan contains links to current and past research projects. |
There are any number of data sets out there on the Internet that are excellent sources for teaching research methods and statistics. These can also be excellent sources for students to use to conduct secondary data analyses. If you’re in a class with research requirements, why not create a master list of data sources that you can use throughout the course.
These sites include: The National Science Foundation (Social, Behavioral and Economic Research), The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, The National Archives and Records Administration, The Census Bureau, FedStats and of course, The World Database of Happiness.
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Data Sets |
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The National Science Foundation |
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The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research |
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The National Archives and Records Administration |
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The Census Bureau |
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Federal Statistics |
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The World Database of Happiness |
CULTURE
To begin to understand the social world you need to be able to see the basic patterns that exist. Social theory helps us to understand the ideas behind the study of the social world. Methodology examines the ways in which we go about our study. The most basic of patterns that students of society encounter is culture. The study of culture is usually one of the first lessons that sociologists teach. To view papers, presentations and lectures on culture go to Sociology Online and World Lecture Hall: Sociology. Here you will find links to information that can supplement course readings on culture and provide current research on topics related to culture.
What follows are internet sites that will introduce to you the basic elements of culture, let you explore world cultures, help you to examine multiculturalism and finally take you through a tour of popular and postmodern culture research and thought.
In the way of basic introductions, look at the culture web page for the encyclopedia Britannica at Britannica.com. Here students will get a feel for the meaning of culture. At the University of Minnesota’s Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition What is Culture? Web page, you will be introduced to a number of definitions across many academic disciplines. Washington State University sponsors another What is Culture (WSU) web page with basic definitions of culture and an index of writings on culture by great thinkers such as Clifford Geertz and cultural discussions on topics like “women, culture and power”.
General resources for studying culture can be found at the CIA World Fact Book and at the Library of Congress Country Studies. Both sites can be used to collect basic information about cultures from all over the world. Using sites like these make comparison and contrast studies more productive. Students taking a culture studies course should bookmark these sites on their computers. Add them to your course syllabus as useful resources.
We need to rely on our friends in anthropology if we’re going to get a comprehensive understanding of the history and meaning of culture. A Sociology Guy’s Anthropology Links ought to do the trick, as would the Kinship and Social Organization web page. Both of these would be tremendous sites for out of class projects or writing papers. The Ancient World Web and Washington State University’s World Civilizations web site will provide you with information and numerous links related to history and global civilization. These are great sites for students who have had no experience with anthropology or with much history (believe it or not it’s possible to graduate from college these days without taking a history course!). Finally, About.com has a culture index page that has links to most of the world cultures. This information would be useful in making the transition from basic culture concepts like cultural universals and folkways to current issues and debates related to multiculturalism.
Multiculturalism is a hot topic these days. You’ll probably cover it in your sociology classes. Some supplemental Internet sites include the Multicultural Homepage, a new site that is putting together cultural backgrounds for the diverse populations living here in the U.S. and other regions of the world. The Multicultural Pavilion is a resource page for educators, students and activists. Links provide information about a variety of cultural experiences, discussion forums, learning activities, and mailing lists for interested “activists.” This site would be especially useful for projects targeted specifically at multicultural issues in education.
What makes cultural studies fun is taking a look at popular culture. Students always get more involved when we cover these kinds of topics that are easily recognizable in their every day lives. Some excellent comprehensive sites that one could spend hours in are Sarah Zupko’s popcultures.com and Cultural Studies Central. Both sites provide opportunities for joining discussion groups. The sites include debates, resources, links, magazines, book reviews, and academic connections. Students would learn a great deal about pop culture and postmodernity by just surfing through either of these sites. They are great places for exploration and discovery.
The Center for the Study of Popular Culture web page will connect you with FrontPage Magazine – an online journal edited by David Horowitz. You need to wade through the political commentary to get to the more in-depth articles on culture. Current thoughts and opinions about the state of Western culture are explored on a number of levels in many of the related sites. On a lighter note, the History of Cinema and Pop Culture web page is a creative British product that explores the relationship between film and popular culture. The site has record of the collection of the Bill Douglas Centre of the History of Cinema and Pop Culture at the University of Exeter. There are a number of links to related sites and to web pages of staff and students of the Centre and the Department of English.
Of course, when it comes to pop culture the Internet itself is probably one of the best learning tools. There are whole programs now developing on the Sociology of the Internet. As long as you’re researching pop culture you might as well check out the Elvis Sighting Bulletin Board. A successful teaching tool is to have students construct their own web pages. This website could be used as a model for students to use in constructing their own web page that addresses significant elements of pop culture.
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Culture |
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Sociological Research Online has a number of research articles focusing on cultural studies. Go to the index of articles to see titles. |
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At the World Lecture Hall go to the menu and choose to "browse by area" - from here you can select cultural studies or sociology. |
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Search the online Britannica Encyclopedia for information on culture. |
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A web page with a number of useful definitions of culture from the University of Minnesota |
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www.wsu.edu:8001/vcwsu/commons/topics/culture/culture-index.html |
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A very extensive site that addresses the question, What is culture? |
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Any study of world culture should start here at the CIA World Factbook. |
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The Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress has produced online Country Studies. |
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The Anthropology page from Michael Kearl's Tour Through Cyberspace. |
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An online tutorial on kinship and social organization. Take a tour of this site before you take your culture exam. |
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Washington State University's World Civilizations Internet Classroom enables you to take a virtual tour of global cultures. |
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It's a giant address - About.com's web links to sites about culture. If you have trouble, just go to About.com and do a search using the keyword culture. |
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A Multicultural Homepage from Purdue University will allow you to study cultural facts about countries around the globe. A great site for a research project. |
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Paul Gorski's Multicultural Pavilion - it's oriented toward trying to achieve more equity in education. |
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This is the address for Sarah Zupko's Pop Culture web site - a very important information source for students of culture. |
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The Cultural Studies Central is a tremendous site to keep checking with throughout the semester. You can get information and engage in ongoing learning projects. |
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This is the web site of David Horowitz's FrontPage online magazine. A lot of political commentary on the state of Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Wade through and you can find articles on specific concerns in Western Culture. |
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The History of Cinema and Pop Culture web site contains the history of film studies as an important component of popular culture. |
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This is the Elvis Sighting Bulleting Board - a place where you can record your latest sighting of the King. |
SOCIALIZATION
Socialization is what we call the process of becoming human that we experience our whole lives. Sociologists believe that through social interaction important aspects of our self-identity are formed and cultural values and norms are internalized. There are four major agents of socialization that people experience through the lifecourse which teach people the survival skills and social competencies needed to achieve culturally based goals.
The family is the first agent of socialization that people experience. EducationAids.com contains an article, “Are you setting your child up for failure?” by Leigh Butler. Take a look at this site to see a sample of the kinds of information aimed at young parents. Parenting Resources for the 21st Century is a federally funded site that, “strives to help families meet the formidable challenges of raising a child today by addressing topics that include school violence, child development, home schooling, organized sports, child abuse, and the juvenile justice system.” Parenting.org is an information site sponsored by the Girls and Boys Town. This organization specializes in training, consulting, and researching parenting practices that will help adults deal with the day-to-day care taking, guidance, and development of their children.
You can find specific information about the social institution of education in a later section. There are some specific sources of information about education as an important agent of socialization. Rodney Riegle at Illinois State University has published a brief but very informative online paper entitled, Everything You Learned in School. It specifically addresses some of the specifics of the hidden curriculum in American schools. The American Prospect has an online article, Schools That Develop Children by James Comer, MD. The article addresses school reform that is matched with what we know about how children develop and learn.
Another important agent of socialization are peers. Focus Adolescent Services is an internet clearinghouse of information and resources to help and support families with troubled and at-risk teens. The website has a peer influences page that provides links to articles about adolescent friendships. Many are written by professionals in the field, researchers and journalists. The University of Indiana sponsors an Internet site, Center for Adolescent and Family Studies, from which you can access information on adolescent peer relationships and identity development.
The media are the last group of important socializing forces that we experience in Western culture. Daniel Chandler at the University of Wales has developed an online learning module on Television and Socialization. You can access presentations, literature, research findings and theories. On the site you can access a bibliography of works on gender and media socialization.
