Editors of ASA journals and the Rose Series submit annual reports to provide insight to sociologists. These narrative reports can be found below. This table can also be referenced for a more detailed quantitative overview of submission processes. Reports from prior years can be found here.
Annual Reports for 2022
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Journal of Health and Social Behavior |
Society and Mental Health |
American Sociological Review
This report reviews the second year of our term as editors of the American Sociological Review (ASR). In 2022, we published thirty-six articles and one corrigendum. These articles reported on cutting-edge research that spanned the field of sociology, substantively and methodologically. Thanks to the critical work done by hundreds of ad hoc reviewers, the members of our editorial board, and our journal staff, we have been able to maintain an efficient review and production process that is respectful of the time and effort of all parties involved.
Submissions. From January 1 through December 31, 2022, ASR received 746 submissions, a decrease over the 783 submissions received in 2021. Of those, 35 were accepted unconditionally, 23 conditionally accepted, and 69 were given invitations to revise and resubmit. Given the high standards at ASR, most papers were rejected: 408 were rejected after going through the peer-review process and 175 were rejected after internal review. Two papers were withdrawn by their authors and final decisions had yet to be reached (as of April 1, 2023) on 34 papers. Among new (first) submissions to the journal, 470 (or 73 percent) were sent out for peer review. Among those that underwent the peer review process, 389 (83 percent) were rejected outright, 49 (10 percent) received an invitation to revise and resubmit, and 2 papers were accepted unconditionally (i.e., the presidential address and the corrigendum published in 2022). Among the 101 revised manuscripts received in 2022, the majority were either accepted subject to minor revisions (23 percent) or accepted outright (33 percent). Twenty percent received a second revise and resubmit decision, 19 percent were rejected outright, and decisions were still pending on 5 percent. One of our goals as editors has been to make decisions “early” in the process based on whether readers see a clear and short path to publication, avoiding situations in which authors are subjected to multiple rounds of “revise and resubmit” that do not lead to publication. Accordingly, only two papers were rejected after a second revision and just one after a third revision.
Using the traditional ASA measure of the acceptance rate (the number of accepted manuscripts divided by the number of all decisions), the acceptance rate for 2022 was 4.92 percent. If we calculate the acceptance rate in the fashion suggested by England in the March 2009 issue of Footnotes–excluding “intermediate” decisions of “revise and resubmit” and “conditionally accepted” and calculating it as the number of accepted manuscripts divided by the number of final decisions–the acceptance rate was 5.66 percent.
High-Quality Peer Review Process. We continue to focus on ensuring that authors receive quality feedback in a timely fashion. In meeting this goal, we are indebted to our board members and ad hoc reviewers for their selfless contributions to the scholarly community. We are–on a daily basis–impressed with the quality of the feedback offered to authors and the editors, and are fortunate to be able to call on such talented and responsible readers. Among first submissions, the average time from submission to decision in 2022 was 8.5 weeks. Counting only papers that went through the peer review process, the average time from submission to decision was 11.5 weeks. Given our aim of reducing the need for multiple revisions, we regularly consult with members of the editorial board in the evaluation of revised and resubmitted manuscripts, aiming to make “up or down” decisions as early in the process as possible. This draws out the decision process on such papers and the average time from submission to decision of new “R&R” submissions was 14.6 weeks in 2022. This is longer than typical for the last handful of years at ASR and something we aim to measurably pare back in 2023.
Visibility of Journal Content. ASR’s premier status among general-interest sociology journals continues to grow by all well-established quantitative measures of scholarly impact. According to Journal Citation Reports, ASR’s two-year impact factor (citations in 2021 to items published in 2019 and 2020) rose for the sixth straight year from 9.65 to 12.44. The five-year impact factor likewise rose from 11.68 to 13.15. Both metrics are all-time highs for the journal and suggest there has been no attenuation in the trend, beginning in the middle of the 2010s, in which ASR has moved to occupy an ever more influential position in the field. ASR also ranks as the top journal in sociology according to the Google Scholar h-index, with 65 articles published between 2017 and 2021 receiving at least the same number of citations. The median number of citations received for articles in this group, referred to as the h5-median, rose to 105, the highest score that has been recorded for ASR since this measure has been kept.
Articles published in 2022 received a substantial amount of scholarly engagement, media attention, and consideration by policy stakeholders outside of academia. For example, “Intersecting the Academic Gender Gap: The Education of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual America,” by Joel Mittleman was viewed and downloaded over 23,533 times as of this writing, and garnered significant media attention. It was the subject of an op-ed written by study’s author in the Washington Post, and was also covered in Yahoo! News, The Hill, NBC News, LGBTQ Nation, and Forbes. Papers published in ASR garner attention because they focus on some of the core issues of our time, including the paper, “Double Jeopardy: Teacher Biases, Racialized Organizations, and the Production of Racial/Ethnic Disparities in School Discipline,” published by Jayanti Owens, which was viewed and downloaded 3,856 times, and tweeted about over 870 times. Other visible papers include “Relational Work in the Family: The Gendered Microfoundation of Parents’ Economic Decisions” by Aliya Rao, which was viewed and downloaded 4,501 times and the subject of an op-ed by the author in Harvard Business Review, and “Through the Front Door: Why Do Organizations (Still) Prefer Legacy Applicants?” by Emilio Castilla and Ethan Poskanzer, which was viewed and downloaded 3,077 times, and covered by NBC, ABC, and over 35 local news channels.
The following of the ASR twitter feed continues to grow and the ASR account has become one of the primary ways in which thousands of scholars engage with and disseminate the work published in the journal. This year the account surpassed 10,000 followers, and now stands at 10,278 as of this writing, up from 9,207 at about the same time last year. Updates in the form of new articles coming out “Online First” on the SAGE website as well as issue publication updates get a wide amount of engagement and attention in the form of dozens—and, in the case of the most impactful articles, hundreds—of “likes” and retweets.
Editorial Board and Reviewers. ASR continues to benefit from a diverse and talented editorial board. In 2022, the board had 11 deputy editors and 62 regular board members. The total editorial board (including deputy editors) includes 51 percent women, 3 percent who identified as genderqueer, and 3 percent unknown/unreported. Forty-one percent of board members represent racial and/or ethnic minorities. From September 2021 through September 2022, more than 3,000 scholars around the world agreed to serve as ad hoc reviewers, and a good number served more than once. We are grateful for their efforts and their clear and earnest interest in helping authors to produce their best work, even when that work does not ultimately appear in ASR.
DEI Initiatives. Our DEI efforts have involved building a diverse editorial board and maintaining an expanded number of deputy editors (n=11), the majority of whom are women (n=7) and over one-third (n=4) identified as racial/ethnic minorities. We have also taken steps to bring on new reviewers (those who have not reviewed for the journal before) and identify a broader reviewer pool—specifically, advanced grad students, postdocs, assistant professors from underrepresented groups, institutions, and geographic areas (both international and domestic). Our aims in bringing “younger” reviewers into the conversation at ASR are to provide opportunities to be a part of and learn from the review process, and to ensure that reviewers reflect the changing interests and demographics of the emerging field rather than the field as it was 20 or 30 years ago. We have also been engaged in outreach and education about the journal, as we have continued to participate in numerous panels and workshops for ASA sections and departments at public universities to demystify the publication process. We have talked with graduate students, postdocs, and early career scholars (the majority of whom are from underrepresented backgrounds) about the journal, our role as editors, and best practices for publishing.
