Research Guides: Population, Migration and Refugee Studies: Find Articles

How to start looking for academic articles or studies

To find scholarly articles or studies, you will need to use a database (not CLIO). Scholarly journals are periodicals in which researchers publish articles on their work. Most often these articles discuss recent research. Journals also publish theoretical discussions and articles that critically review already published work. Scholarly journals are typically peer-reviewed journals.

Some search engines that search for periodical sources identify whether or not the sources are from peer-reviewed publications. On this page you will find a lot of options to start your research, but these are not all of the databases that you have access to as a Columbia University student! Explore the other research guides to find other databases for different disciplines, or make an appointment with a librarian.

General, interdisciplinary databases:

EBSCO: A powerful online reference system accessible via the Internet. It offers a variety of proprietary full text databases and popular databases from leading information providers.
JSTOR: Provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
Project MUSE: Current collection of journals in the humanities and history, maintained by Johns Hopkins University Press. Full-text searching available. It also provides access to individual titles within the collection, such as Africa Today, American Imago, Contemporary Pacific, Ethnohistory, and Public Culture, as well as to other interdisciplinary journals which may also prove useful to anthropological research.
ProQuest: This resource includes citations and full text articles in academic & professional disciplines, e.g., business, economics, gender studies, health, literature, management, political science; as well as news and general interest items.
Scopus: Provides indexing, abstracting of and citation linking to journals in biology ,physics, chemistry, geosciences, agriculture, medicine, business, social work, and the social sciences.

Historical Primary Source:

Refugees, Relief, and Resettlement: Force Migration and World War II

International Databases

Africa Wide Information: Coverage of all facets of African studies, dating back to the 16th century.
Cairn.info: Full text French language publications in the disciplines of economics, political science, sociology, law, history, and psychology, education, and more.
China Academic Journals: Access to Chinese academic periodicals in social science, economics/politics/law, history/philosophy, and education.
Contemporary women's issues: Provides information about women in over 190 countries.
Country Studies - Library of Congress: Book-length country profiles previously published in hardcover by the Library of Congress between 1988 and 1998.
CountryWatch forecast: A globally integrated 5-year macroeconomic forecast for each country of the world.
eHRAF World Cultures: A collection of full-text primary source materials on ca. 400 different cultural, ethnic, religious and national groups in the following regions of the world: Asia, Europe, Africa, Middle East, North America, Oceania, Eurasia and South America. Access is via keyword, as well as through geographic (OWC) codes and a topical (OCM) classification scheme.
Europa World plus: Provides economic, political, historical, and geographic profiles of 250+ countries and global regions. Contact information for political, business, media, and cultural agencies and officials, including 1,900 international organizations. Search or browse by country, region, organization, or people.
Economist Intelligence Unit Country Reports: This database is a unique online archive of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)'s quarterly country reports, from their beginning in 1952 up to 1995. The reports combine detailed statistical information with expert commentary and analysis from the EIU's analysts, providing high quality summaries of political, economic and commercial developments in almost 200 countries
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences: Core social sciences and related materials from over 100 countries in more than 90 languages. Coverage 1951 to the present.
JOLIS: Joint World Bank & IMF Libraries online catalog.
PARLINE Database: Information about parliaments in over 190 countries

Gender Databases

Contemporary women's issues: Provides information about women in over 190 countries.
Gender Studies Database: Women's studies, gender studies, feminist theory and criticism. Coverage 1972 to the present
LGBT life: Provides indexing and abstracts of worldwide literature on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues.
Women's studies international: Provides citations and some abstracts to the core areas of Women's studies. Covers journals, newspapers, newsletters, bulletins, books, book chapters, proceedings, reports, theses, dissertations, NGO studies, websites and grey literature. annually.

Social Science Databases

Family & society studies worldwide: Provides citations and some abstracts in social work, social science and family practice. I
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences: Core social sciences and related materials from over 100 countries in more than 90 languages. Coverage 1951 to the present.
International Political Science Abstracts: Indexes and abstracts articles in the field of political science, including the sub-fields of public administration, political theory and international relations.
Philosopher's Index: Contains citations to journal articles, books, contributions to anthologies, and book reviews. It covers the major fields of philosophy, including international relations.
Population Index on the Web 1986-: Citations for publications on demography and related research fields.
Social Sciences Citation Index: U.S. and international cited references, bibliographic information, some author abstracts, links to full-text. Coverage 1965 to the present.
Social Sciences Full Text: Covers concepts, trends, opinions, theories, and methods from both applied and theoretical aspects of the social sciences. Indexing of periodicals provided from 1983-current, full text coverage starting 1995.
Sociological Abstracts: Provides access fro 1963 to the present to journal articles, book reviews, books, book chapters in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.
Social Theory: Offers an extensive selection of documents that explore the complexities and interpret the nature of social behavior and organization.

Health & Mental Health Databases

For all three of these resources you must select the database in EBSCO, by clicking "Choose databases." EBSCO does not automatically apply CINAHL, PsycINFO, or MEDLINE because of limited amounts of users at once.

CINAHL: This is the definitive research tool for nursing and allied health professionals.
PsycINFO: American Psychological Association's resource for behavioral science and mental health resources.
Medline: Created by the National Library of Medicine.

And for the next, follow the link.

PsycARTICLES : Provides full text access to articles from journals published by American Psychological Association. Covers general psychology as well as applied, clinical, developmental, and social psychology.

Economic & Political Databases

CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online): A wide range of scholarship that includes working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, and proceedings from conferences.
EconLit: Comprehensive, indexed bibliography of worldwide literature on economics from over 300 major economics journals, books, and collected volumes. Coverage: 1969-present.
EMIS-Emerging Markets Information Service: Provides general news and financial and economic information on emerging market countries.
FIRST (Facts on International Relations and Security Trends): A joint project of SIPRI and the International Relations and Security Network. Contains information covering many areas in the field of international relations and security, such as international organizations, conflicts, arms transfers, and military expenditure.
HeinOnline: Contains the full text of numerous legal journals, Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Foreign Relations of the U.S., Presidential Executive Orders, Congressional Record, U.S. Statutes at Large, and other documents from the executive, congressional and judicial branches of the U.S. government.
Hispanic American Periodical Index (HAPI): Articles in scholarly journals published in Latin America and the Caribbean, or those dealing with topics relating to Latin America, the Caribbean, and Hispanic Americans.
OECD iLibrary: Includes all OECD books, reports, periodicals and statistical databases. Coverage: 1988 to the present, updated weekly.
PAIS: Citations and abstracts for publications related to public affairs, 1915 to the present.
Peace Research Abstracts: Indexes articles related to peace research, including conflict resolution, international affairs, peace psychology, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.
Refugee Caselaw Site: The core collection contains cases from the highest national courts of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Since 2004, the collection has been incrementally expanded to include decisions from 28 other asylum countries, as well as the most important decisions of lower courts and tribunals in the core collection states.
Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium: TRAC: Digital Intelligence Repository for everything related to political violence and terrorism analysis.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts: Provides access to citations and abstracts of journal articles appearing in political science journals. Coverage: 1975 to the pres

Population, Migration and Refugee Studies: Find Articles