Social science sites of the week

Here is the latest round up of new and interesting sites form social scientists

Holocaust Remembrance Day

27th January has been designated as  as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust by the United Nations as it commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp . Our special blog posting has links to resources for background information as well as a focus on the 2016 theme : Don’t stand by.

Flames for Humanities Heroes is a national art project which saw 12 groups of students across the UK create artwork that tells the stories of heroes who refused to stand by when faced by Nazi atrocities. View examples of their stunning work online

Presidential Elections in Haiti

Run off presidential elections in Haiti have been postponed for the third time. Use the links from our special election blog posting to find out more on the background and impact of this.

Councils struggling to cope with homeless people

This is the finding from the latest annual review of the extent and nature of homelessness in England published this week by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as part of its Homelessness monitor series. The homelessness monitor is a five year study (2011-2015), funded by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, that provides an independent analysis of the impact of recent economic and policy developments in the UK on homelessness. There are particular concerns about young homeless people

Also launched this week from Crisis as part of a new campaign Crisis- Lead London Home Manifesto for
single homeless people 2016 

On this topic see the official Uk government statistics on homelessness

They include rough sleeping, families in bed and breakfast accommodation

St Mungos publishes research on the lives of homeless people as well as policy issues

Homelessness in Europe FEANTSA is the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless is an umbrella of not-for-profit organisations which participate in or contribute to the fight against homelessness in Europe. It maintains the European Observatory on homelessness

Which offers free access to the European Journal of Homelessness

UN Demographic yearbook has statistics on household characteristics by country. Most recent covering 2014. This includes the homeless.

In which British city do people earn the most?

Find out this and other fascinating facts and figures on the economic and social indicators of Britain’s major cities by consulting the latest Cities outlook 2016  which has just been published by the Centre for Cities.

It also has a great associated data tool which enables you to generate and compare your own map. 17 main indicators are covered including

Population, Business dynamics, Productivity , Innovation , Employment, Skills, Wages , Housing,  Environment, Digital connectivity

Political TV Ad Archive,

Just launched by the Internet Archive to provide a resource for the 2016 US elections.

This fabulous  free online digital library resource where reporters can find political TV ads from key primary states in the 2016 elections. Each ad has its own page with metadata files that can be downloaded by researchers. There are also sections on the site which fact check the facts. It is possible to browse ads by candidate, sponsor . There are currently over 50 ads for Donald Trump.

Parents, Teens and digital monitoring

Find out what percentage of American parents surveyed checked their teenagers Facebook accounts, texts and emails in this enlightening new study from Pew Internet Research Centre  

The EU Kids online research network website contains a wealth of reports and data on children’s internet use. Its 2014 report 

The Berkman Digital Literacy Platform provides free access to resources for educators, parents and the public covering online safety, privacy, information quality, creativity, and copyright.

World Humanitarian Data And Trends 2015
The United Nations Office For the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). Has just released the latest annual report which has overall country and regional data. The full text can be
downloaded from the website. A review of natural and conflict related disasters in 2014. Topics covered include overall funding and capacity., displacement , data collection. There is a companion site which contains visualizations and instagrams of key facts and figures. Also valuable for exploring the trends is the UNOCHA sponsored Humanitarian Data Exchange project website. Also valuable for exploring the trends is the UNOCHA sponsored Humanitarian Data Exchange project website launched in 2014 it also provides free access to some other datasets from research bodies covering conflict, disasters food security.

Why Ethnic Minorities see immigration differently.

As the prime minister announces plans to require Muslim women to learn English, this new report from the Runnymede Trust gives the perspectives of BME Ethnic Minority groups on immigration to the UK. This covers  also considers attitudes towards integration.It is based on qualitative interviews with 7 focus groups involving 65 people.

Get more links to recent grey literature and reports covering social policy, economic policy and UK government publications on our current awareness blog which is updated daily.

New York Public Library digital Collections enhanced access     

From January 2016 the New York Public library provided enhanced public domain access to its online collections which include thousands of stunning historical images. See this announcing blog post which has lists of possible uses. These include usage of bulk API  data.  A great example is this 5^th Avenue now and then which compares 1911 with 2015 Google street views. The Green Book is a shocking example of racial segregation shown in maps between 1936-1944 it listed hotels restaurants and other public buildings where black travellers were welcome. The site also has many subject based collections – including Gay and lesbian history
Posters of the Russian Civil War and fashion illustrations and advertising

Also this week as part of a new exhibition the Bank of England Archive has released some of its historic photographs online. Some fascinating examples on the BBC website show the changing workplace. There is also a free Flickr site      

Holocaust Remembrance day 2016 - useful educational resources

27th January has been designated as  as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust,by the United Nations as it commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp 

Find out more about the Holocaust 
the United States Holocaust Museum has an online encyclopedia where you can get informative articles with facts about the Holocaust. This includes a timeline of events  
Animated maps with geographies of the Holocaust,  survivor testimonies
there is also a student resource center with guided activities for school students.

Yad Vashem- is  an enormous resource center created for the Jewish people. Its resource center provides free access to a wealth of online resources including diaries, letters and multimedia films

Holocaust Memorial Trust has resource backs and lessons plans for UK teachers

The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2016 is Don’t stand by - See more at: http://hmd.org.uk/content/for-educators#sthash.YvnAtyk7.dpuf

 The theme for 2016 is : Don't stand by

Flames for Humanities Heroes is a national art project which saw 12 groups of students across the UK create artwork that tells the stories of heroes who refused to stand by when faced by Nazi atrocities.View examples of their stunning work online

Use these resources to understand more about the nature of anti-Semitism in the world today and why we should not stand by.

The Community Security Trust is a charity that acts to support the Jewish community by campaigning against racism . It collects regular data from January-June 2015 it recorded a shocking 473 antisemitic incidents a rise of 53% on the same period 2014.
It is therefore perhaps not surprising that this week a report by the Education select committee found too few teachers trained in Holocaust education. Read the full analysis and recommendations in the report


ADL Global 100. In 2014 The Anti-Defamation League commissioned the  First International poll to research attitudes and opinions toward Jews in over 100 countries around the world. in 2015 it provided an update on 19 nations.In the Uk in 2015 - 21% answered that Jews have too much power in the business world. Get the full data and methodology used from the website
European Agency for Fundamental Rights also has some data and reports on the nature and extent of anti-semitism in EU nations.


Further research

LSE staff and students can use Library search to locate books and journal articles. A good example is Arad Yitzhak, Israel Gutman, and Abraham Margaloit, (1999.) Documents on the Holocaust: Selected Sources on the Destruction of the Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland, and the Soviet Union which contains over 200 translation of primary resource documents .
Documents on British Policy Overseas contains primary source materials from the Foreign Office. These include letters and telegrams from officials concerning evidence of conditions in the German concentration camps. National Archives has other UK government documents.
Locate journal articles using Historical Abstracts, and ISI Web of Science.