Child, Youth, & Family Studies: Explore Your Topic

Getting Started

One of the first steps of approaching research is to get a general overview of the topic you are interested in. This overview will help you: 

  • understand the main components (and potentially controversies) of the topic
  • become familiar with the vocabulary of the discipline
  • identify key terms, or names of important scholars, that will be useful for your search

Encyclopedia entries provide this type of overview on many, many topics. You can search across encyclopedias with the search box below, or search individual encyclopedias. 

Child Development & Education Encyclopedias

Encyclopedias and Handbooks are excellent places to begin your research, They provide 'executive summaries' of major research findings so far, key researchers in the field, and point to additional key articles and books for further reading.