This page brings together free pdf books about social problems. Our collection covers dozens of topics related to human services, societal challenges, poverty, substance dependency, reform movements, social welfare, volunteerism, and public assistance programs. Materials range from older public domain works for free download to best modern books.
The Topics section below helps readers find books and documents within the huge Internet Archive collection, which includes periodicals and other materials, from older historical works to recent publications. Each topic link generates an Internet Archive search focused on that subject. Clicking our topics usually works better than searching Internet Archive directly.
A section below Topics provides links to modern Open Access books. See that section for more information.
Explore the Social Issues and Public Policy Resource Index
Topics – Free Social Problems Books PDF Directories
The topic links below lead to Internet Archive search results related to pdf books on civil rights advocacy, public safety infrastructures, community intervention, and economic equity studies. Each link opens a books-and-documents search focused on a particular topic.
Search results generally include fully readable eBooks and textbooks. For some subjects, Internet Archive also contains other media, such as images, audio, or video files. These can be selected from the media options above the search results. Filters on the left side of Internet Archive pages can help narrow search results by years of publication, language, or specific subjects.
- Abused children
- Adult child abuse victims
- Adult child sexual abuse victims
- Age discrimination
- Battered child syndrome
- Beggars
- Caste-based discrimination
- Child abuse
- Child disaster victims
- Child grooming (Child sexual abuse)
- Child pornography
- Child prostitutes
- Child sex offenders
- Child sexual abuse
- Child sexual abuse by clergy
- Child soldiers
- Child trafficking
- Child trafficking victims
- Child welfare
- Children and violence
- Children of prostitutes
- Children of suicide victims
- Church work with the poor
- Disaster victims
- Discrimination
- Discrimination against overweight persons
- Discrimination against the homeless
- Discrimination against the mentally ill
- Discrimination against people with disabilities
- Enslaved children
- Family violence
- Gangs
- Gender-based violence
- Girls – Crimes against
- Homeless children
- Homeless families
- Homeless mothers
- Homeless persons
- Homeless veterans
- Homeless youth
- Intimate partner violence
- Juvenile delinquents
- Marital violence
- Mentally ill homeless persons
- Murder-suicide
- Poor
- Poor – Employment
- Poor – Energy assistance
- Poor – Health and hygiene
- Poor – Hospital care
- Poor – Medical care
- Poor – Pharmaceutical assistance
- Poor children
- Poor families
- Poor older people
- Poor women
- Poor youth
- Poor, African Americans
- Prison violence
- Prostitution
- Race discrimination
- Religious discrimination
- Reverse discrimination
- Rural poor
- School violence
- Self-poisoning
- Sex discrimination
- Sex discrimination against women
- Sexually abused children
- Spouses of suicide victims
- Suicide
- Suicide – Prevention
- Suicide victims
- Teenage prostitution
- Teenage sex offenders
- Transphobia
- Underground homeless persons
- Urban poor
- Urban violence
- Victims of family violence
- Victims of juvenile crime
- Welfare recipients
- Widow suicide
- Working poor
Open Access Social Problems Books and Open Educational Resources
The Open Access materials below are modern books and other works made freely available online by universities, academic publishers, the Library of Congress, and other nonprofit organizations. Open Access collections usually include pdf textbooks, online courses, classroom lesson plans, and recent academic books that reflect current scholarship and research.
Some works may only be read online, but many can be downloaded as PDF or EPUB files.
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