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Socialization |
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www.educationaids.bizland.com/areyousettingyourchildupforfailure.htm |
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EducationAids.com contains information aimed at parents who wish to take a more proactive approach to socialization. |
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Parenting Resources for the 21st Century addresses many of the current issues facing parents today. If you're not a parent, surf through this site to see some what parenting is like these days. |
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Parenting.org is a resource site with information organized according to the age range of children. |
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Rodney Riegle has put together an online paper entitled "Everything You Learned in School." |
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Schools That Develop Children, an article by James Comer in The American Prospect. |
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Focus Adolescent Services is a clearinghouse of information about teenagers at risk. There are articles on this page about the importance of peer influences. |
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University of Indiana's Center for Adolescent and Family Studies Internet site contains links to research articles on peer relationships. |
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Daniel Chandler's online learning module on Television and Socialization. |
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From Daniel Chandler's site, a bibliography of sources on gender and media socialization. |
GROUPS & ORGANIZATIONS
One of the best ways to study society is to look at the groups it creates. These kinds of groups can be categorized in a number of ways. There are both formal and informal types of groupings that we are all a part of. The Formal Organizations web site at the University of Chicago provides summaries of major work in the field of organizational behavior and organizations. This is a great way to expose students to the work of leading thinkers without having to buy numerous textbooks. It’s a low cost way to expand the reading options for your course. Another site, the Historical Background of Organizational Behavior prepared by Edward G. Wertheim of the College of Business Administration, Northeastern University, provides a good introductory background and addresses many of the major works in the field. This is a good site to surf if you’re just starting to study human organizations and want to learn what the business people are studying.
Complexity, Complex Systems & Chaos Theory, Organizations as Self-Adaptive Complex Systems is a real mouthful! But the site contains useful information for people wanting to investigate organizations as complex systems. Included on the site is a comprehensive listing of related web sites, journals in the field, working papers, tools for doing organizational analyses and lecture notes. You’ll find several web sources out there that address learning organizations – one of the latest trends in organizational theory. Peter Senge and the Learning Organization provides you with a history and discussion of the development of this organizational concept. Another site that includes a number of useful resources and links is the Learning Organization Resources on the Web and on the Net web site. It includes web links, web papers, book reviews and conference announcements.
Finally, consider joining an Internet group yourself. Use the last web address on the following table to access groups of interest to sociologists and students of sociology. Instructions on exactly how to join are contained at the top of the page.
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Groups & Organizations |
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From the University of Chicago a linked reference list of articles on formal organizations. |
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The history of organizational theory from a management point of view. |
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Complexity, Complex Systems & Chaos Theory Organizations as Self-Adaptive Complex Systems - what a title! The site contains a linked review of literature and resources in the field. |
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Article on Peter Senge and the development of the Learning Organization. |
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Learning Organization Resources on the Web and on the Net contains links to sites and information sources. |
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Internet groups of interest to sociologists. Join a group and learn more about sociology. |
DEVIANCE & CRIMINOLOGY
Web pages in this section cover a broad range of topics and theories including deviant behavior, crime, social control, prisons, criminology, and juvenile delinquency. The best pages in this category are from government agencies such as the FBI, White House, Department of Justice, and Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research maintains a web site containing the National Archive for Criminal Justice Data. Established in 1978 under the auspices of ICPSR and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), U.S. Department of Justice, the NACJD currently holds over 500 data collections relating to criminal justice. This website provides browsing and downloading access to most of this data and documentation. The U.S. Dept of Justice is an essential resource site for students and researchers focused on criminology. The page has an indexed catalog of all BJS publications. There are several versions of each article you can download as well as order hard copies. Most articles are written using data collections – data sets and codebooks can also be ordered off this site.
If you backtrack to the Bureau of Justice Statistics Homepage you will more extensive links to publications, data, information, and datasets related to crime, juvenile justice, and State contacts. This extensive site also contains a BJS publications order form, information about other products available from the BJS Clearinghouse, links to World Wide Web (WWW) Sites, State World Wide Web (WWW) Sites, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Sites and Listservs. This is a statistics site sponsored by the federal government. From this page you can access these other important sources of information for researching crime:
- Crime and Victims Statistics
- Statistics on Drugs and Crime
- Publications
- International Justice Statistics
There are a significant number of important government supported web pages related to reporting information about crime. The Social Statistics Briefing Room is a part of the White House web site. From this site you can link to statistical reports on a number of important social areas. Crime statistics is one of those areas. This is a briefing room – so the reports are not designed to be extensive but more general, targeting trends and summaries.
Would you like to know the latest data on drug abuse in the U.S.? The DEA Homepage provides up-to-date statistics regarding arrests, drug lab seizures, drug removal efforts, and drug testing. The page links you to another site that gives pharmacological and usage data about “drugs of concern” to the DEA. Also on the web page are links to information about law enforcement efforts by the agency (budget/staffing, training and agent deaths). Also included are links to ten key publications such as; legalization issues, intelligence reports and press releases.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a similar web page that’s filled with data and major links to crime related sites. From The FBI Homepage you will be able to access the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. All sociology students are all exposed to the UCR. It’s one thing to read about the information contained in these kinds of reports, it can be a whole other ball game for students to actually see the report, explore it on their own and make their own comparisons. This can take learning to another level. Go to the Federal Bureau of Prisons web site, a page that calls itself a source of quick facts related to prisons, prisoners, and employees of the Bureau of Prisons. After you visit some of these government sites you will undoubtedly be convinced that we are in the information age.
The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is one of the most extensive sources of information on criminal and juvenile justice in the world, providing services to an international community of policymakers and professionals. NCJRS is a collection of clearinghouses supporting all bureaus of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs: the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the OJP Program Offices. It also supports the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Criminal Justice Statistics is the link that offers online full-text publications available on the NCJRS website and on partner agency websites listed alphabetically. If you know the title of the publication you are seeking, start here.
The Legal Information Institute offers Supreme Court opinions under the auspices of Project Hermes, the court's electronic-dissemination project. This archive contains nearly all opinions of the court issued since May of 1990. In addition, the page offers a collection of over 600 of the most important historical decisions of the Court is available on CD-ROM and (with reduced functionality) over the Net.
In order to conduct a spatial analysis of crime you’ll need to access meaningful maps of urban centers. The National Institute of Justice sponsors the Mapping and Analysis for Public Safety. Established in 1997, the goal of the Center is the promotion, research, evaluation, development, and dissemination of GIS (geographic information systems) technology and the spatial analysis of crime.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention web site is designed to provide information and resources on both general areas of interest about juvenile justice and delinquency including conferences, funding opportunities, and new publications and the comprehensive strategy as a framework for communities to combat youth crime. There are a number of major categories of information on this site, they include:
- Topical Resources. Provides resources on a variety of timely and specific topics - such as gangs, gun violence, and school violence.
- National and International Organizations and Agencies. Provides contact information and links for organizations and agencies across the country and around the world that focus on youth. You may search by topical area or by alphabet.
- State Resources. Provides State-by-State lists of contacts, including Juvenile Justice Specialists, State Advisory Groups, Missing Children, Clearinghouses, and Departments of Juvenile Justice, Education, and Sheriff's Associations. The site allows you to search by State or type of contact.
- Teleconference Series. OJJDP's Satellite Teleconference series offers a convenient and cost-effective method of providing information to diverse juvenile justice constituencies all over the country. Videotapes of past broadcasts are available for purchase.
Reports and documents related to many of the legal aspects of crime and punishment can be accessed off the ACLU Criminal Justice Page. The page will provide you with accessibility to legal advice and court case archives. You will be able to link to other criminal justice sites and reference articles and case studies as well as see a list of books of interest. The web page includes a site-specific search engine.
Terrorism has emerged as a popular area of study. Sociologists and criminologists have been studying this phenomenon from decades. Try accessing the new Department of Homeland Security web page. The menu bar across the top of the page indicates the different responsibilities that fall under this federal agency.
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Criminology |
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The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data is an excellent starting point for collecting statistical reports of crime across the nation. |
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The United States Department of Justice - headed by the Attorney General. This is the gateway page for access to hundreds of reports and statistics. |
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The Bureau of Justice Statistics is maintained by the Department of Justice. One of the first places you should search when collecting data on crime facts in the U.S. |
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Crime and Victims Statistics is one of the links from the Bureau of Justice Statistics main page. |
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Drugs and Crime Facts (Bureau of Justice Statistics) a summary of the latest statistics about drug-related crimes, law enforcement, courts, and corrections in the United States. |
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This is the direct address to the Publications available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. |
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The International Justice Statistics that are available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. |
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The Social Statistics Briefing Room - an information distribution site sponsored by the White House. |
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This is the site of the Drug Enforcement Administration, a division of the Department of Justice. Here you can access information about drug related crime and prevention programs at the federal level. |
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The homepage for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). You can access hundreds of web pages from this point. Go to the "About Us" link on the left hand side of the page to learn more about the types of crime that the FBI has jurisdiction over. |
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This is the address of the FBI page that contains the Uniform Crime Index reports. |
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The Federal Bureau of Prisons has a Quick Facts web page with brief statistical reports. This only covers information about federal prisoners. Each state will have it's own information on state and local crimes. |
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The National Criminal Justice Reference Service - check on the menu on the left hand side of the page for specific categories. |
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This is the address for the Statistical Reports from the NCJRS page listed above. |
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A collection of Supreme Court decisions are available from this site. Current decisions are linked on the main page and there is an archive you can search. |
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Mapping and Analysis for Public Safety (MAPS) - a division of the Department of Justice. From here you can access geographic information as well as mapping tools. |
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The homepage for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. From here you can find information (Facts and Figures) about juvenile deviance. |
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The Criminal Justice webpage of the American Civil Liberties Union. |
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The main page for the new Department of Homeland Security. |
SOCIAL CLASS & STRATIFICATION
To begin calculating social characteristics related to social class such as socioeconomic status, the first place to go is the U.S. Census Bureau Income Statistics. Like all other such pages maintained by the Census Bureau the Income Statistics site and the U.S. Census Bureau Poverty Statistics both contain the latest and most accurate statistics available. On these pages you will find longitudinal reports, statistical reports on income by population, median income reports, and federal definitions of poverty. Look also at the 1998 Greenbook, which contains references to some income data, also statistics regarding Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Unemployment compensation, and Welfare (AFDC) figures. Other useful statistics that you can find on this site include tax provisions related to retirement, health, poverty, employment, disability and other social Issues.
