SOC WEL 112: Social Welfare Policy

Please note: this course guide was created during a previous semester, and is no longer being actively maintained. For a list of current course guides, please see http://lib.berkeley.edu/alacarte/course-guides. 

Comprehensive Handbook of Social Work and Social Welfare Contains many sections on Social Policy and Policy Practice.
International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. This online encyclopedia provides substantive current information about key subjects in social welfare, psychology, education and the social sciences.
Encylopedia of homelessness / Levinson, David, ed. Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage Publications, 2004. HV4493.E53 2004
Encyclopedia of child abuse / Robin E. Clark and Judith Freeman Clark with Christine Adamec ; introduction by Richard J. Gelles. New York : Facts on File, c2007. HV6626.5.C57 2007
Poverty in the United States : an encyclopedia of history, politics, and policy / edited by Gwendolyn Mink and Alice O'Connor. Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, c2004.HC110.P6P598 2004

We have hundreds of research databases which help you find articles (and more) on a wide variety of topics. They are organized according to academic discipline, by name, or by type of database (newspapers, articles, dissertations, etc.) A few of the core resources for this class are listed below.

• Social Services Abstracts
  Indexes journals worldwide related to the fields of social work, human services, and social policy. (Search all CSA/Illumina Social Sciences databases.)
  
• Social Work Abstracts
  Indexes hundreds of journals related to social work on a wide range of topics.
  
• Sociological Abstracts
  Core database in sociology, many overlaps with social welfare.(Search all CSA/Illumina Social Sciences databases.)
  
• PAIS International
  For the public policy aspect of social welfare, this is a useful index. Also indexes government documents. International in focus. (Search all CSA/Illumina Social Sciences databases.)
  
• Academic Search Complete
  An interdisciplinary index to articles in over 10,000 journals, many are available fulltext.
  
• Family and Society Studies Worldwide
  Indexes scholarly journals (and more) related to social science research about the family and society.
  

UCB: Use OskiCat to find books related to your topic at UC Berkeley. Oskicat will show you where it's located, and will also show you the Library of Congress Subject Heading -- which can help you find material other relevant books.

UC: Not enough books  at Berkeley? Use Melvyl to find more books at other campuses in the UC system.  Clickon the REQUEST button (in the detailed view of a catalog record) to request the item through  Interlibrary Loan.

World: Still want more? You can search thousands of libraries through WorldCat on FirstSearch and then request the material through UC e-links or directly via Interlibrary Loan. 

Google Books: Library catalogs don't search inside of books. Google Books can help you identify the book you need, then click on "Find in a Library" to see if we have it.

Sometimes the database you search doesn't link to the fulltext -- it only gives the citation. Click the button to see if Berkeley has it online, and if not, it will check for a print version.  And if we don't have it at all, it lets you request it through Interlibrary Loan.

What if there isn't a button??? Sometimes you find an article in a bibliography, a book or a footnote -- and you want to see if we have it. The Citation Linker searches through our online databases to see if it's available fulltext. If not, it sets up a search for the paper journal in Melvyl. And if we don't have it at Berkeley, it lets you request it through Interlibrary Loan.

• Use synonyms -- there are many ways to express a concept (teenager or teenagers or adolescent)
• Use truncation to get different forms of the word, for example teenage* will retrieve teenagers, teenager, teenaged, etc.
• Use quotation marks when you want an "exact phrase"

The Green Book (2012)  is a key resource for federal programs. It provides updated statistics and information on programs such as Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, Foster Care and welfare. Additionally, it includes a discussion of related issues, such as the well-being of the elderly and of children and families.

LexisNexis Congressional contains congressional documents (hearings, committee prints, documents, and legislative histories) which are searchable through this fulltext database. CRS Research Reports are particularly helpful for overviews of federal policies on an array of topics.

MetaLib and USA.gov are two ways to search a variety of US Government sources with lots of information on social policies at the federal level.

You can access UCB Library resources from off campus or via your laptop or other mobile device using one of two simple methods. (NOTE: Using EndNote? Use VPN, not the Proxy Server)

Proxy Server
After you make a one-time change in your web browser settings, the proxy server will ask you to log in with a CalNet ID or Library PIN when you click on the link to a licensed resource. See the setup instructions, FAQ, and Troubleshooting pages to configure your browser.

VPN (Virtual Private Network)
After you install and run the VPN "client" software on your computer, you can log in with a CalNet ID to establish a secure connection with the campus network.

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You can also view/download a PDF map of library locations. For library contact information and building addresses, visit our directory.

Importing from Social Services Abstracts (or any CSA database) into RefWorks

1. Search CSA Social Services Abstracts.
2. Select the desired references by checking the box to the left of each citation.
3. After all the desired citations have been selected, click on RefWorks
4. You will be asked if you want the records added, if so click on Export to RefWorks. (If you have a pop up blocker, it will then confirm that you do want to open RefWorks.)
5. RefWorks then displays the last citations you added, and you can choose to add them to a specific folder . Or you can just leave them in the Last Imported folder. (If you want to create a new folder, just click on Folder and the drop down arrow will let you select make a new one.

"Cheat Sheets" -- very handy guides showing examples of the different types of citations formatted according to APA 6th, from Purdue and Harvard.

The fulltext of APA 6th is not available online, but we do have print copies in the reference collection of the Social Welfare and EdPsych Libraries at BF76.7 P83 2010, and it's available at other libraries on campus as well.

APA Style & Format from Capella Writing Center, is designed to help you quickly understand the fundamentals you need to write a course paper that meets the APA guidelines. It also has a very helpful guide to how to handle those confusing DOIs.

Basics of APA Style -- tutorial from APA on how to how to structure and format your work, reduce bias in language, avoid charges of plagiarism, cite references in text and it  provides selected reference examples. The APA Style Blog --  is searchable by topic and contains weekly posts by APA experts . 

News sources can be a great way to find information about  federal and state social and educational policies. There are numerous sources of fulltext news, some available freely on the web. The ones below are all databases that we pay for, they each have specialized features.

• LexisNexis Academic
  Over 6,000 individual titles of international, national and local newspapers and wire services.
  
• Ethnic News Watch
  Over 200 ethnic, minority, and native press publications -- a great way to uncover information that may not appear in the mainstream press.
  
• GenderWatch
  Newspapers, magazines, academic journals, and more that focus on gender across a broad spectrum of subject areas.
  
• Factiva
  General and business news and information from more than 9,000 sources.Includes The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press.
  
• ProQuest Newspapers
  New York Times (1999-present), Los Angeles Times (1985-present), Wall Street Journal (1982-present).
  

• Social Welfare Research Toolkit
• Tests & Data
• Library Subject Guides
• Library Course Guides