Rural Sociology

Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology (Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences)

Reference Resources | Core Databases | Additional Databases | Current Periodicals

Reference Resources

International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences
Online encyclopedia available to researchers with a Penn State Access Account.

Core databases

Annual Reviews
See the series Environment Resources and Sociology
Annual Reviews is a collection of comprehensive critical reviews of the written by leading scientists in the fields, and are heavily cited and highly ranked in terms of impact factors. Coverage is back to 1996, and is updated yearly.

Sociological Abstracts
Seminal index for English language journals in Sociology, Social Work, and other Social Sciences. Provides abstracts for articles and is international in scope. Coverage: 1963 to the present.

PsychInfo
Primary database for international literature in psychology and related disciplines. It is published by the American Psychological Association and provides coverage from 1840 to the present.

Additional Databases

Social Sciences Citation Index
The Index can be used to look up either a specific author or a particular publication to see how many articles in the database cited that author or publication. The index can also be used to find related articles (articles that have at least one reference in common).

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research)
Access to the world's largest archive of computerized social science data, training facilities for the study of quantitative social analysis techniques, resources for social scientists using advanced computer technologies.

Sociometrics Social Science Electronic Data Library (SSEDL)
Consists of eight topically focused data archives. Germane to age research is the Data Archive of Social Research on Aging (DASRA) assembled with the support of a grant from the National Institute on Aging. DASRA contains three large national surveys that deal with nearly all components of the aging process.

Current Periodicals

American Sociological Review
Publishes original works of interest to the sociology discipline in general, new theoretical developments, results of research that advance our understanding of fundamental social processes, and important methodological innovations. Published by the American Sociological Association

City & Community
Publishes research and theory that explore the social aspects of the metropolis. How do people get attached to places? How do inequalities and differences shape a city and how does the city influence differences and inequalities? How does an Internet community compare to a traditional community? Aimed at exploring the meaning and significance of the metropolis, City & Community includes works on immigration, rural communities, social networks, suburbia, urban movements, urban history, and virtual communities among others.

The Rural Sociologist
Publishes announcements, articles, commentary and letters that are relevant to concerns of the Society. We also include announcements for awards, meetings, job opportunities, activities of members, recent books by rural sociologists and activities of the Rural Sociological Society.

Journal of Rural Studies
Publishes research articles relating to such rural issues as society, demography, housing, employment, transport, services, land-use, recreation, agriculture and conservation. The focus is on those areas encompassing extensive land-use, with small-scale and diffuse settlement patterns and communities linked into the surrounding landscape and milieux. Particular emphasis will be given to aspects of planning policy and management. The journal is international and interdisciplinary in scope and content.

Rural Sociology
Rural Sociology reaches an international audience of social scientists, policy makers, and agency professionals concerned with rural people, places, and problems. It provides a forum for cutting edge research that explores inter-disciplinary approaches to emerging issues, new approaches to older questions and material, and policy relevant discussions of rural development, environmental impacts, the structure of food and agricultural production, and rural-urban linkages. In addition to its long-time interest in sociological approaches to rural policy challenges, Rural Sociology also emphasizes a variety of other issues such as community revitalization and rural demographic changes. Published by the Rural Sociological Society.

Sociologia Ruralis
"Journal of the European Society for Rural Sociology"
Sociologia Ruralis reflects the diversity of European social-science research on rural areas and related issues. The complexity and diversity of rural problems require multi and interdisciplinary approaches. Over the past 40 years Sociologia Ruralis has been an international forum for social scientists engaged in a wide variety of disciplines focusing on social, political and cultural aspects of rural development. Sociologia Ruralis covers a wide range of subjects, ranging from farming, natural resources and food systems to rural communities, rural identities and the restructuring of rurality.