Another site by professor Kearl at Trinity University, Explorations in social inequality is designed as a self-contained seminar on the topic with dozens of web links integrated into the presentation. Many of the web pages in the Tour Through Cyberspace gateway site have been designed as stand alone tours through the essential categories in the field. This site is no different. It’s a great place for beginners, yet has a depth of coverage unlike other sites in this category. A related web page seeks to answer the important question, Why the Poor are Poor. Here you will find an excellent presentation on the social psychology of poverty. The National Coalition for the Homeless web page is an advocacy site concentrating on issues related to poverty and homelessness. From the site you can access resource directories, a fact sheet about homelessness, an online library and links to related publications.
The Internet has several great sources for lectures and presentations related to social class. Inequality.org is a journalism oriented web page about inequality in income, wealth and health. The site is a gold mine of information that could be used as a companion web site for courses on social class. It would be important to point out that journalism isn’t science. For a global perspective on the subject go to SocioSite’s social inequality and stratification resources. The SocioSite is another gateway to hundreds of resources in sociology. From this page you can find links to papers, reports, and statistics on issues related to inequality from all over the world. The site is especially strong in the areas of poverty and social class. Also included on this site is a section with teaching strategies. Look at the 30-hour famine project as a very creative hand’s on teaching method.
The Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy at Harvard University emerged from the conviction that certain research puzzles may be particularly suited to an interdisciplinary approach. The program’s web site, Harvard University’s Inequality and Social Policy Web Site Think Tank Links has information that is oriented toward scholars from a variety of fields. Great comparisons among social classes can be made when you go to the American Heritage’s ranking of the wealthiest American’s of all time where there are biographical links to the 40 members of this list. Thorstein Veblen’s classic text on the emerging modern class structure in America can now be found at Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. Because the text is in word processing format you can transfer sections of his work into papers and presentations. Veblen’s concept of conspicuous consumption seems to ring true with students these days.
As a foil to the Veblen text you can import graphic images from The Austin Chronicles Hypermedia Gallery on Homeless Teenagers into your papers and presentations. Photojournalist Jana Birchum spent 6 weeks in January and February 1995, chronicling the lives of young homeless living on the streets of Austin, Texas. Her dramatic photographs were first presented in the March 24, 1995 edition of The Austin Chronicle. Add some more important facts to your visual presentation by going to the Homelessness in America web page and find information about:
- The New Poverty
- About The Homeless
- How Many?
- Families with Children
- Men
- Pregnant & Homeless
- Children
- Poverty Nomads
- Family Myth
- Veterans
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Social Class & Stratification |
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Access the latest Income Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. |
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U.S. Census Bureau statistics on poverty reports from the latest survey data. |
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The 1998 Greenbook site contains links to data on federal programs aimed at combating poverty. |
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A presentation from Michael Kearl (Trinity University) on social inequality. |
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A web page from Michael Kearl's fabulous Internet site. This page will give you information on the social psychology of attributions and explanations for poverty and social class. |
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A journalistic site with commentary on social class and stratification in the U.S. |
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Another great web page from SocioSite - links to works on poverty, stratification and social class. |
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Harvard University's Inequality and Social Policy web site Think Tank contains a number of links to Internet sources of information on the intersections of social policy aimed at the poor and working classes. |
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The Forty Wealthiest American's of All Time - compiled by American Heritage Magazine. |
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http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/veblen/leisure/index.html |
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Impress your friends and professors by actually reading Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class. Use of primary sources is always very good impression management. |
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The web site for the National Coalition for the Homeless - loaded with information about the various social problems associated with the different populations who experience homelessness. |
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Here you can access a photo gallery and stories about homeless youth in Austin. The Gutter Tribe was created by the Austin Chronicle. |
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www.qvctc.commnet.edu/student/GaryOKeefe/homeless/frame.html |
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Homeless in America contains information about specific populations of homeless and links to various agencies created to help people who are homeless. |
RACE & ETHNICITY
Closely tied to studies of social class are those concerned with race and ethnicity. Research in these areas focuses on the relationship between these variables and others such as social class, education, political affiliation and religiosity (to name just a few broad categories). If you haven’t already been to professor Kearl’s Tour Through Cybersociety you’ve missed an incredible Internet experience. Within the site he has created a number of subject specific course pages. I refer to these as “course pages” because they are self-contained curricula. His Race and Ethnicity page is the first stop on this particular tour. There are dozens and dozens of links to related sites about a variety of racial and ethnic categories containing statistical information as well as stories, texts and theories.
Another returning web gateway is the American Studies Web with links to several important sites such as the Minority Affairs Forum, Race and Ethnicity Book Reviews, and Immigration Resources. More specific web searches can be made from the African American Internet Links. In addition to online resources, listservs, search engines and newsgroups you can find links to academic programs of study. Similar sites (all sponsored by UCLA) are the Latino Internet Sites and the Asian American Sites. Another university site is the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute at Texas A&M. The Institute's self described mission is to conduct and disseminate--at regional, national, and international levels--interdisciplinary and policy research pertaining to race and ethnicity across various public policy areas.
The Virtual Library on Migration and Ethnic Relations is the oldest catalog of the web, started by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of html and the web itself. Unlike commercial catalogs, it is run by a loose confederation of volunteers, who compile pages of key links for particular areas in which they are expert; even though it isn't the biggest index of the web, the VL pages are widely recognized as being among the highest-quality guides to particular sections of the web. This site includes links to media, resources, organizations, and research programs. Also included is a search engine to search by topic or keyword. The Race and Ethnicity Collection is one of over forty literary collections on the E-server and consists of reference material, essays, and other works addressing issues of race and ethnicity in the United States. It also includes a search engine for the site. The site-specific search engines are helpful when you know what you’re looking for and don’t want to waste time hunting.
Several more specific web pages, while often politically biased, still contain much useful information – you’ll just have to weed through it more carefully. The Origins of Affirmative Action will give you a history of this social policy and several links to historical references. Going to The Arayan Nations Headquarters will enable you to find out what hate groups like this have to say about themselves. When you get to this site you find interesting the blending of religion with racial and ethnic enmity. Internet Resources for African-American Studies is an excellent starting point for beginning your tour through this subculture. There are links here to dozens of information resource archives.
The Hoover Institute is a think tank at Stanford University. One of this organization’s leading scholars is Thomas Sowell who has written a number of influential books related to race and ethnicity including Race, Culture and Equality. In his remarks at the Commonwealth Club of California on June 18, 1998, Thomas Sowell discussed the conclusions he reached after spending fifteen years researching the economic and social impacts of cultural differences among peoples and nations around the world. This essay, Race, Culture, and Equality, distills the results found in the trilogy that was published during these years---Race and Culture (1994), Migrations and Cultures (1996), and Conquests and Cultures (1998). The purpose of the Institution is to promote peace. Its records stand as a challenge to those who promote war (About the Hoover Institution).
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Race & Ethnicity |
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Michael Kearl's self-contained "course" on race and ethnicity. |
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The American Studies web site at Georgetown University is up and running as a pilot program. |
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African-American web links |
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Hispanic and Latino web links |
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Links to research sites on a variety of Asian American groups. |
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The Race and Ethnic Studies Institute at Texas A&M University |
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This page is a general gateway to information about Migration and Ethnic Relations (globally). It is part of the World Wide Web Virtual Library. |
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The Race and Ethnicity Collection consists of reference material, essays, and other works addressing issues of race and ethnicity in the U.S. |
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Where did the idea of Affirmative Action come from? Learn from the links on this website. |
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The Aryan Nations Headquarters - find out what this group has to say about themselves. |
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Internet Resources for African-American Studies |
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Race, Culture and Equality - an essay by Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institute. |
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About the Hoover Institute. |
SEX & GENDER
Web sites under this section are divided into several general categories: Gender Studies, Resource sites, politically oriented pages and Men’s Studies. A good starting point is the Gender Inn (Women’s and Gender Studies Database on the Internet), which is a German site that has an English translation. Check out the Gender Inn which is a searchable database providing access to over 6000 records pertaining to feminist theory, feminist literary criticism and gender studies focusing on English and American literature. These pages also include a site-specific search engine to help you find information.