Moving forward, one of the main issues we see is the need to increase the diversity of submissions. To do that, we think that it is important to continue to signal that we’re open to publishing in all areas and about phenomena outside of the U.S. In 2022, we sent out a note to ASA sections to encourage section members studying topics (e.g., race, sexualities, science/technology), areas (e.g., non-U.S.), and methods (e.g., ethnography, interview-based, comparative) underrepresented in ASR to submit their work. We have heard through informal feedback that this note made a significant impression upon scholars who have submitted their work to ASR when they might not have otherwise, and to scholars at large who feel that ASR is welcoming of a wide scope of work. This suggests that outreach can be effective and meaningful in receiving submissions from diverse scholars and on an array of topics in the discipline. We note that in 2022, we received submissions from authors located in 41 countries, suggesting that we are doing well with submissions from around the world, but can do more outreach outside of the U.S. context. We do not have other DEI numbers in regard to submissions, but Sage is set to collect these data in 2023.
Finally, we are in the process of revisiting and revising the special instructions to reviewers that prior ASR editors developed for different areas such as ethnography, comparative historical, theory, and policy. We are also planning to add new guidelines for additional areas (e.g., experimental methods, interviews) given their growth and importance in the discipline. We will draw upon what we have learned over the past two years in helping to develop successful articles for publication in ASR, and we hope that these new guidelines for reviewers (and authors) signal our enthusiasm for a whole range of methods and topics.
Staff. The smooth operation of the journal would be impossible without the work of the ASR staff. We have benefited greatly from the extraordinary work of our managing editor, Mara Nelson Grynaviski. Our local staff–lead editorial assistant Shelley Rao and editorial assistants Callie Cleckner and Yingjian Liang–also made invaluable contributions to ASR’s mission in the second year of our editorship.
Art Alderson and Dina Okamoto, Editors
City & Community
Introduction
Last year was a stable and successful one for the journal. The quality and impact of our papers on the discipline and field of urban studies continued to improve. We expanded the initiatives we started in 2021, the first year of my editorship, and began some new ones. Our ASA section, Community and Urban Sociology, has expressed approval of the journal’s initiatives and performance, and we have managed to get section members more involved in the journal’s activities. City & Community is on a steady rise.
Manuscript Submissions and Decisions
In 2022, 225 total manuscripts were submitted to the journal. Of these, 16 were accepted, 53 were invited to revise and resubmit, 63 were rejected, and 93 were rejected without review (that is, “desk rejected”). The latter number is high because City & Community is well-known among the large community of scholars and practitioners in the broad field of urban studies. We therefore regularly receive submissions from authors with backgrounds in such disciplines as urban planning, architecture, and policy that are not intellectual fits for the journal and do not conform to our guidelines.
Among the 171 new (that is, first) submissions to the journal, 78 (or 45.6%) were sent out for peer review and the rest were rejected without review. Among those that underwent the peer review process, 47 (60.3%) were rejected outright, and 31 (39.8%) were invited to revise and resubmit.
Among the 53 submissions that were invited revisions, 16 (29.6%) were accepted, 21 (38.9%) were invited to revise and resubmit, and 16 (29.6%) were rejected. First, of these 53 invitations, 30 were for first revisions. Two (6.7%) of these 30 were accepted, 13 (43.3%) were once again invited to revise and resubmit, and 15 (50%) were rejected. Second, of these 53 invitations, 14 were for second revisions. Of these 14, 7 (50%) were accepted, 6 (42.9%) were invited to once again revise and resubmit, and 1 (7.1%) was rejected. Finally, of these 53 invitations, 9 were for third and/or fourth revisions. Of these 9, 7 (77.8%) were accepted and 2 (22.2%) were once again invited to revise and resubmit.
Using the traditional ASA indicator for the acceptance rate (the number of accepted manuscripts divided by the number of overall decisions, multiplied by 100), the acceptance rate at City & Community for 2021 was 7.1%. If we instead calculate the acceptance rate as accepted papers divided by final decisions, multiplied by 100 (as suggested by England in the March 2009 issue of Footnotes), the acceptance rate was 12.1%.
Finally, we learned last year that the journal’s Impact Factor (from 2021, the most recent year available) is now 2.252, which is the highest in the journal’s history. It is up from 1.722 in 2020 and 1.113 in 2019. The 5-year Impact Factor is now 2.456.
Editorial Board
Last year we once again diversified the editorial board even further. The 2021 board consisted of: 14 men (47%) and 16 women (53%); 19 White (63%) and 11 racial/ethnic minorities (37%); and of these 11 minority board members, 7 are African American, 2 Hispanic/Latino(a), and 2 Asian/Asian American. Last year’s board consisted of 13 men (43.3%) and 17 women (56.7%); 15 White (50%) and 15 from racial minority groups (50%); and of these board members 8 are African American, 4 Hispanic/Latino(a), and 3 Asian/Asian American. And of these 30, 4 are deputy editors who help review manuscripts and 2 are book review co-editors.
Special Issues
Special issues are important for the journal because they expose urban sociology to audiences outside of the subfield and allow scholars to use urban sociological theory to address significant questions in sociology and society.
For the 2022 September issue we published a special issue entitled “Urban Processes Under Racial Capitalism,” with Prentiss Dantzler (who is also a deputy editor for the journal), Elizabeth Korver-Glenn, and Junia Howell serving as guest editors. Along with an introductory essay by the guest editors and four original peer-reviewed articles, the special issue also features a concluding commentary by Robert Vargas. The issue got broad and positive attention.
In January 2022, ASA approved a Call for Abstracts for a new special issue entitled “Environmentalizing Urban Sociology,” with Hillary Angelo (also a board member) and Miriam Greenberg (a former board member) as guest editors. The papers they selected have been going through the peer-review process and we expect this special issue to be published in late 2023.
Finally, we have been accepting papers for a special issue entitled “W. E. B. Du Bois and Urban Sociology: The Philadelphia Negro at 125 Years,” with Freeden Blume Oeur and Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana (also a board member) serving as guest editors. We hope to publish it some time in 2024.
Initiatives and Features
Webinar Series. Last year we started a webinar series with a primary aim of professional development for early career scholars. It focuses on the basics of academic journal publishing. Topics have included writing manuscripts (“How to Write (and Not Write) Journal Articles: A City & Community Perspective”), reviewing manuscripts (“How to be a Reviewer: Reviewing Papers for Journals”), and revising and resubmitting (“Great, but Now What? How to Handle R&Rs”). We ran five events in this series, and I conducted each of them with assistance from Daniela Tagtachian, the journal’s managing editor. All events were well attended with hundreds of registrants, most of whom were doctoral students and junior faculty. We plan on regularly hosting virtual events on these and other topics in the years to come.
Professional Development. Launched on January 1, 2021, the Urban Scholars Development Program is a formal mentoring program for young urban researchers. Aimed at graduate students, post-docs, and recent graduates, this program formalizes City & Community’s existing reputation as a welcoming journal for up-and-coming scholars. We are particularly interested in supporting underrepresented scholars through this program. We recruited 15 faculty mentors and have matched 9 mentees to faculty mentors since it began. Two mentees were assigned mentors in 2022. Five of our mentees have been women and six have been students of color. We hope this program helps cultivate the next generation of urban scholars while improving the quality of submissions to the journal.
