Find open-access scholarly journals in the social sciences

Jan 14, 2025

Libraries and journals are at your fingertips! Learn how to find accessible sources.

This month’s When the Field is Online newsletter is about identifying problems and questions that merit empirical research. In addition to drawing on our own observations and experiences we’ll want to see what was previously studied. How have others framed this question? What did they find? What did they miss? What has changed since their research was conducted? In addition to this scholarly purpose, independent researchers, writers, journalists, and bloggers (!) can draw on peer-reviewed articles to provide facts, background, context, examples, and/or scientific evidence to support their claims and add interesting stories to their posts and articles.

I’ve seen several posts recently about the challenges associated with finding scholarly sources by using AI since many tools do not include citations. But why bother with prompts and algorithms when you can get your sources in actual journals and libraries? Here is another way to think about your choice of source material:

Do you want to stand on the shoulders of giants?

Or stand on the backs of writers whose work was stolen?

I choose the option Isaac Newton suggested, the option that lets us stand on others’ shoulders and honor writers by citing their work.

I admit I am a library nerd. Do you know anyone else who cut school to go to the library? I realize that some experience an unfortunate paywall barrier to subscription journals or are not affiliated with an institution that has a digital library. If you’ve graduated, check your alma mater for alumni access. (Cornell University lets me into the online library – it is worth checking!) At this point many public libraries have some level of database access and we can find open access journals to use. (Also see the newsletter issue on archives and archival methods for more open resources.)

Open Access Journals and Open Access Articles in Subscription Journals

Publishers typically have two streams of journals with some that are fully open, and other journals that include both open and paywalled articles. You can indicate on the search whether you want to see everything or only what is accessible. Sometimes I choose an everything search, then look on ResearchGate or the author’s own website to find articles not accessible to me in the library. Yes, sometimes I hit a wall, but there is probably another interesting article that is available to me. Somehow, I never run out of things to read! Check out these sites and use the comment area if you have favorites to share with fellow readers.

You can also go directly to the OA journal and search for the topics that interest you. When you find OA journals that are in your field of interest, you can usually subscribe to alerts and receive the table of contents via email.

Check out these resources! I’ve focused on social sciences and the humanities journals, but dig around these sites for science, health, and engineering journals as well. Use the comment area to add any I’ve missed, and I will add them to the list.

Scholarly Research for All!

Sage Journals

I previously worked for Sage so I am most familiar with their journals. Go to the SAGE Journals page and search for full-text articles in their entire collection. Opt for open access only to find articles that are available if you don't have an available academic library.

You can also go directly to the journal and read the current issue and dig through the archives. Some journals also offer videos, interviews, and/or blogs about work in progress.

I' d like to draw your attention to fully open access Sage journals that feature research using a variety of methods, as well as journals that focus specifically on methodology:

Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science publishes innovative developments in research methods, practices and conduct across the full range of areas and topics within psychological science.
AERA Open. This journal, published by the American Educational Research Association (AERA), aims to advance knowledge through theoretical and empirical study across arenas of inquiry related to education and learning.
Big Data & Society publishes interdisciplinary work principally in the social sciences, humanities and computing and their intersections with the arts and natural sciences about the implications of Big Data for societies.
Convergence addresses the creative, social, political and pedagogical issues raised by the advent of new media technologies.
International Journal of Qualitative Methods. A peer-reviewed interdisciplinary open access journal of the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology (IIQM) at the University of Alberta, Canada, the journal was established as an eclectic and international forum for papers reporting original methodological insights, study design innovations, and funded-project proposals using qualitative or mixed methods research that are useful to the global research community.
Methodological Innovations. An open access and fully peer-reviewed forum for methodological advances and debates in social research method and methodology.
Research & Politics. This journal advances systematic peer-reviewed research in political science and related fields through the publication of cutting-edge research and policy analysis.
Research Ethics. This journal is aimed at all readers and authors interested in ethical issues in the conduct of research, the regulation of research, the procedures and process of ethical review as well as broader ethical issues related to research such as scientific integrity and the end uses of research.
SAGE Open. This journal publishes research and review articles that span the full spectrum of the social and behavioral sciences and the humanities.
Social Media & Society. This journal is committed to advancing the understanding of social media and its impact on societies past, present and future, the journal facilitates state-of-the-art research on cutting-edge trends and enables scholars to develop research and track trends in this emerging field of study.
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. This journal aims to make new research readily available. It provides an online forum for the rapid dissemination of peer-reviewed empirical work, produced in time to be relevant to ongoing debates.

Directory of Open Access Journals

DOAJ's mission is to increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language.

Elsevier Social Science and Humanities

Open access journals page.

Emerald Journals

Visit the search page and choose “open access” under the access type drop-down.

JSTOR

Open access journals, research reports and ebooks Some materials can be read online without download options

Open Library of Humanities

Open Library of Humanities journals publish internationally-leading, rigorous and peer-reviewed scholarship across the humanities disciplines: from classics, theology and philosophy, to modern languages and literatures, film and media studies, anthropology, political theory and sociology.

Project Muse

Project Muse Open Access Journals include university presses in the humanities.

ResearchGate

ResearchGate is a site where researchers can post pre-print versions of papers, and where publishers share open access journal resources. If you locate an article that you can’t access, you might find it on ResearchGate, or find a link where you can request a copy directly from the author.

Science Direct

The Qualitative Report

See the journal and subscribe to the weekly newsletter.

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Images by Gerd Altmann and SCY from Pixabay

Thanks to

Beth Spencer

for the badge!

When the Field is Online