The social sciences study human behaviour, societies, institutions and the relationships between them. This guide gathers free, open-access (OA) journals, open textbooks (OER) and trustworthy datasets so African students, researchers and librarians can learn and publish without paywalls.
Subdisciplines — jump in
- Sociology — search FRELIP; pair with the Social Sciences OER course
- Psychology — search FRELIP; pair with the Social Sciences OER course
- Political Science — search FRELIP; pair with the Social Sciences OER course
- Anthropology — search FRELIP; pair with the Social Sciences OER course
- Social Work & Welfare — search FRELIP; pair with the Social Sciences OER course
- Gender & Women's Studies — search FRELIP; pair with the Social Sciences OER course
New here? Start with these courses
- Social Sciences OER (FRELIP) — your subject foundation
- Navigating Research Guides — how to use this guide
- Accessing Open Access Journals — find free full text
- Using VuFind Discovery Search — search everything at once
Search everything
Use the FRELIP discovery search at search.frelip.org to find books, articles, theses and data across the whole eLibrary in one place.
Start here to define terms, get oriented in a topic and find authoritative overviews. All resources below are free to read.
General social science
- Encyclopedia.com — Social Sciences (aggregated reference entries)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (peer-reviewed entries on social and political theory)
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (open scholarly reference)
Sociology
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Sociology (overview article)
- Wikipedia — Outline of Sociology (mapped topic index)
Psychology
- Noba Project (free, expert-written psychology reference modules)
- APA Dictionary of Psychology (authoritative term definitions, free to browse)
Political science
- SEP — Contemporary Political Philosophy (reference entry)
- Britannica — Political Science (overview article)
Anthropology
- The Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology (peer-reviewed, free)
- AnthroSource (American Anthropological Association; some open content)
Gender & women's studies
- SEP — Topics in Feminism (reference entry)
Free, legally downloadable scholarly books and open textbooks you can read, print and reuse.
OA book platforms
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) (peer-reviewed OA books)
- OAPEN Library (OA books in humanities & social sciences)
- Open Library — Social Sciences (Internet Archive)
- Project Gutenberg — Bookshelves (classic social-theory texts, public domain)
- OER Commons (open educational resources)
- Open Textbook Library — Social Sciences
Open textbooks — Sociology
Open textbooks — Psychology
Open textbooks — Political science
Open textbooks — Anthropology
Open textbooks — Social work & gender
Peer-reviewed open-access journals and preprint servers where you can read and publish without fees blocking access.
Multidisciplinary & directories
- DOAJ — Social Sciences journals (vetted OA journals)
- PLOS ONE (OA, includes social science research)
- SSOAR — Social Science Open Access Repository
- SocArXiv (social science preprint server)
Sociology
- DOAJ — Sociology journals
- Humanities & Social Sciences Communications (OA, Nature Portfolio)
Psychology
- DOAJ — Psychology journals
- Frontiers in Psychology (OA)
- PsyArXiv (psychology preprints)
Political science
Anthropology & gender
African scholarship
- African Journals OnLine (AJOL) (largest collection of African-published journals)
- CODESRIA Publications (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa)
Search engines and indexes that point you to free full text and let you trace how research connects.
OA discovery
- BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine; 300M+ documents)
- CORE (world's largest aggregator of OA research)
- OpenAIRE Explore (open research graph)
- OpenAlex (open scholarly catalogue of works, authors, venues)
- Semantic Scholar (AI-powered literature search)
- The Lens (scholarly & patent search)
Citation indexes
- OpenCitations (open citation data)
- Dimensions (free publication search tier)
- Google Scholar (broad scholarly index)
Subject-specific
- ERIC (education & social science literature; many free PDFs)
- SSOAR (social science full-text repository)
- PubMed — behavioural & social sciences
Tip: pair these with the Citation Databases & Bibliometric Tools Moodle course.
Open datasets, survey microdata and primary sources for empirical social research. Always check the licence and cite the data.
General data repositories
- Zenodo (CERN-hosted; data, code, papers)
- Dryad (curated research data)
- Figshare (figures, datasets, supplementary files)
- Open Science Framework (OSF) (project & data hosting)
- re3data (registry of research data repositories)
Social science microdata & surveys
- ICPSR (social & behavioural science data archive)
- Afrobarometer (African public-attitude survey data)
- World Values Survey (cross-national values data)
- DHS Program (Demographic & Health Surveys, many African countries)
- IPUMS International (harmonised census microdata)
Statistics & primary sources
- World Bank Open Data (development indicators)
- UNdata (UN statistical databases)
- STATcompiler (build custom indicator tables)
Free images, lectures, courseware and maps you can use in teaching and learning. Check the licence before reuse.
Images & archives
- Wikimedia Commons — Social Sciences (freely reusable media)
- Library of Congress — Free to Use Sets (public-domain images)
Video & open courseware
- MIT OpenCourseWare — Political Science
- MIT OpenCourseWare — Anthropology
- Khan Academy — Behaviour & Society (psychology/sociology)
- CrashCourse (Sociology, Psychology, Government playlists)
- Open Yale Courses — Sociology
- Open Yale Courses — Psychology
Maps & visualisation
- Our World in Data (open charts on society, health, development)
- OpenStreetMap (open geographic base maps)
Free tools to manage citations, get a researcher ID and unlock legal full text.
Reference managers
- Zotero (free, open-source reference manager)
- JabRef (open-source, BibTeX-based)
- ZoteroBib (quick bibliographies, no install)
Researcher identity
- ORCID (free persistent researcher identifier)
Find full text
- Unpaywall (browser add-on for legal OA copies)
- CORE Discovery (find free copies of paywalled papers)
Analysis & writing
- jamovi (free, open statistical software)
- JASP (free statistics with classical & Bayesian methods)
- R (open statistical computing, widely used in social science)
- Taguette (free, open qualitative coding tool)
Learn the workflow in Citation & Referencing and Data Management for Researchers.
Understand reuse rights, where you may self-archive, and the standards behind open scholarship.
Licensing
- Creative Commons — About the Licences
- CC License Chooser (pick the right licence)
Self-archiving & repositories
- Sherpa Romeo (publisher OA & self-archiving policies)
- OpenDOAR (directory of OA repositories)
- ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories)
OA policy & assessment
- Plan S / cOAlition S (full and immediate OA)
- DORA (Declaration on Research Assessment)
Metadata & accessibility standards
Go deeper with Open Science & Responsible Research Assessment.
Connect with the wider field and keep building your skills.
Learned societies & associations
- International Sociological Association (ISA)
- American Psychological Association (APA)
- American Anthropological Association (AAA)
- International Political Science Association (IPSA)
- International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW)
- CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa)
Keep learning
- Social Sciences OER (FRELIP) — your subject course
- Evaluating Information Sources
- The Research Impact Track
Need help?
Search the eLibrary at search.frelip.org, take a course at learning.frelip.org, or email us at info@frelip.org.