Podcasts. ASA’s interviews with authors who publish in City & Community are posted on our website. I am also a host of “New Books in Sociology,” a channel on the “New Books Network,” for which I conduct podcast interviews with book authors. I have been periodically interviewing urban sociologists about their recent books, giving them, the journal, and the subfield some broader attention. I also recruited two other hosts to join us in promoting urban books whose authors they interview. This initiative is being conducted in collaboration with CUSS. We hope both podcasts endeavors generate some additional attention for the journal and the work we publish.
Social Media. The City & Community twitter account (@CiCoJournal) was active throughout the year. We have increased our number of followers to 1,554.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
I made improving diversity, equity, and inclusion at the journal a priority when I began my editorship, and this continued in 2021. Along with the mentoring program and our efforts to diversify the editorial board and expand the discourse through special issues, we have also been gathering data on who our authors and reviewers are since late 2021. These data come from voluntary surveys we include in the auto-emails we send through the submission system. We’re still compiling them. Our aim is to figure out who we’re getting papers from and who’s reviewing papers for us in terms of race, ethnicity, type of institution, region of the world, and various other factors to see who is being excluded and where we can improve. We’ve been doing this independently and are also working with ASA’s DEI initiative for journal editors.
Richard E. Ocejo, Editor
Contemporary Sociology
During the 2022 calendar year, Contemporary Sociology was active and productive in producing high quality book reviews and review essays. During 2022, CS office operated fully in-person. Post-Covid, many publishers changed their policy of sending review copies of books to the office. Instead, typically they send an announcement email and/or an electronic version of the book to the editor. After reviewing these titles for their suitability, we request physical copies from publishers. Therefore, we are receiving much fewer physical copies of books that are not suitable for review in CS. During the 2022 calendar year, more than 600 books were considered and a total of 446 physical books were requested for potential review. In Volume 51, in 2022, we published six issues including 200 regular reviews, 25 review essays of 38 books as well as 5 reviewlets.
Some of our review essays include comparative analysis of multiple books on the same theme, while some had discussions and different perspectives on the same book. In addition, we also had 5 “Briefly Noted” reviewlets (250-500 words). Overall, we have featured 243 books. In addition, we have done a special essay on disabilities.
Journal Processes: Every two months, our editorial associates prepare lists of new books along with abstracts for our editorial board to review. Editorial board members are asked to suggest potential reviewers for each title in their areas of interest. The editor ranks all the suggestions once we receive them from our editorial board. Based on the suggestions and advice of the editorial board, reviews and review essays are commissioned. The journal’s managing editor copyedits and formats all the work received electronically in preparation for publication. The copyedited materials are sent to SAGE for typesetting, and several sets of proofs are corrected prior to publication. Editor, managing editor and both editorial associates go through the final proofs before the issue goes to print.
Editorial Board Members: In 2022, we had 43 editorial board members. Our editorial board members are 67% women, 26% men, 5% non-binary and 2 % other. Our board was 47 % minority, 23% White. Our editorial board represents a wide range of sub-specializations of sociology. We also have representation from a wide range of organizations including research and teaching-focused institutions as well as community colleges. The full composition of the editorial board can be found on our website.
DEI Initiatives: To ensure the diversity of the reviewers and to ensure the reviewers are not limited to my networks, Contemporary Sociology shares bi-monthly lists of the books to be reviewed with the editorial board to ask for suggestions. All editorial board members are asked to send in suggestions for possible reviewers. This practice expands our pool of potential reviewers and ensures the reviewers are not limited by the editor’s academic networks.
I would like to thank my editorial team: managing editor Jean Littlejohn, editorial associates Laurel Naik and Brittany Salvetti, our editorial board, and many reviewers. Finally, I would like to thank Karen Gray Edwards at ASA for her valuable help.
Yasemin Besen-Cassino, Editor
Contexts
In 2022, Contexts: Sociology for the Public had an exciting year with editorial transitions. In regards to public impact, Contexts magazine continued its prominence to garner over one million views and downloads from the Contexts and Sage websites, in addition to having a set of articles that ranked in the top 20 most downloaded articles across all journals sponsored by the American Sociological Association in 2022.
We continued with our thematic offerings for each issue. Winter 2022 focused on “Youth and Coming of Age,” while Spring 2022 focused on “Place and Meaning Making.” The Summer 2022 issue focused on “Politics and Power” and featured a cover portrait by Kehendi Wiley, who constructed the presidential portrait for Barack Obama. Our Fall 2022 issue focused on “Visions and Transformations.” Rather than solely examining the past, the dire, or deficits, we invited authors to think more innovatively about what sociological research holds for the future.
In terms of numbers, 35 new papers were submitted from January-July 2022. One paper was accepted unconditionally, nine papers were accepted with minor changes, four were rejected during the revise and resubmit stage, and 19 were rejected outright. We also substantially improved our time to decision for original submissions and revise and resubmits. In addition to peer-reviewed articles, we published a series of In Brief articles, Q&As, photo essays, book reviews, culture articles, trend articles, policy briefs, and One Thing that I Know articles.
The 35 new submissions are much lower than customary. In June 2022, we started formally asking authors to wait until the new editors started their tenure in August 2022. This was two-fold. First, we had a backlog of accepted papers and wanted to ensure these articles were published. It is also customary for current editors to provide new editors with a set of peer-reviewed articles that have been accepted as well as other pieces of the magazine. Second, we did not think it was fair to authors to potentially have four editors weighing in on their papers. So, we wanted to allow the new editors to make decisions about whether to consider the most recent submissions.
As our editorship concluded, we believe that our discipline is in a much better space, particularly related to our public presence, impact, and institutional recognitions of such pursuits. The subtitle change to include “Sociology for the Public” is monumental to imprint sociology on the cover of every issue. We also redesigned the cover to make it more appealing. In addition to highlighting topics covered, we include a thematic statement as well as featured authors in each issue. We integrated a Policy Briefs section, sent 100 magazines each issue to policy makers and organizations before the pandemic, published a special issue on pandemics featuring authors in or articles on 25 countries, and held policy symposia to bring more attention to our discipline. Finally, we brought much more racial diversity to the magazine and our discipline, not just in terms of the core Contexts staff and editorial board, but also concerning the authors, images, and voices covered in the pages.
Lastly, we want to give a special thank you to all of the many staff members who worked on Contexts magazine during our tenure. We want to give a special shoutout to Carson Byrd (who edited Books all five years), Todd Beer and Michael Bader (who co-edited Trends), Alisha Kirchoff (who served in various roles all five years including ending as Managing Editor), and Genesis Fuentes (who ended as Corresponding Editor). We could not have done this work without you.
To the discipline, thank you for the opportunity to serve in this way.
Rashawn Ray and Fabio Rojas, Editors
Journal of Health and Social Behavior
The Journal of Health and Social Behavior has long been recognized as the flagship journal of American medical sociology. In 2022, JHSB published 40 articles and four open-access policy briefs across four issues. These articles included qualitative and quantitative studies of the US and other countries. The subject matter spanned the breadth of medical sociology and intersected with mainstream sociology, public health, public policy, and other fields. For each issue’s policy brief, I selected one paper with clear policy implications and asked the author(s) to craft a one-page summary directed at policymakers, media outlets, and the general public. These briefs appear prominently in each issue of JHSB and on the journal’s home page.