The Women’s Studies/Resources Research Sites is a selective, annotated, highly acclaimed listing of web sites containing resources and information about women's studies / women's issues, with an emphasis on sites of particular use to an academic women's studies program. From these pages you can access over 500 articles focusing on gender studies. For an incredibly extensive array of links go to the Feminism and Women’s Studies web site. This page will connect you to a very comprehensive collection of web links:
- Activism
- Gender & Sexuality
- Women’s Health
- The Workplace
- Women’s History
- Academic Discourse
- Women’s Studies
- Other Links
The American Studies Web has a number of links to sites to help you research sociology. The women’s studies resources is an index to specific sites ranging from history-related, current events, issues oriented, women’s hall of fame, and global news related to women. The Feminist Theory Website provides research materials and information for students, activists, and scholars interested in women's conditions and struggles around the world. The goals of this website are: 1) to encourage a wide range of research into feminist theory, and 2) to encourage dialogue between women (and men) from different countries around the world. Hopefully, this will result in new connections, new ideas, and new information about feminist theory and women's movements. The site focuses on three subsections 1) various fields within feminist theory; 2) different national / ethnic feminisms; and 3) individual feminists.
Again, Professor Kearl at Trinity University has provided us with a fantastic gender web site. His Gender and Society: Contains web links that are integrated into the text of a summary presentation about gender. This is a very user-friendly site and seemingly oriented to students who are just learning the essential topics related to gender. The website represents a whole seminar on gender with web links on topics such as income, power, historical and cross-cultural sites incorporated.
The UN Internet Gateway for Women’s Studies is an international site that focuses on the advancement and empowerment of women. This is more of a politically biased site but it still contains much useful information specifically related to the Beijing Conference on Women. The page is concerned with providing updated information on the aftermath of the conference, global UN efforts related to women’s issues and fostering communication among people interested in women’s issues. The Democracy Through Partnership Between Men and Women in Politics is another politically oriented site. It contains a bibliographic database of articles related to women in politics, organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The IPU is the world organization of parliaments of sovereign states. It was established in 1889. The Union is the focal point for worldwide parliamentary dialogue and works for peace and co-operation among peoples and for the firm establishment of representative democracy.
The Feminist Majority Foundation Online web page advertises itself as, “…committed to empowering women and winning equality through research, the sharing of information of value to feminists everywhere, and effective action.” It’s a site designed for women but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if interested researchers surfed through. The site’s News and Press Release selection offers to keep visitors up to date with breaking developments affecting women. The Feminist Events Calendar will enable you to select by date, or conduct a search by topic or geographic location for those events of interest to you.
The Men’s Center is a not for profit professional organization of scholars, therapists, and others interested in the exploration of masculinity in modern society. Menstuff National Men’s Resource has thousands of men's resources and hyperlinks, hundreds of men's issues, events, periodicals and groups and thousands of on-site men's book reviews & covers. The site boasts about being an educational nonprofit volunteer web site that serves a diverse men's community (men's rights, mythopoetic, pro-feminist, recovery, re-evaluation counseling, and religious). This web page provides information on over 100 men's issues regarding positive change in male roles and relationships (including abuse, aging, circumcision, divorce, fathers, health, isolation, kid stuff, mid-life, multicultural, prostate, sexuality, spirituality, transition, violence, work, etc.).
Finally, for a host of useful facts and figures on the economic aspect of gender arrangements in this country, surf to the National Committee on Pay Equity web page. Here you can see income differences (pay gap) between men and women. The menu bar at the top of the page will provide you with other reports on this topic.
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Sex & Gender |
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The Gender Inn - a searchable database providing access to over 7,500 records pertaining to feminist theory, feminist literary criticism and gender studies focusing on English and American literature. |
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Women's Studies / Women's Issues Resource Sites is a listing of web sites containing resources and information about women's studies / women's issues, with an emphasis on sites of particular use to an academic women's studies program. |
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Feminism and Women's Resources located on the E-server. |
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The American Studies Pilot Program at Georgetown University |
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The Feminist Theory Website provides research materials and information for students, activists, and scholars interested in women's conditions and struggles around the world. |
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Michael Kearl's web course on Gender and Society. |
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The U.N. Internet Gateway on the Advancement and Empowerment of Women |
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Democracy Through Partnership Between Men and Women in Politics - this web page contains links to other sites of interest to those studying the political organization and activity of women. |
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The Feminist Majority Foundation Online - a comprehensive site on issues of interest to the women's movement. |
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The Men's Center contains links to Internet resources for those studying the men's movement. |
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The Menstuff website has resources targeted to men. The site is trying to mirror similar web sites for women and minority groups. |
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Examine the Pay Gap between men and women at National Committee on Pay Equity web site. |
ECONOMY & WORK
The Department of Labor web site contains links to a multitude of government resources. Especially helpful might be the library section that will provide you with Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, speeches, policy papers, and congressional testimony. These comprehensive government sites are great places to take Internet tours in order to familiarize you with “what’s out there.”
While you’re at the Department of Labor take a look at the Department of Labor National Longitudinal Surveys, which provide links to a number of research data sets related to the world of work. Included on the site are a series of research papers based on the DOL research findings. These are excellent resources for not only studies of the economic behavior but for research methods courses as well. Similarly, the Federal Statistics web site offers comprehensive statistical reports on a wide range of social categories. At this site you can find statistical reports from just about every federal agency that collects social statistics. From this site you will also find links to other statistical reports such as the Statistical Abstract of the United States and the State and Metropolitan Area Data Book. Students new to the social sciences might find the Kids Pages useful as a primer for getting their feet wet.
When you’re ready to really get into some serious economic data, go to the National Bureau of Economic Research web page. This organization is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works. This page reflects research conducted by more than 500 university professors around the country who are the leading scholars in their fields.
Most sociological studies of the economy begin with looking at the income of individuals and families. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of U.S. individuals and the families in which they reside. It has been ongoing since 1968. The data are collected annually, and the data files contain the full span of information collected over the course of the study. PSID data can be used for cross-sectional, longitudinal, and intergenerational analysis and for studying both individuals and families. The Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis put together a site that links visitors to the National Reserve System, research papers, and analyses of the U.S. economy including forecasts - Economic Research and Data. If you’ve not taken an economics course this site may well provide you with some basic information that could be incorporated into presentations – including charts and graphs.
When you get tired of scanning numbers, charts and graphs you might want to take a look at the History of Economic Thought Website which has an extensive Schools of Thought section that provides a more than thorough curriculum in economic philosophy. This is a wonderful site that acts as a contrast to all the statistical reports that have come before.
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Economy & Work |
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The Department of Labor is your starting point for collecting data and researching the economy and work. |
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides federal research on working Americans. |
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The FedStats Internet site is the gateway to accessing statistical reports from all federal agencies. |
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The National Bureau of Economic Research contains links to dozens of reports and data sets - try the publications link at the top of the page. |
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The Panel Study of Income Dynamics is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of US individuals and the families in which they reside. |
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Economic Research and Data - contains links to statistical reports, articles and surveys. |
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The History of Economic Thought - a broad survey of economic philosophy. |
EDUCATION
The U.S. Dept. of Education website is the first place one should access when doing research about education. The site contains current and past educational statistics as well as assessment reports and program evaluations. At comprehensive sites such as this students can not only see current research findings but also use the reports on the site as models for constructing their own research papers and projects. Education World is a site that looks like it’s designed for professional educators. What better place for social scientists to begin constructing an ethnography of our learning culture. While this doesn’t appear to be an entirely objective site, it is one of the largest collections of issues, educational findings, reports, interviews and current events related to American schools.
To immediately access current and past data on education in America go to the National Center for Education Statistics web site. You will be taken to a search engine where you plug in the parameters of the data you are looking for. Also included on the site is an index to the most popular statistical reports contained on the site. Most general reports can be accessed from this index. This may be a good starting place if you’re not sure where to begin.
The Social Statistics Briefing Room is a part of the White House web site. From the main White House site you can link to statistical reports on a number of important social areas. Educational statistics is one of those areas. This is a briefing room – so the reports are not designed to be extensive but rather general summaries on trends and brief reports. For both governmental and nongovernmental statistical reports on education please see the Michigan State University Education Statistics web site. From this site you can access links to all state educational agencies.
To begin making cross-national and cross-cultural comparisons, go to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which has been set up by U.K. universities and higher education colleges to collect, analyze and report on higher education statistics. For a bigger picture on what’s going in education try accessing the World Data on Education web site. Here you will be able to see educational profiles and national reports from United Nations member countries where statistical reports on education are available. Also included on the site are links to other related world education information sources. World data on education (WDE) focuses on basic descriptions of the main characteristics concerning the organization and functioning of national education systems.
