Communication 3910: Intercultural Communication Research

Who Are You Researching? Start with Demographic Data:

For population data (age, race, ethnicity), income, education, housing, you can use U.S. Census reports (taken every 10 years).

1990 results can be found in the Local Community Fact Book (Ref. F548.1 .L6), or here.

The 2000 Census results are available at: http://www.nipc.org

Click on Quicklinks and Census 2000 Updates
Scroll down to Census 2000: Social, Economic, & Housing Data in One File for All 77 Community Areas in the City of Chicago (August 20, 2002).
Right click on either the unzipped or zipped file and then Open. You’ll see a list of all 77 community areas. To switch from table to another (social, economic, housing, general) click on the small arrows at the bottom left of the page.
To see all the data for each table, click on the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom right of the page.
Or for a shorter summary of general demographs (age, race, etc.), click on: http://www.nipc.org/test/dp234_CA_2000.htm. Click on “Download the File”

Note: The 2000 census results will not look identical to the 1990 reports, because some questions were phrased differently. Pay attention to the description of the data you are using.

Gather More Background Information:

Start on the library Databases and Online Resources page to find the following options. Check out the following options for Albany Park Information:

The Chicago Tribune Online
Lexis Nexis indexes the Chicago Sun Times, which also contains stories about Albany Park.

The Encyclopedia of Chicago is available both in the library at Ref. F548.3 .E53 2004, and online at http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org It's a great source for background historical information about Albany Park.

Check out Dale Bolling's North Mayfair, U.S.A., written in 1986 about Albany Park, at F548.68.N67 B65 1986.

Believe it or not, the Wikipedia entry for Albany Park is pretty thorough in its coverage of city resources and the background of the neighborhood. As always when using Wikipedia, do not trust what you find automatically: compare the information you find to what you see in other sources.

The Albany Park Community Center and the Albany Park branch of the Chicago Public Library are both useful sources of information as well.

Finish With Scholarly Comparisons:

Does your interviewee talk about cultural initiatives in Chicago? How is this reflected in the scholarly literature? How have scholars thought about the main themes of your paper in other research? Again, head to the library Databases and Online Resources to put your findings in context. Check out the following databases in particular:

JSTOR, which has a large amount of social sciences research, though it is usually 3 years old and older
Project Muse has a good collection of current social sciences research
SAGE Premier has a large collection of full-text social sciences research
Academic Search Premier has some information
SocAbstracts also has a large index (no full-text) of current articles which could prove very helpful.