Journal Operations
In 2022, I completed my third and final year as the JHSB editor. Hence, this past year entailed an editorial transition for the journal. Dr. Deborah Carr at Boston University was selected in Spring 2022 as the incoming editor and phased into the role over the summer of 2022. Starting in July, Debbie and her new editorial team began handling new submissions and, beginning September 1, phased in adjudicating all submissions (i.e., new and revised and resubmitted papers). As the outgoing editor, I prepared the publication of the final (December 2022) issue of volume 63. The first (March 2023) issue of volume 64 was Debby’s first official issue under her editorship. I wish Debby and her team all the best of success in the coming years.
This year, JHSB received 409 new manuscripts. After initial review by the editorial team—either by me or in consultation with a deputy editor—65.3 percent were rejected without being sent out for peer reviewer. The average time between submission and desk-rejection was 1.1 weeks. Of the 142 (34.7%) papers sent out for peer review, 29.6 percent received a revise and resubmit decision. Overall, the average time between initial submission and first review decision was 10.3 weeks. For papers that were eventually accepted, production time (i.e., the time between a paper being accepted and appearing in print in an issue) was 6.67 months.
Deputy Editors, Editorial Board, Peer Reviewers, and Journal Staff
JHSB’s operation depends on more than just the efforts of the editor. It requires contributions from a large group of individuals who are deserving of thanks.
The eight Deputy Editors (Monica Casper, William Cockerham, Robert J. Johnson, Hedwig Lee, Michael McFarland, Miles Taylor, Miranda Waggoner, and Ming Wen) were invaluable resources in helping me to adjudicate difficult decisions, managing rare conflict-of-interest submissions, and providing advice on the journal’s operations. The Deputy editors also occasionally acted as the editor for manuscripts that were squarely in their area of expertise.
I was also aided by the valuable contributions of the associate editors, on whom I relied for reviews and various consultations. I am especially grateful to Terrence D. Hill for his editorial advice and frequent manuscript reviews. The complete list of editorial board members is listed on the JHSB website (https://www.asanet.org/journal-health-and-social-behavior-editorial-board)
To create opportunities and promote diversity in our editorial board, I continued to select editorial board members based on an open call for nominations. This process reduced network-based selection bias and allowed me to recruit from a wider pool of scholars. Overall, the editorial board composition remains diverse in terms of gender (61 percent women in 2022) and race-ethnicity (23 percent racial-ethnic minorities).
JHSB values its many supportive and attentive peer reviewers. I extend my sincerest thanks to the new and continuing board members, and the many ad hoc peer reviewers who have generously contributed their time and expertise to JHSB.
Finally, I want to acknowledge our talented editorial office team: Managing Editor for Reviews R. Kyle Saunders; Managing Editor for Production Ryan Trettevik; Copyeditor Michaela Curran; and Editorial Assistant Tim Arthur.
In closing, I thank Karen Edwards and Jamie Panzarella at ASA for their invaluable assistance and our readers for their support during this year.
Amy M. Burdette, Editor
Journal of World-Systems Research
In 2022, the Journal of World-Systems Research published two issues: Winter/Spring 2022, which along with a number of excellent research articles featured an interview with Jerome Roose, an LSE Fellow in International Political Economy (IPE) at the Department of International Development of the London School of Economics about his recent book Why Not Default?, the winner of the first Immanuel Wallerstein memorial Book Award from the American Sociological Association. In Summer/Autumn 2022 we were pleased to present a Special Issue: “Anti-State and Anti-Systemic–Exilic Spaces and Societies in Movement in the World-System,” edited by Spencer Louis Potiker and Yousuf Al-Bulushi.
JWSR continues to actively seek out scholars of color, newer voices in the field, and reviewers from universities outside the United States and Europe. In order to encourage greater participation, we are releasing a Call for Reviewers to draw in individuals whose perspectives will positively impact the growth of world-systems research.
Andrej Grubačić, Editor
Rose Series in Sociology
The ASA Rose Series in Sociology publishes highly visible, accessible books that integrate substantive areas in sociology, such as inequality, environment, immigration, and criminology. The books are designed to offer synthesizing analyses, challenge prevailing paradigms, and offer fresh views of enduring controversies. Because of their broad scope and policy relevance, the volumes published in the Rose Series are disseminated in areas beyond their focus to the broader professional and intellectual communities.
The Rose Series offers its authors a unique opportunity to combine the intellectual rigor associated with refereed journals, the visibility of publishing with a major press, and the benefit of a sustained marketing campaign that extends beyond sociology into related disciplines and relevant policy circles. The books are jointly published by the American Sociological Association (ASA) and the Russell Sage Foundation (RSF), and our editors work closely with RSF’s Director of Publications, Suzanne Nichols. Each manuscript is evaluated through a meticulous review process and is chosen for its quality, sophistication, and policy relevance. Only a few selected volumes are added each year.
At the end of 2022, the University at Albany (SUNY) editorial team took over the reins–Joanna Dreby Aaron Major, Katherine Trent, Steven Messner. We are excited for the future of the Rose Series under our direction for this term of the journal.
In the final year under the editorial leadership of The Graduate Center, CUNY editors, who oversaw the series from January 2020- December 2022, the Rose Series published Collateral Damages: Landlords and the Urban Housing Crisis by Meredith Greif in 2022, which was featured in an Author-Meets-Critic session at 2022 ASA Annual Meeting.
Also, in 2022, one of five manuscripts under contract was completed and published in Spring 2023, Who Benefits from College by Jennie Brand. Brand will present her work at the 2023 ASA Annual Meeting in a Book Forum (formerly Author-Meets-Critics) session on Saturday, August 19, 2023, in Philadelphia.
The other books currently under contract with the Rose Series are:
- Race and Gender Discrimination in the Stalled Revolution by Reginald Byron and Vincent Roscigno
- Immigrants, Entrepreneurs, and Urban Redevelopment by Angie Chung and Jan Lin
- Journey to Adulthood in Uncertain Times by Robert Crosnoe and Shannon Cavanagh
- The Great Dispersion: Geography, Diversity, and Opportunity among Hispanics in the United States by Emilio Parrado and Chenoa Flippen
- Social Mobility Among Second Generation Mexican Immigrants by Robert Smith
- Learning to Lead: The Intersectional Politics of the Second Generation by Veronica Terriquez
We are grateful for the 24 members on our 2022 editorial board and would particularly like to thank outgoing members—Japonica Brown-Saracino, Kathleen Gerson, Jessica Halliday Hardie, Ruth Horowitz, Jennifer A. Reich, Quincy Thomas Stewart, France Winddance Twine and Melissa J. Wilde—for their service. We brought on 8 new members who started January 2023:
- Elizabeth Popp Berman, University of Michigan
- Susan L. Brown, Bowling Green University
- Christopher P. Dum, Kent State University
- Ruben Hernadez-Leon, UCLA
- Tomás R. Jiménez, Stanford University
- Daniel T. Lichter. Cornell University
- Robert Suro, USC Annenberg
- Jessica Vasquez-Tokos, University of Oregon
The Rose Series is committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in both the projects we select and support and the involvement of scholars from underrepresented groups on the editorial board. Our current manuscripts deal with pressing issues of equity, race, gender, and immigration.