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Education |
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The U.S. Department of Education main web page. From here you can access reports and statistics on what the federal government is doing to help local schools be more successful. |
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Tour Education World in order to immerse yourself in the teaching culture of U.S. schools. |
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The National Center for Education Statistics - this is the address for the subject index. |
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This Social Statistics Briefing Room web page on education is produced by the White House site provides some general statistical reports on the various education variables. |
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The Michigan State University Library has produced this page of links to sources of education statistics. |
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The Higher Education Statistics Agency is a reporting site for educational information from the United Kingdom. |
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This United Nations site contains links to information on world data on education. |
POLITICS
For purely biased information about current political events, issues and elections the first places to go are the national political party websites; Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee. Both sites report “key issues” that they would like to focus public attention on. You can access hundreds of Political Action Groups from these links to international spiritual, political, feminist, ethnic, media and environmental groups...all dedicated to expanding the alternatives for taking action in society. Centre for Research into Elections and Social Trends is a UK site that presents election results and analysis as well as political survey reports from across the U.K.
The Harvard-MIT Data Center maintains a large library of electronic data from a number of national sources, a growing collection of unique data sets, and an extensive codebook library. Few other university data centers approach the quantity of social science data that can be accessed from this site. There are over five hundred subsets of data – many related to political issues – that you could use for secondary analysis from this site. The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. Check to see if your college or university is a member.
For a comprehensive collection of information, statistical reports, expert interviews as well as discussion forums on issues related to urban living go to The Urban Institute. Links can be made to political organizations. These should be understood to be important elements of urban organization. The news releases for the media found on the site are a good source of elementary information for introductory level students who are searching for quick facts.
George Modelski at the University of Washington has created a fascinating web page (Evolutionary World Politics Homepage). The site explains itself in this way;
Evolutionary world politics is the employment of evolutionary theory in the study of long-term (structural) transformations in world-wide political arrangements. The subject comprises two main subdivisions: theoretical, and applied. The first concerns the construction, elaboration, and verification of models of structural change in world politics. The second applies this understanding to producing an account of the evolution of world political arrangements, for the past millennium in particular, and to predicting the outlines of such an evolution for the near future.
From this site you can get involved in learning, discussions, debates and link to countless other resources. In the spirit of big picture thinkers like Wallerstein and Mills, Modelski’s site conveys the ever-increasing importance of thinking about politics in global ways.
At the online lecture hall you can find Teaching Resources in many disciplines, politics is one. From here you can obtain course syllabi, statistical models and political science lectures. If this area is not one of your strengths, access this site to find supplementary materials for your lectures and presentations. Please refer back to the theory section of this text to find sites related to the philosophy and theory of political behavior.
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POLITICS |
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From this address you can see the "key issues"that the Republican National Committee would like to promote. |
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Special reports from the Democratic National Committee. |
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Political Action Groups - a webpage with links to hundreds of sites. |
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An extensive page of links to political science and sociology online publications. |
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Oxford University's sociology department houses the Center for Elections and Social Trends. |
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The Harvard - MIT Data Center contains a giant reference library of social science information. |
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The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction |
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The Urban Institute is a non-partisan economic and social policy research organization. |
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The Evolutionary World Politics Webpage is intended to be a starting-off point for students, and a resource for specialists, in the ongoing discussions about evolutionary approaches to the study of global politics |
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Links to teaching resources in sociology and other disciplines. |
MARRIAGES & FAMILIES
When trying to understand this most basic of social arrangements one of the first places to look is the U.S. Census. At these sites you can get a quick picture of families. At the US Census Marital Status and Living Arrangements you will find a report by Arlene F. Saluter on current marital status and living arrangements. Check out the U.S. Census Households By Type site and take a look at a chart that breaks down U.S. families by type. These kinds of web pages are great places to use when putting together charts and graphs for assignments and presentations.
For a more extensive examination look up The Emerging 21st Century American Family web page. This is a 1999 report by Tom W. Smith who directs the General Social Survey for the National Opinion Research Center. The report analyzes the data from the 1972-98 GSS and suggests a number of important trends. Finally, students might be interested to see the Legal and Economic Benefits of Marriage for a listing of legal benefits that exist for married couples today. You will find some cool facts to add to a report or discussion.
Family Sociology Resources and Family.com are pages oriented more toward consumers (people in families) than they are academic research site. The Family Sociology site does contain a sociology index list and a listing of university marriage and family sociology programs. What’s most interesting about sites like these is to see what kind of resources are available out there on the information highway to families – specifically to families who can afford to be online – families who may not be the most likely candidates for these kinds of resources in the first place.
There are a number of private foundations that fund research programs aimed at issues related to children and families. The Kids Count Data and Publications is a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children in the United States. By providing policymakers and citizens with benchmarks of child well being, KIDS COUNT seeks to enrich local, state, and national discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all children. At the national level, the principal activity of the initiative is the publication of the annual KIDS COUNT Data Book, which uses the best available data to measure the educational, social, economic, and physical well being of children. The Foundation also funds a nationwide network of state-level KIDS COUNT projects that provide a more detailed, community-by-community picture of the condition of children.
A good starting point if you’re interested in the classic social problems related to families; poverty, violence, and advocacy is The Family Resources on the Web which links you to sites that are oriented more toward families of lower social class who may not even have access to the internet in their homes. The Australian Institute of Family Studies is a Commonwealth statutory authority established in 1980 to promote the identification and understanding of factors affecting marital and family stability in Australia. See Resources on Domestic Violence, a web page with non-linked contact and resource information related to family violence. Cybergrrl Safety Net is a domestic violence website created for women who are in violent relationships. It provides links to useful information and resources, a quiz to determine how knowledgeable you are about domestic violence and an ongoing discussion and forum that you can read and add comments to.
There are a number of faith based family resources out there on the Internet. The Promising Practices Network is one that’s worth looking into. There are links to brief research reports on what seems to be working in helping create and maintain strong families. Another such site is the Pure Love Alliance. The mission of the Pure Love Alliance is to educate young people about the benefits of sexual abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage. We teach the skills necessary to remain abstinent and to convince others to do the same. We are public advocates for purity and family, vigorously and peacefully opposing individuals and institutions that directly or indirectly promote casual and irresponsible sexual relationships. What’s so interesting to sociologists is the phenomenon of the emergence of para-family organizations such this laboring to teach topics that were once the domain of the family alone.
The US Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families website contains links to government programs related to children and families and a search engine that will enable you to find other government sites that relate to children and families. The Federal government collects all kinds of data and files multitudes of reports. It’s a great starting point to find out what the current issues are and what we know so far. A division of the Administration for Children and Families is the Office of Child Support Enforcement. If you’d like to know how your state is doing compared with others in regard to the collection of child support from non-custodial parents go to the State Child Support Enforcement Web Site which also includes a number of non-ACF links that contain relevant information about child-support. Research Forum on Children, Families, and the New Federalism encourages collaborative research and informed policy on welfare reform and child well being. This web site features an on-line database of summaries of large- and small-scale research projects.
There are numbers of web sites out there that contain information related to children. Two important ones are, The Future of Children, which contains an index of scientific journals and articles related to children. The State of the World’s Children is a web page created by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF: www.unicef.org). The page endeavors to be a global report on the state of the world’s children – there’s not a whole lot here, yet. The site appears to be a starting place for collecting global information on children. This information is dated 1996, but if you bookmark the page, as it’s updated in the future you might be able to keep yourself more current with global children’s issues.
We live our lives nested in intimate relationships that both shape and are shaped by us. The Family Relations website contains information about:
- Relationships, including dating, marriage, and breaking up
- Parenting, from pregnancy & dealing with infertility to parenting teenagers
- Grandparents and brother/sister relationships
- Family problems, including grieving, alcohol & drug use, and divorce
- Intimate violence
Although it’s not intentionally designed to be so, the Marriage and Family Processes website is a self-contained marriage and family course. The page is an academic sociology site created by Michael C. Kearl at Trinity University (San Antonio). This site could be used as a companion site to your introduction to marriage and family course. There are a number of links that could be incorporated into your course reading list. For students who are considering a specialization in marriage and family studies this should be book-marked and added to your reference collection. The Ohio State University’s Human Development & Family Life Education Resource Center is a comprehensive site that provides links to educational resources and information technology about marriage and family.