There will be 11 editorial board vacancies for the 2024 -2026 service-period. We will continue to broaden its diversity.
Joanna Dreby, Aaron Major, Steven Messner, and Katherine Trent, Editors
Social Psychology Quarterly
Editorial Team and Board
The current Social Psychology Quarterly (SPQ) editorial team began its term in January 2021 and began handling new manuscript submissions in the summer of 2020. The managing editor organizes the day-to-day operations of SPQ, ensuring that manuscripts are processed in a timely manner and that production goes smoothly. Two outstanding University of Georgia graduate students held this position in 2022. Kylie Smith served as managing editor from July 1, 2021, until June 30, 2022. Tenshi Kawashima took over the reins on July 1, 2022. Gianna Mosser continued in her long-standing role as copyeditor, ensuring that SPQ articles were clearly written and that they followed ASA style and editorial guidelines.
We are fortunate to have three outstanding Deputy Editors to support SPQ operations. In this role, Cory D. Fields, Matthew O. Hunt, and Stefanie Mollborn conduct reviews, serve as primary manuscript editors, and act as editor-in-chief when the co-editors have conflicts of interest. Further supporting the editorial team are members of the editorial board. In 2022, the board had 40 members. 12 members of the board identified as a member of a racial/ethnic minority group, and 22 identified as female. Special thanks to our editorial board: Seth Abrutyn, Mark T. Berg, Kraig Beyerlein, Elisa Jayne Bienenstock, Jamillah E. Bowman Williams, Kait Boyle, Celeste Campos-Castillo, Damon M. Centola, Sapna Cheryan, Coye V. Cheshire, Lynn Gencianeo Chin, Steven E. Clayman, Kristen Annette Clayton, Jenny L. Davis, Jacob Dijkstra, Long Doan, Linda E. Francis, Carla Goar, Ashley Harrell, Jason N. Houle, Verna M. Keith, Nikki Khanna, Freda B. Lynn, Ludwin E. Molina, Chantrey J. Murphy, Kimberly B. Rogers, David Pedulla David E. Rohall, Mary R. Rose, David R. Schaefer, Doug Schrock, Alicia D. Simmons, Allison Skinner-Dorkenoo, Nobuyuki Takahashi, Catherine J. Taylor, Beate Volker, Lisa Slattery Walker.
Journal Operations
Editorial Statistics. From January 1 through December 31, 2022, SPQ received 246 submissions, an increase over the 185 submissions received in 2021. This increase was largely due to the special issue described below. Among new (first) submissions to the journal, 81 percent were sent out for peer review. Among those that underwent peer review 65.6 percent were rejected outright. Thirty-three percent received an invitation to revise and resubmit, and one paper was conditionally accepted subject to minor revisions. Among revised submissions received in 2022, the majority were either accepted subject to minor revisions (39 percent) or accepted outright (41 percent). Eight papers received a second revise and resubmit decision, and 10 were rejected outright. Two papers were rejected after a second revision.
Using the traditional ASA indicator for the acceptance rate (the number of accepted manuscripts divided by the number of overall decisions, multiplied by 100), the acceptance rate for 2021 was 11.8 percent. If we instead calculate the acceptance rate as accepted papers divided by final decisions, multiplied by 100 (as suggested by England in the March 2009 issue of Footnotes), the acceptance rate was 14.6 percent. The average number of weeks from submission to decision in 2022 was 9.2 weeks, up from 7.6 weeks in 2021.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives
This year, our primary DEI efforts involved promoting diverse scholarship on social psychology and race by organizing the special issue on Race, Racism, and Discrimination, to be published in September 2023 (see below for details). To increase the involvement of underrepresented scholars as authors, reviewers, and readers of SPQ, we promoted our call for papers in ASA section newsletters, on Twitter and the ASA website. In all of these venues, we included with our call for papers a message aimed at growing our pool of reviewers with expertise in race and racism:
Social Psychology Quarterly is seeking to expand our reviewer pool. We invite reviewers in all areas to join our pool, but we are especially interested in scholars with expertise to review papers for the special issue on Race, Racism, and Discrimination (see the call below). If you are interested in being added to our reviewer pool, please click on the link below to provide your contact information. Being added to our reviewer database does not obligate you to review for us. Thanks!
This effort was successful at expanding the scholarly and demographic diversity of our reviewers. We had 81 scholars complete the form to sign up as new reviewers and were able to rely on these and other new reviewers to review the influx of papers we received for the special issue. We will continue to invite reviewers to sign up by sending the link to section newsletters.
We see evidence that the outreach associated with the special issue increased submissions to SPQ on race and race relations. In addition to the articles slated to appear in the special issue, we accepted ten papers in 2022 on topics related to social psychology and race. We hope that promoting the special issue and these articles in the coming year will raise SPQ’s profile as a journal that publishes cutting-edge social psychological research on race and ethnic relations.
Special Issue on Social Psychology of Race, Racism, and Discrimination
In 2003, SPQ published a special issue edited by Dr. Lawrence Bobo on the social psychology of race, racism, and discrimination. Drs. Corey D. Fields, Verna M. Keith, and Justine Tinkler spent 2022 organizing the 20th anniversary special issue on the same topic to appear in September 2023. We received 69 submissions. There were so many excellent papers that we will publish a double issue in September 2023 with seven full-length articles, three research notes, and an introduction by Lawrence Bobo.
Additional Initiatives
SPQ SNAPS Slides. The rebooted SPQ SNAPS began to be published this year in the form of author-created slides that summarize the research in a format for use in classrooms. These presentation slides are hosted by SAGE as Online Supplemental Material associated with the article published on SAGE’s SPQ site. Instructors can download SPQ Snaps Slides and have a convenient, polished, and author-approved set of materials for teaching articles published in SPQ. We are delighted to call attention to the three SPQ SNAPS Slides published in 2022:
- Rationales and Support for Norms in the Context of Covid-19, by Christine Horne and Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson (September 2022)
- Skin Tone and Mexicans’ Perceptions of Discrimination in New Immigrant Destinations, by Helen B. Marrow, Dina G. Okamoto, Melissa J. Garcia, Muna Adem, and Linda R. Tropp (December 2022)
- Can Customers Affect Racial Discrimination in Hiring?, by David S. Pedulla, Sophie Allen, and Livia Baer-Boitis (OnlineFirst, September 2022)
Reclassifying Social Psychology Quarterly as a sociology journal. The editorial team also continued our conversations with SAGE and ASA about correcting the misclassification of Social Psychology Quarterly in the Web of Science. Clarivate (mis-)classifies SPQ under ‘Psychology, Social’ rather than under Sociology. Last year, we developed a proposal for Clarivate to correct this by classifying SPQ as a Sociology journal. Clarivate, however, has paused all classification requests from existing journals to attend to new journal classifications. It is not clear when or whether they will consider our proposal.
Jody Clay-Warner, Dawn T. Robinson, Justine Tinkler, editors
Society and Mental Health
2022 marks the twelfth anniversary of Society and Mental Health. Since its inception, SMH has published papers covering the range of subjects relevant to the study of mental illness and health from a sociological perspective, including contributions to the study of the stress process, the general and specific causes and consequences of mental health and illness, mental illness and the life course, social construction and medicalization, mental illness and marginalized groups, and important contributions to theory. In keeping with the journal’s guiding principles, SMH has also devoted space for emerging issues in the sociology of mental health and illness, including the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as articles on public policy, community mental health, and mental health reform.
During 2022, SMH published 15 articles. Notably, we have begun to organize issues into thematic sections as a means of attracting wider interest to the journal. This began with the November 2022 issue, and we plan to continue with thematic sections in the future.
Journal Operations
During 2022, the journal was fortunate to have Gale Cassidy continuing as the managing editor, a position she has held for most of the journal’s existence. In 2022, SMH received 170 new manuscripts, compared with 176 in 2020. Of these, 101 (59.4%) were rejected without further review. Notably, 74% of new manuscripts were rejected without external review in 2021, showing a distinct increase in the quality of new submissions. Desk rejected decision time in 2022 averaged less than half a week.
Of the 69 papers sent out for peer review, 25 (36.2%) received an invitation to revise and resubmit. The average time to a decision for peer-reviewed papers was just under six weeks in 2022, compared with seven weeks in 2021, and eight weeks in 2020. Authors who submit new papers can therefore expect to receive decisions in about six weeks, on average.
In terms of production time, papers accepted in 2022 were generally published in the journal within one year of acceptance or less.
Deputy Editors, Editorial Board, Peer Reviewers, and Journal Staff
The successful management of SMH depends on the work of our Deputy Editors and Editorial Board members. Our Deputy Editors— Robyn Lewis Brown, Christy LaShaun Erving, Stephani Hatch, Jong Hyun Jung, and John Taylor—have provided high-quality service to the journal as both decision editors of papers and reviewers. We also thank the departing members of the editorial board: Kerry Michael Dobransky, San Juanita García, Gilbert C. Gee, Kristen Marcussen, Teresa L. Scheid, Jason Schnittker, and Peggy A. Thoits.
New members to the SMH board for January 1, 2022 include: Matthew Andersson, Gabriele Ciciurkaite, Molly Copeland, Patricia Drentea, Mathew D. Gayman, Matthew K. Grace, Brittany Nicole Hearne, Ning Hsieh, Lei Jin, Fabrice Stanley Julien, Jong Hyun Jung , Byron Miller, Uchechi A. Mitchell, Dawne M. Mouzon, Atsushi Narisada, Kei Nomaguchi, Richard J. Petts, Fernando I. Rivera, Karen A. Snedker, Patricia A. Thomas, and Xiaozhao Y. Yang.
SMH also depends on a wide range of ad hoc reviewers who provide invaluable input. Without their assistance we would not have been able to advance the mission of SMH and publish the wide range of scholarship that reflects the diversity of scholarship on the sociology of mental health and illness.
Editorial Efforts on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
We substantially increased the diversity of the editorial board in 2022. In 2021, 24% of the board represented ethnic minorities, but in 2022 this increased to 47%, while we maintained approximately two-thirds of the board identifying as women. Additionally, in 2022, four scholars assumed the role of Deputy Editors. Two identify as men and two as women, and two of the four are Black scholars. Looking to 2023, we will maintain the diversity of the editorial board, while adding a fifth Deputy Editor, creating a team of Deputy Editors for which the majority represents ethnic minorities. In 2022, we also canvassed editorial board members for suggestions for new board members and also suggestions for new reviewers, with the stated goal of not only maintaining the increased diversity of the editorial board, but also increasing the diversity of the journal’s reviewer pool. We further emphasized the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the articles published in the journal. The November 2022 issue included a thematic section on discrimination and mental health, and we nominated a paper on vicarious discrimination among Black men and women from this section for media promotion from the ASA. Looking to the future, the lead article in the March 2023 issue addresses the intergenerational effects of Canada’s residential schools system, and we also nominated this article for media promotion from the ASA. Additionally, we wish to emphasize that we welcome research from a variety of methodological orientations and scholars at all levels of the profession. In 2022, we published both quantitative and qualitative research, with authors stretching from graduate students to established professors. We hope that scholars employing a diverse set of sociological orientations to the study of mental health will feel welcome to submit their work to Society and Mental Health.
Finally, we would like to thank Karen Gray Edwards (ASA Director of Publications), who has provided invaluable advice and assistance in 2022.
Alex Bierman and Scott Schieman, Editors
Sociological Methodology
The year 2022 was the third year of the editorship of Sociological Methodology under co-editors David Melamed and Mike Vuolo, located at the Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. The editors’ tenure has been extended for a total period of five years. Editors Melamed and Vuolo work alongside continuing managing editor Lisa Savage.
Volume 52 in 2022 marked just the second time that SM appeared as multiple issues across a single annual volume. For the first 50 volumes, SM was a single hardbound volume published once per year. This approach has permitted articles to appear quickly in a print issue. The journal also continued its recent tradition of including an accompanying podcast for a single article per issue. The editors continue to promote the journal on social media, which was new for the journal, in order to maximize reach and promote groundbreaking methodology. Evidence that such efforts are succeeding can be seen in the rise in the journal’s ranking among sociology journals. Between the two most recent rankings by JCR impact factor, SM moved from 67 to 7.
The editors aimed to diversify the journal along several dimensions. First, the board of SM is as diverse as ever in terms of representation of both women and non-White scholars. Second, scholars from non-research-intensive institutions have been added to the board. Finally, the journal made substantial efforts to diversify the editorial board in terms of methodological approaches, now having more qualitative and mixed methods scholars than ever. The editors want SM to reflect the varying approaches to sociological research represented in the discipline and encourage submissions regardless of approach. The results of these efforts are beginning to pay off, with an increase in submissions that are not purely quantitative in nature and several promising papers in the pipeline. The goal of each of these efforts is not only to diversify the content of SM, but to diversify by the backgrounds of the scholars that submit to and review for the journal.
For the entire year of 2022, 100 manuscripts were considered, 73 of which were new submissions, and 27 were resubmissions. Of the 73 new submissions, 30 were rejected without peer review and 43 were placed into the review process. Of the 43 manuscripts reviewed, 20 were rejected and 15 were invited to resubmit a revised manuscript, 5 were accepted subject to minor changes, and 3 are still pending.
The acceptance rate based on all the submissions and resubmissions in 2022 was 30%. The average number of weeks to decision was 7.8, ranging from 0.6 weeks for papers rejected without peer review, to 16.6 weeks for papers invited to revise and resubmit, to 14.1 weeks for papers rejected after review, and an average of 9.7 weeks for papers accepted subject to minor changes.
Sociological Methodology continues to benefit from the ease of the ScholarOne online manuscript tracking system for all new and revised submissions. We currently have a relatively healthy flow of new and revised submissions.
Issue 1 of Volume 53 came out in February 2023. In preparation for Volume 53(2), many of the manuscripts are in copyediting or production.
David Melamed and Mike Vuolo, Editors
Sociological Theory
2022 was the second year of my editorship at Sociological Theory. In terms of submissions and decisions, the volume was consistently high, although something of a dip from our submission volume in 2021. All in all, we received 127 new submissions, and I made 154 decisions on manuscripts.
We published 16 papers in 2022, up from 14 in the previous year. Our acceptance rate was around 9 percent, in line with previous years.
One of the things that I am especially intent on doing as editor is to shorten the time to first decision on manuscripts that are sent to review. I am happy to report that we continue to make strides in that regard, as the time to first decision has gone down to 49 days on average—under two months. I made a special effort to reduce time to decision for graduate student submissions and the submissions of assistant professors, who face time pressures due to job-market and tenure processes.