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Marriage & Families |
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A Census Report on Marital Status and Living Arrangements. |
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A brief U.S. Census report on the breakdown of households by type (1997). |
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From the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago - a report in PDF format, The Emerging 21st Century Family |
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Religious Tolerance web page provides the Legal and Economic Benefits of Marriage |
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Family Sociology Resource links created and maintained by the Department of Sociology, University of Colorado at Boulder |
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Family Fun is a Disney sponsored website - it will help you to "go native" and see the pop culture aspect of family life in America. |
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Kids Count seeks to enrich local, state, and national discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all children. |
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Links to online Family Resources. |
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The Australian Institute of Family Studies which seeks to promote the identification and understanding of factors affecting marital and family stability in Australia |
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A comprehensive list of resources for people who are experiencing domestic violence. |
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Cybergrrl Safety Net: Information resources for women experiencing domestic violence and abusive relationships. |
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The Promising Practices Network has this page with links to research reports on what seems to be working for children and families. |
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The Pure Love Alliance chapter at MIT. |
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The Administration for Children and Families |
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State by state Child Support Enforcement website (Department of Health and Human Services). |
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The Research Forum on Children, Families, and the New Federalism website has dozens of publications with important data. |
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The David and Lucille Packard Foundation has produced this website on the Future of Children. |
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Site sponsored by UNICEF detailing the state of the world's children. |
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This page contains information for parents with adolescents with links to hundreds of articles. |
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From Michael Kearl's Tour Through Cybersociety - a course page on marriage and family processes. |
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The Ohio State University has a Human Development and Family Science Extension web site with links to family life and parenting. |
AGING & HEALTHCARE
Medicine and healthcare are becoming important components of an emerging social institution. There are a number of data sites that provide useful scientific information to social researchers. Your local hospital and community health districts are also good places to go to search for reports and statistics on health. See the website for the Harris County Hospital District (the 4th largest in the U.S.) as an example of what might be found in other regions.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site you will find links to data and statistics, a health topics index and publications that can be downloaded directly off the site. An interesting link on the site is one that addresses health related hoaxes and rumors. Did you know that there’s a rumor out there on the Internet that you can catch necrotizing fasciitis from Costa Rican bananas? Among all the data that you can find at the National Institutes of Health web site, there is a working definition of behavioral and social science research that’s possible at the NIH. This standard definition of the field is a good beginning in the effort to chart research territory for sociology of healthcare. The Combined Health Information Database contains information collected by both the NIH and the CDC. In addition to organizing and disseminating research articles, this site also provides you with contact information about the federal agency and scientists involved in collecting comprehensive health information concerning a wide range of health issues and conditions. A collection of research data related to healthcare can be found at the Department of Health and Human Services site. This site contains a number of reports and papers that are of interest to the social scientist. There are several here that are of special interest to studying healthcare:
- National and International Health Care Expenditures and Health Insurance Coverage
- Medicare Reimbursement to Hospitals and Physicians
- Health Status and Expenditures of the Elderly, and Background Data on Long-Term Care
For the past decade, researchers at Dartmouth Medical School’s Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences have been studying the performance of the health care system in the United States. The results of these studies have been published in the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care series of publications. You can access these at the Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare web site. The Global Health Network (GHNet) is an alliance of experts in health and telecommunications who are actively developing the architecture for a health information structure for the prevention of disease in the 21st century. The GHNet has constructed a distance-learning program in Epidemiology, the Internet and Global Health. The stated goal of the program is to improve health and higher education by using systems technologies that have proven to be effective based upon principles from the Internet culture, cognitive psychology, and quality control in manufacturing. In an attempt to make it available to as many people as possible, the GHNet has constructed a "supercourse" having now 104 lectures. This is an example of a remarkable new development that is occurring all around us in relation to education and healthcare.
The American
Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is the largest advocacy group for
older people in the U.S. Their extensive website has a research page from which
you can launch searches around the globe. Students could surf this extensive
site and gain a solid understanding of the issues currently facing older Americans.
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Aging & Healthcare |
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Surf the Harris County Hospital District website to see some of the issues involved in the management of a large urban health provider. |
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site has links to health-related findings and statistical reports. |
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Web site for the National Institute of Health contains reports on a number of health-related topics. |
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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation has numerous links to health related data reports. |
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The Combined Health Information Database is a bibliographic database produced by health-related agencies of the Federal Government. |
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The Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare - see the big picture of health in the U.S. |
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The Global Health Network at the University of Pittsburg. |
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This is the address for the AARP research webpage with information resources from around the world. |
RELIGION
Religion can be one of the most fascinating subjects one can study. The Internet allows us entrée into so many more aspects of this phenomenon. Varieties of global culture have never been more accessible. More data is being collected now than ever before. Organizations and Universities make this information available through newly constructed web pages. The Lilly Foundation is one of the premier funding organizations for religious research in America today. Their American Religion Data Archive represents a collection of quantitative data sets for the study of American religion. Included on the site are surveys of the general population, surveys of religious groups and surveys of religious professionals. In addition to aggregate data files you will find links to other data sets and religious organizations.
To get some idea of comparative church membership numbers go to the Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches which will provide you with a fact page about membership in religious denominations in North America with 60,000 members or more. There are a number of web sites that can be used as gateways to religious organizations and churches. See the American Studies Web and scroll down past the philosophy links to find dozens of religious sites for religious organizations and specific religious groups. The Religious Movements Homepage is really the granddaddy of religious sites. In addition to dozens of religious group profiles and web links you can connect with a Sociology of Religious Movements course resources as well as links to Professor Jeffrey Hadden’s Religious Movements, Religious Broadcasting, and Religious Freedom Courses.
To see what many of the current issues in religious studies are these days, access the National Science Foundation: Religion, Democratization, and Market Transition Workshop web page. Here you will find a report from this workshop, which can be used as a great teaching tool. Another great site for teaching resources is the Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion Web page where you can access texts of complete works of Weber’s related to religion. The site even has a search engine for words and phrases within Weber’s texts.
If you’re interested in more of an historical analysis of religion in this country see the American Religious Experience web site. This is a course web page developed by Briane Turley at the West Virginia University. The site contains a site-specific search engine, a film archive, articles and links to women in religion, and Religion in American News via Yahoo.com. Also included at this page is a way to access the Journal of Southern Religion. This web page brags that, “classical education is alive and well. Only the medium of communication is changing: chalk dust is giving way to electrons. The Internet furnishes an unprecedented means for collaboration; not only among religion scholars but also between instructors and the students they serve. The new information technologies are more than electronic gadgets; they are powerful tools that can strengthen ties among all members of the academic community. Their potential remains largely untapped in the humanities, but as more scholars venture out onto the information superhighway, we will witness a gradual shift in the way we convey ideas with each other and with our students.”
The Princeton University Center for the Study of Religion is a major academic initiative that aims to encourage scholarly research, teaching, and public discussion about religion through the diverse perspectives of the humanities and social sciences. This site addresses a wide variety of religious experience. The researcher will be exposed to a full-blown program in religious studies at Princeton.
The Institute for the Study of American Religion sponsors another great site that concentrates on religion in America where you can find information about local religious cults and sects. See also the Apologetics Index for research resources on cults, sects, movements, and religious doctrines. From this page you can access news reports, definitions, terms and book reviews. Terry Matthews at Wake Forest University focuses on the Southern religious experience at his site Lectures on Southern Religion. The purpose of the Televangelism sites it to provide a gateway to access the massive amount of material of the internet about religious broadcasting. Almost every televangelist, many radio broadcasters, and many Parachurch organizations that utilize broadcasting now have Web sites. This page provides a set of links, with abstracts, that will permit you to access all of these sites. This web site also presents a bibliography of significant writings about religious broadcasting. In addition, many of the writings of the author have been archived here for easy access.
An important religious resource both here in America and worldwide is the Catholic Church. The New Advent: Catholic Resources Online web page provides an online Catholic encyclopedia, links to the Vatican, Catholic Church teachings, practices and an index that references the Bible. While this site is not designed for social research – it’s for religious consumers to learn about the Catholic faith – it holds volumes of valuable information about the world’s largest religious group.
There are several sites that address a number of specific religious groups. www.Zipple.com is a Jewish super-site containing news, information, travel, cultural experiences, a site specific search engine, even a dating service (for when you get tired of working on that research project all alone). See also the Jewish Online Student Research Center for more information about Judaism, anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust.
The Islam World Net has an online search engine of the holy texts in the Muslim faith, links to sites that explain the religion to non-Muslims, explanations of fundamental beliefs, prophecies, prayers, books, texts, and theology. This is an enormous site. It’s an essential starting place for any serious study of the Islamic faith. Go to the Native American Spirituality web page an explore links from religious movements homepages and native American religion web sites. To understand the religious landscape of this country study The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints web page where you can also access The Book of Mormon (online) to read for yourself the doctrines and beliefs of this uniquely American religion.
New Religious Movements page contains a diverse collection of spiritual and social worldviews. All the groups present on this site should be treated separately and are included together here only for convenience and no value judgment is implied. What I find most interesting is the popular response, both within organized religion and within mainstream media, to alternative spirituality than in any theological justification for their existence. To end your study of religion on the internet you’ll need to visit the Links to Revelation, Apocalyptic and Millennial Websites and Materials to see texts and commentaries as well as introductory materials, books and articles. There’s even a way for you to visit academic and on-line classes.
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Religion |
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The American Religion Data Archive seeks to preserve quantitative data on American religion, to improve access to this data, to increase the use of the data, and to allow comparisons across data files. |
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The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches main web page provides links to reports and statistical charts comparing the populations of major churches in both countries. |
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The Americans Studies program at Georgetown University |
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The Religious Movements web site put together by the late Jeffrey Hadden of the University of Virginia is probably one of the most comprehensive Internet resources on religion. |
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This web site contains a detailed report on a National Science Foundation workshop on Religion, Democratization, and Market Transition. |
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http://4sociology.4anything.com/network-frame/0,1855,6401-62110,00.html |
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This really long web address will take you to a page on Max Weber's Sociology of Religion. There are a number of links to important papers and modern theoretical applications. |
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The American Religious Experience Project encourages the development and publication of American religion manuscripts and images on the World Wide Web. |
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The Institute for the Study of American Religion is a religious studies research facility which focuses on the smaller religions of the U.S. |
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The Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University is a major academic initiative that aims to encourage scholarly research, teaching, and public discussion about religion through the diverse perspectives of the humanities and social sciences |
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An Apologetics Index - this web site contains information comparing and contrasting Christian beliefs with those of other religions. |
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A collection of lectures on religion - several focusing on Southern Religion. |
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http://religiousbroadcasting.lib.virginia.edu/televangelism.html |
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All you would need to develop a comprehensive understanding of televangelism in America |
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New Advent contains links to online Catholic resources |
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This is a Jewish supersite used to network for business and social purposes. |
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The Jewish Virtual Library with extensive cultural, political, historical and religious information sources |
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A very comprehensive web site on the religion of Islam with links to scholarly and cultural writings from around the world. |
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http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/naspirit.html |
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Learn about Native American Spirituality by accessing anthropological and cultural information from these diverse groups. |
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - the Mormons. A very extensive web presence. |
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The Book of Mormon - the sacred text of the Latter Day Saints |
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The New Religious Movements web page - links to academic information on alternative spirituality |
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Links to Revelation, Apocalyptic and Millennial Websites and Materials created by Felix Just, S.J. - Loyola Marymount University |
POPULATION & URBANISM
When we speak of social dynamics we refer to the ways that society changes. These dynamic changes that society undergoes take many forms. One of the most basic of dynamics that societies experience is the demographic change in their populations due to births, deaths, and migration.
There are a number of important web sites that you will need to visit if you are interested in demographic research. First among them is the Statistical Abstract of the U.S. The files contained on this site are in a PDF format. You can learn about health, natural resources, income and foreign commerce, to name just a few of the files available from this comprehensive site. For information targeted more at populations, go to the Current Population Survey where you will be able to view any number of surveys related data. There are numerous topical reports that can be downloaded from the site as well. These reports range in topic from labor, employment, race, poverty, and school enrollment.
For a more basic presentation of demographic data you should access the Missouri State Data Center at Basic US Census Data Tables to see a number of general charts, graphs and tables reflecting statistical data about the 2000 U.S. census. The data is presented by state, county, city/places and metropolitan areas. It is also possible to access a number of government reports on population from this site. You will also find a number of graphic representations you can download for presentations.
The Population Reference Bureau is the leader in providing timely and objective information on U.S. and international population trends and their implications. PRB informs policymakers, educators, the media, and concerned citizens working in the public interest around the world through a broad range of activities, including publications, information services, seminars and workshops, and technical support. PRB also produces specialized publications covering population and public policy issues in the United States and in other countries (see publications catalog, or go to Regions Map on PRB's Home Page for links to publications about specific world regions or countries). PRB publishes the Population Today newsletter, the quarterly Population Bulletin, the annual World Population Data Sheet, and PRB Reports on America. You can use information from this site to create customized demographic tables.
The U.S. Demography HomePage is part of an initiative to identify, document, and provide simple access to demographic information concerning The United States of America. This part describes CIESIN's data holdings and related information. This HomePage consists of a series of cascading hypertext links providing access to national data resources, on-line supporting documentation (codebooks, data dictionaries, citations), and possibly extraction tools for data access, and you may connect to an anonymous FTP service for data file retrieval.
The Population
Index on the Web published since 1935, is the primary reference tool to
the world's population literature. It presents an annotated bibliography of
recently published books, journal articles, working papers, and other materials
on population topics. The Index is provided free of charge on the Web as a public
service, thanks to financial support from NICHD. Population Index on the Web
is a joint project of Population Index and the Computing and Library Cores at
the Office of Population Research, Princeton University. Part of the World Wide
Web Virtual Library, The
Internet Guide to Demography and Population Studies is an Australian site
that links you to a variety of sources of information on the internet about
populations and the study of demography.
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Population & Urbanism |
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The Statistical Abstract of the U.S. - from this Census site you can access demographic details about a variety of variables. |
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The Missouri Census Data Center provides these U.S. Census demographic profiles for each state and the U.S. as a whole. |
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The Population Reference Bureau provides access to extensive demographic data. |
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The Demography HomePage is part of an initiative to identify, document, and provide simple access to demographic information. |
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The Population Index presents an annotated bibliography of recently published books, journal articles, working papers, and other materials on population topics. |
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Demography and Population Studies - a part of the World Wide Web Virtual Library |
GLOBALIZATION
Globalization speaks of phenomena related to modernization, technology and economic development. To begin your study of globalization, take a look at the Development, Social Transformation and Globalisation (need to use Adobe Acrobat) where you will access a paper written by Stephen Castles director of The Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies. In the paper he suggests new and more useful ways of looking at globalization as a form of world transformation and development. Another paper that you should read from the Internet is located at World Social Situation by Richard J. Estes, Ph.D. of the University of Pennsylvania. In this paper and accompanying figures and tables Estes presents a comprehensive survey of worldwide social development trends for the 25-year period spanning 1970-1995.
The Internet Modern History Sourcebook contains a Summary of Wallerstein’s
World Systems Theory. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World
history. This is an important document to include in any study of modernization.
Professor Mauro Guillen’s Globalization
Literature Review can be accessed from his page at the Wharton Faculty Research
Website. From this site you can approach answering such questions as “Is
Globalization Civilizing, Destructive or Feeble?” You will also find “A
Critique of Five Key Debates in the Social Science Literature.”
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Globalization |
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Development, Social Transformation and Globalisation - a paper by Stephen Castles |
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The World Social Situation - a paper by Richard Estes with accompanying tables |
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A summary of Wallerstein's World Systems Theory |
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www-management.wharton.upenn.edu/guillen/ |
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Globalization Literature Review - Is Globalization Civilizing, Destructive or Feeble? A Critique of Five Key Debates in the Social Science Literature |
COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR & SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
To begin your search for information related to social movements you should start at the American Sociological Association Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements. The purpose of the CBSM section is to foster the study of emergent and extra-institutional social forms and behavior, particularly crowds and social movements. This includes but is not limited to disasters, riots, protest, rumors, panics, fads, fashions, popular culture, strikes, and reform, revival and revolutionary movements. This web page includes papers, meeting notices, and links to teaching resources related to the subject. One useful link from this site is one that will take you to Social, Economic and Political Change where you can access dozens of specialized web pages describing a variety of dynamic social behavior. There’s a wonderful paper on the internet, Narratives of Possibility: Social Movements, Collective Stories, and the Dilemmas of Practice, it uses narrative, with its power to bring meaning to the otherwise random assaults of daily life, as a conceptual entry point into the practices through which people make choices, shape action, and create social movements. This paper is one of many resources that can be found on the New Social Movement Network. Go to the documents section to find a number of academic papers on the general topic of social movements.
Read the online paper Computer Linked Social Movements to become more familiar with some of the issues being addressed and how technology is related to social change. The culture of social movements in the history of America can be researched from the Social Movements and Culture web site. This site is under development but contains some useful bibliographies and online course materials. The focus of this site is the practices and processes of social movements, including rituals and symbolically charged actions, idiolects and jargons, works of art, unique value systems, and a variety of other elements. The general aim of this web page is to help in the study of social movements, defined as … all those practices and meaning-making processes by which those within a given movement express their distinctiveness vis-à-vis the surrounding culture(s) with which they interact.
For a trip through one of our previously mentioned sociology gateways go to the SocioSite and access the Special Forms of Activism and Social Movements for dozens of links to web pages from several other cultures. Social movements are trans-cultural. There are a number of web pages that will take you to the variety that exists in social movement data. Latin American Social Movements on the WWW includes starting points related Latin American studies, organizations, funding agencies, and national sites.
On the Women and Social Movements in the United States web page you will find projects that link you to position papers on a variety of historical topics related to women’s social activism. To access a list of online information storage sites (FTP, Gopher, Telnet, WWW, databases and bulletin boards) go to the Black/African Related Resources web page. This page and its related connections contain a significant amount of information relating to or of concern to Black or African people, culture, and issues around the world, either in files or conferences. Also included (in other sections of the list) are resources relating to ethnic/intercultural relations, international/sustainable development (includes global networking), and social/progressive activism.