Along those lines, and like previous editors, I have continued to desk-reject a large number of submissions, when I thought that either the fit was problematic or that there was an extremely low chance that the manuscript would pass peer review. While this is not a welcome outcome, I continued to make it a priority to return these desk rejections as quickly as possible, and to try and write constructive feedback that would allow authors to either re-work their paper for submission at Sociological Theory at a later date, or to submit their work to a more appropriate journal. The average time to receive such desk rejections was 11 days.
As in previous years, one of the issues plaguing ST is its composition of authors, heavily skewing male. I have dedicated quite a lot of my time and thought over the past two years to think about how this could be rectified. At the level of the editorial board, the board composition remains largely unchanged in terms of gender—around 54%. I have also sustained the push to include people of diverse backgrounds in the editorial board, with around 40% of the board identifying as minorities. I am also very happy to say that the percentage of non-male authors has gone up, and that the December 2022 issue was the first issue in the history of the journal not to feature any cis-men, not because of a special issue of some sort, but simply because these were the submissions that happened to be in the queue.
I would like to deeply thank the reviewers who made this work possible, and who engaged with the submissions to ST last year, as well as the members of the editorial board who have gone above and beyond to review and provide advice on multiple occasions. I also extend my deep (very deep), gratitude to ST’s managing editor, Joe Wiebe. His organizational acumen, institutional memory, and care saved me from many errors.
Iddo Tavory, Editor
Sociology of Education
In the context of the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the journal remains a healthy and vibrant context for scholarship in the sociology of education. As new editors, we have continued to publish a wide range of vital scholarship and attracted an invested core of reviewers. The sociology of education is a substantive area informed by diverse theories, methodologies, and work related to education inside and outside the United States. We’ve continued to publish qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method scholarship that reflects the eclectic but connected mix of scholarship in this area.
Manuscript Flow
This report covers the journal’s manuscript activity from January 1, 2022, through December 31, 2022. As the table shows, we continue to receive a large number of submissions. This year we received 274 submissions and 45 revised manuscripts. The time from submission to decision increased to 11.6 weeks (approximately 2.5 weeks longer than in 2021).
| New Manuscripts | Revised Manuscripts | Weeks from Submission to Decision | |
| 2014 | 211 | 34 | 5 |
| 2015 | 214 | 38 | 5 |
| 2016 | 237 | 32 | 5.5 |
| 2017 | 195 | 44 | 9.2 |
| 2018 | 264 | 50 | 9 |
| 2019 | 253 | 55 | 6.7 |
| 2020 | 256 | 22 | 7.3 |
| 2021 | 268 | 28 | 9 |
| 2022 | 274 | 45 | 11.6 |
SOE’s overall acceptance rate – the number of unconditionally accepted articles in 2022 (18) divided by the number of final decisions was 6.6 percent. In 2022, the Revise and Resubmit rate increased to 23.6%, slightly higher than the 17% rate in 2021. In 2022, SOE’s new submissions increased to over 200, an increase over previous years.
During 2022 the time from manuscript submission to the delivery of a decision increased to an average of 11.6 weeks. This is an increase from 2021 and reflects the editorial transition, our learning curve as editors, and some challenges in the review process. While we thank our many committed reviewers for their engagement in the peer-review process, we also acknowledge some difficulty in identifying willing reviewers, contributing to delays. We have instituted multiple processes to expedite the review process, which should help reduce our time to decision going forward. Most importantly, we have added 4 additional deputy editors and streamlined our review process in ways we anticipate reducing our time to decision. Our production lag time in 2022 (the average time from acceptance to print publication) was 3.43 months. We expect this to increase during 2023.
Editorial Team
As editors, we have significantly benefited from our managing editor Shannon Vikal’s experience and skill in various aspects of the editorial process. Her extensive editorial expertise was valuable in our transition and continues to enhance our ongoing work. We also want to acknowledge our 8 deputy editors, Regina Deil-Amen, William J. Carbonaro, Patrick Denice, Jennifer C. Lee, Carla Dawn O’Connor, Susanna Loeb, Anthony A. Peguero, and Douglas David Ready. As deputy editors, they help us make difficult decisions based on their specific expertise. We added four new deputy editors this year (Carbonaro, Denice, Lee, and Ready) to help us usher manuscripts through the editorial process more quickly.
We thank our outgoing Editorial Board members: Steven G. Brint, Stephanie L. Canizales, Gilberto Q. Conchas, Sean Patrick Corcoran, Linsey Nicole Edwards, Pat Rubio Goldsmith, Andrew Halpern-Manners, Amy Gill Langenkamp, Emily K. Penner, Salvatore Saporito, Lauren Schudde, April Sutton.
In 2022, SOE welcomed several new members to the board: Pamela R. Bennett, Chase Michael Billingham, Dennis J. Condron, Jordan Conwell, Renée DePalma Ungaro, Adrienne Denise Dixson, Liliana M. Garces, Manuel S. Gonzalez Canche, Tim Hallett, Simone Ispa-Landa, ChangHwan Kim, Ann Owens, Jayanti Johanna Owens, Hyunjoon Park, Linn Posey-Maddox, Natasha Quadlin, Ranita Ray, Derron Wallace, Kelly Welch.
Reviewers and Reviewing
We sincerely thank all of those who reviewed for SOE in 2022. We continue receiving a large volume of annual submissions, and we could not handle this without our committed reviewers. This year we also acknowledged a group of outstanding reviewers with the “Revise and Resubmit” (Reviewers of the Year) award. These award winners included Lisa Nunn, Jason Jabbari, Elizabeth Lee, Dennis Condron, Jessica Calarco, and Sean Kelly.
Diversity and Inclusion Efforts
Since taking over as editors, we have attended to diversity issues in all aspects of the editorial process. We have both been active participants in the ASA’s journal editors’ convenings about diversity and have taken the lead in organizing one session. We have worked hard to ensure the diversity of the editorial board by tapping into broad networks within the discipline. In 2022, the editorial board comprised 54 percent women and 34 percent men and 46 percent scholars of color, and 43 percent white scholars. We’ve also participated in outreach activities, including discussions in professional development settings focused on groups underrepresented in SOE and sociology more broadly.
Summary
We are honored and humbled to serve as the editors of SOE, and we are working hard to uphold its legacy. While these times have been challenging, we believe that SOE continues to be a valued venue that scholars count on for rigorous, vital scholarship related to the sociology of education. We are proud that we’ve continued to publish work that reflects the field’s range of substantive interests, theoretical orientations, and methodological approaches. We encourage you and your colleagues to send your manuscripts to SOE.
John Diamond and Odis Johnson, Jr., Editors
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Manuscript Submissions
In 2022, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity received 306 submissions, an increase of 59 submissions from the previous year. While more significant than previous years, this submission increase of 24% continues a consistent pattern of year-over-year growth. Most of the submissions (n=290) were original research articles. In addition to original research submissions, the journal received 14 pedagogical articles in 2022. The average timespan between manuscript submission and acceptance was approximately seven (7) weeks.
In 2022, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity accepted 27 of 306 submissions, resulting in an acceptance rate of just under 9%. This is a decrease from an 11% acceptance rate in the previous year. The editorial team is satisfied with this acceptance rate. The lower rate tracks with the increased number of submissions, which has resulted in an increase in submissions that are either not an appropriate fit for the journal or require significant work before warranting peer review.