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Collective Behavior & Social Movements |
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The American Sociological Association's Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements |
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Social, Economic and Political Change links to resources available on the Internet |
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Narratives of Possibility: Social Movements, Collective Stories, and the Dilemmas of Practice - a paper by Joseph Kling |
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The New Social Movements Network - This site exists as a resource, archive and sounding board for subscribers to the NSMNet ListSERV and other interested parties. You are invited to join in the often heated discussion by subscribing to the list. |
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Computer Linked Social Movements - A paper by Harry Cleaver |
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Social Movements and Culture - a Resource Guide |
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http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/sociosite/topics/activism.html#SPECIAL |
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Special Forms of Activism and Social Movements contains links to various counterculture and activist groups. |
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Links to Latin American Social Movements on the WWW |
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Women and Social Movements in the United States (1775-2000) - historical documents and links to teaching resources. |
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Black/African Related Resources is a list of online information storage sites that contain information relating to or of concern to Black or African people, culture, and issues around the world. |
SOCIAL CHANGE
What better place to start when wanting to know what’s going on in the American culture. Sociology students will find The Gallup Organization to be a great jumping off point for writing papers and making presentations about a variety of social dynamics: elections, business and the economy, social issues, and lifestyle choices. Take a look at the CIA World Fact Book for not so covert information from the Central Intelligence Agency about global trends. At this site, the CIA provides profiles for every country in the world.
The textbook publisher Allyn and Bacon has a comprehensive internet site on Collective Behavior and Social Movements from which you can access any number of social movement web pages directly. The site also has links to some specific social change related categories such as: abortion, censorship, guns/militias, and peace/democracy categories. www.Cybersociology.com is a non-profit multi-disciplinary webzine dedicated to the critical discussion of the internet, cyberspace, cyberculture and life online. From this site you can access the Grassroots Political Activism Online, which is a page in this webzine containing web links to a growing number of smaller politically oriented social change advocacy sites.
In order to get a handle on these issues you should read a piece by Peter Drucker written in 1994 and published in the Atlantic Monthly. You can access the paper at The Age of Social Transformation. The Brief Review of World Socio-Demographic Trends web site is a report compiled by Gene Shackman, Ya-Lin Liu and Wang Xun and will help you to look at long term, large scale changes in social, political and economic systems at the national and international levels.
Information Technology and Citizen Participation, is an indexed text of a paper presented David C. Neice of the Department of Canadian Heritage. It’s a solid introduction to the subject. Good additional reading for a course on the dehumanizing aspects of technology. As an example of the many ways that social institutions are responding to modernization, technology and social change to the web site of Leonard Sweet who is a professor of evangelism at Drew University. This is a website that addresses social change in the culture while providing methodologies for mainline Protestantism to reform its approach to ministry. There are a number of links, resources, articles, books, and a theology of social change. This is an excellent example of some of the effects of modernization and technology applied to religion.
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Social Change |
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The Gallup Organization - one of the largest social research organizations. Access recent surveys and reports about changes in American attitudes and beliefs. |
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The Central Intelligence Agency's World Fact Book - look up facts from countries around the world. |
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Allyn and Bacon's Social Movements site has links to a number of sites that relate to changes taking place in our society. |
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Cybersociology is a non-profit multi-disciplinary webzine dedicated to the critical discussion of the internet, cyberspace, cyberculture and life online. |
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Grassroots Political Activism Online is a webpage from the Cybersociology online magazine. From here you can access links to a number of articles related to localized social change. |
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The Age of Social Transformation - an online article by Peter Drucker from the Atlantic Monthly magazine. |
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A Brief Review of World Socio-Demographic Trends |
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Information Technology and Citizen Participation - a paper by David Neice from the Department of Canadian Heritage |
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Leonard Sweet is a professor at Drew University and has created a very extensive web presence addressing social change from a religious perspective. |
There are numerous professional organizations in the academic realm that can provide you with valuable information. Many of these websites provide links to related resources and data. It is possible on many of the sites to access archived information from past journal articles, conferences and news releases.
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Professional Organizations |
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The American Sociological Association is a non-profit membership association dedicated to advancing sociology as a scientific discipline and profession serving the public good. With approximately 13,000 members, ASA encompasses sociologists who are faculty members at colleges and universities, researchers, practitioners, and students. |
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The Association for Humanist Sociology is an active support network for sociologists and other scholars committed to humanist values, as they practice in institutions often hostile to such an approach. The organization strives to inspire, support, and learn from one another and to make humanist practice more conscious and skillful. |
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Society for the Study of Symbolic Interactionism is an international social science professional organization of scholars interested in qualitative, especially interactionist, research. |
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Society for Applied Sociology provides a forum for sociologists and others interested in applying sociological knowledge and enhance understanding of the interrelationship between sociological knowledge and sociological practice while Increasing the effectiveness of applied sociological research and training. |
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American Society of Criminology is an international organization concerned with criminology, embracing scholarly, scientific, and professional knowledge concerning the etiology, prevention, control and treatment of crime and delinquency. |
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The Population Association of America is a society of professionals working in the population field. PAA members include demographers, sociologists, and economists. |
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Social Science Research Council is an independent, nongovernmental, not-for-profit international organization that seeks to advance social science throughout the world and supports research, education and scholarly exchange on every continent. |
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Society for the Scientific Study of Religion was founded in 1949 by scholars in religion and social science. Its purpose is to stimulate and communicate significant scientific research on religious institutions and religious experience. |
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Sociological Practice Association is interested in the application of a sociological perspective to the analysis and design of interventions for positive change at any level of social organization from the micro to the macro. |
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The National Council on Family Relations provides a forum for family researchers, educators, and practitioners to share in the development and dissemination of knowledge about families and family relationships, establishes professional standards, and works to promote family well-being. |
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American Association for the Advancement of Science was founded in 1848 to represent all disciplines of science, AAAS supports scientific exchange and discussion of science and society issues. |
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Association for the Sociology of Religion is an international scholarly association that seeks to advance theory and research in the sociology of religion. The Association encourages and communicates research that ranges widely across the multiple themes and approaches in the study of religion, and is a focal point for comparative, historical and theoretical contributions to the field. |
One of your research projects might be to investigate the kinds of careers that are open to people who major in sociology. Most practicing sociologists are working in academia. But there are many career fields that are open to students of society. The American Sociological Association has published a list of famous people who were sociology majors.
- Wellington Webb, mayor of Denver
- Brett Schundler, mayor of Jersey City
- Annette Strauss, former mayor of Dallas
- Rev. Martin Luther King
- Roy Wilkins, former head of NAACP
- Rev. Jesse Jackson
- Rev. Ralph Abernathy
- Shirley Chisholm, former Congresswoman from NY
- Maxine Waters, Congresswoman from LA
- Barbara Mikulski, US Senator from Maryland
- Tim Holden, Congressman from Pennsylvania
- Cardinal Theordore McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, DC
- Saul Alinsky, father of community organizing
- Saul Bellow, novelist
- Ronald Reagan (double major in sociology and economics)
- Emily Balch, 1946 Nobel Peace Prize winner (a social worker and social reformer)
- Francis Perkins, social reformer and former Secretary of Labor
- Richard Barajas, Chief Justice, Texas Supreme Court
- Saul Bellow, novelist
- Regis Philbin, TV host
- Dan Aykroyd, actor/Blues Brother
- Robin Williams, actor/comedian
- Paul Shaffer, bandleader on David Letterman Show (and before that, Saturday Night Live)
- Dinah Shore, singer
- Ruth Westheimer, the “sex doctor”
- Alonzo Mourning, Miami Heat
- Bryant Stith, Boston Celtics
- Brian Jordan, Atlanta Braves
- Joe Theisman, NFL quarterback
- Eric Bjornson, Dallas Cowboys
- Bobby Taylor, Eagles cornerback
- Ahmad Rashad, Sportscaster
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Careers in Sociology |
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Visit the web page of the American Sociological Association where you'll find one of the best examples of what professional sociology is all about. Go to the section created for students and then link to the page focusing primarily on careers in the field. Here you will find a number of important articles and profiles of positions in a number of fields in the discipline. |
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The U.S. Department of Labor provides career summaries from their Occupational Outlook Handbook. The site provides career descriptions, training and qualifications, and the job outlook forecast. |
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Your next step is to go to the Sociology Site sponsored by Waycross College. This is a short list of World Wide Web resources for people interested in careers in sociology. Many of these pages are filled with links to job-hunting sites, sociology texts and papers, and sociological organizations. |
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For a good text on the subject of careers go to this site sponsored by Allyn and Bacon publishers. The entire text of Careers in Sociology by W. Richard Stephens, Jr. is accessible chapter by chapter. |
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Now, you're ready to start looking at the market. The WWW Virtual Library has a page that will link you to a vast number of sociology departments throughout the country. |
The Internet has opened up seemingly unlimited access to information and data. The real challenge for researchers is to find ways to transform this wealth of information into knowledge. The ever present temptation is to “shallow down” what we know. Increasing the variety of data does not in itself guarantee new depths of knowing. Students are using an ever-widening variety of information – initially it looks impressive. But careful examination often demonstrates a serious lack of understanding. Using the Internet to foster research should ultimately produce deeper knowledge. When it does not, then we are not using it – it is using us. The Internet cannot do the real work of research for us. This new technology marvelously enables researchers to find and retrieve greater amounts of data. But like all research, some is more meaningful than others. When we increase the amount of data we access we need to also enhance our abilities to discriminate as to its usefulness. I hope that this guide helps you to deepen your search for knowledge.