One aspect that the editorial team prides itself on is finding qualified peer reviewers for each submission. In general, we have worked to increase the number of qualified peer reviewers by (1) extending requests to scholars not previously in the journal’s network of reviewers; (2) extending requests for peer review to scholars from institutions where peer review is more valued (e.g. community college faculty, faculty at institutions with lower research output expectations, etc.); and (3) extending requests to non-US based scholars. This latter step is also aligned with our expressed aim to increase Sociology of Race & Ethnicity’s international reach and audience.
Like other academic journals, we have found it more difficult this past year to secure an adequate number of peer reviewers in a timely fashion. For instance, it is now routine to need to extend ten or more review invitations to secure just three reviewers. We believe the American Sociological Association, and other scholarly and professional organizations, need to have more open, honest, and transparent discussions about this ongoing dilemma. We will do what we can from our limited position to continue to encourage our colleagues to serve as peer reviewers, and to encourage timely reviews so that authors can receive timely decisions on their manuscripts. Given the constraints the entire academic journal publishing world faces, we are especially proud of our past year’s work.
Editorial Board
Our current editorial board is comprised of members of varied gender identities and expressions, race, and ethnicities. The 2022 editorial board reflects 15 men (33%), 26 women (57%), and 5 members who identify as gender nonconforming. Of the total number of editorial board members, 25 are scholars of color (54%).
DEI Plan for 2023
Founding editors David L. Brunsma and David G. Embrick made diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) central pillars of Sociology of Race & Ethnicity. Current co-editors B. Brian Foster and James M. Thomas continue to build upon their enormous and important efforts. The makeup of the SRE editorial board affirms the intersection of individual and organizational identities, and helps ensure we have a transformational community of scholars. Additionally, the makeup of the SRE editorial board affirms a stance meant to address the social, systemic, and institutional barriers faced by members of our communities. SRE editorial board members help to create and cultivate a scholarly outlet that promotes inclusivity, and affirms a diverse range of voices, identities, and experiences. Coeditors B. Brian Foster and James M. Thomas remain committed to ensuring that SRE continues to serve as an important scholarly outlet for underrepresented scholars and cutting-edge scholarly content.
Brian Foster and James M. Thomas, Editors
Socius
Review Process: Socius, an open access journal, is an outlet for innovative, rigorously-reviewed scholarship that spans sociology subfields and provides free and rapid access to users across the world. We aim to publish high-quality, peer-reviewed research online.
Socius received 452 total manuscripts in the calendar year 2022. Of the 302 new submissions, we desk-rejected 100. Of the 202 reviewed new submissions, we accepted 0, offered 45 minor and 90 major revisions, and rejected 62. Our desk reject rate is higher than many print journals; however, two important objectives for Socius are a quick turnaround (from submission to publication) and limited rounds of revision—almost all of our revisions are subject to a single round. Both of these goals are intended to respect the time of authors and reviewers, to move promising papers through the review process more efficiently, and to avoid spending inordinate reviewer and editor time on manuscripts that are unlikely to be published. We have been very successful at this goal. The table below lists the time in review for each paper for all submitted manuscripts.
Accepted 1.7 weeks
Revise and Resubmit (Minor) 6.4 weeks
Revise and Resubmit (Major) 9.1 weeks
Rejected Immediately 2.9 weeks
Rejected after Review 7.2 weeks
We continue to work closely with reviewers to convey that our review process is intended to be slightly different from the traditional process. We make clear that we seek to review manuscripts thoroughly and with high standards, however, turning papers around quickly requires that reviewers complete reviews more efficiently than typical for many other journals. To accomplish this, we send potential reviewers a detailed invitation including information on our goals and evaluation criteria. We explain that we will not forward papers to be reviewed if the work is obviously not up to current social science standards of writing or analysis; we prefer short, clear evaluations of papers rather than developmental review; and we seek clear recommendations to authors and editors. We also explain that we use four criteria for review: accuracy, novelty, interest, and presentation (i.e., quality of writing and organizing). We have been pleased that our reviewers typically follow these guidelines and have offered timely, high-quality, focused reviews.
The online format in which Socius is published means that papers are not restricted by print page limits or traditional manuscript format. We can, for example, easily accommodate papers that do not follow the traditional structure (introduction, theory, methods, etc.), include multiple color figures, have various linked appendices, or other departures from traditional print format.
Visibility and Successes: We have continued to attract and publish high-quality papers and have provided authors and reviewers a straightforward publication experience. This has resulted in high quality manuscripts that garner significant attention. Socius has 3 of the top 10 most downloaded articles from the thirteen ASA journals in 2022.
During the past three years the relatively quick publication process that is at the heart of Socius as well as the open science model on which Socius rests have proved particularly important in disseminating timely information about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. We have collected COVID-19 related articles and data visualizations under a special collection featuring over 50 articles to date. Together this research on COVID-19 has been viewed and downloaded well over 100,000 times.
We have continued to build our special collection of Data Visualizations. During the past year we accepted 26 visualizations for publication. Our goal is to represent the growing field of visual social science and to give authors an opportunity to display important sociological findings in a creative, efficient, visual format. We recommend that visualization submissions include two parts. The main article will be a single figure (i.e., something that could be viewed on a single screen/page) and approximately 500 words (excluding caption and references) of expository text that highlights what is interesting and important about the figure. In addition, we recommend that authors include a supplementary information file that contains details about the data and methods used to generate the figure.
Range of Submissions: The topics of manuscripts submitted to Socius have been wide-ranging, reflecting the diverse ideas and issues studied by sociologists. We have received papers from nearly all sociological subfields and using various forms of argument and analysis. We hope that this substantive diversity continues to expand and encourage submissions drawn from the wide range of available sociological tools and topics.
Editorial Board, Reviewers, and Staff: We have a strong and diverse editorial board. Having a three-editor model has allowed us to expand and vary our editorial board in terms of expertise, methodological approach and representation. Our board is more equitably gendered than it has been historically. We will continue to diversify the board across a range of measures. While constrained by the limited demographic information provided to us by ASA, we have made a concerted effort to diversify the editorial board in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, seniority and type of institution. Our 2022 board is one of the most diverse on all of these characteristics among all ASA journals.
The Socius staff is fairly lean. We have three Editorial Associates, graduate students who give papers a first read, help to decide whether to review or desk reject papers, and identify possible reviewers as well as a Managing Editor who oversees the day-to-day operations of Socius.
Challenges: Of course, we still face important challenges. This past year, like many journals, our review process understandably slowed down somewhat as the editorial team, authors and reviewers adjusted to new social conditions. Thanks to the hard work of reviewers and the editorial board this effect has been relatively modest. An ongoing challenge we have been working with is the impression that Socius is primarily a venue for quantitative, not qualitative papers. However, we are happy to report that there does some to be a shift in this perception. We are also hoping to expand comment sections and make it easier for authors to add supplementary material – all things that can be done in different scales and timeframes than is traditional. We are also exploring ways to simplify the manuscript submission process in Manuscript Central and to encourage more of our authors to share data and code used in analysis. Finally, the most pressing challenge we face is a lack of reliable quality work in terms of the production side of Socius. Multiple authors have experienced the production team adding in incorrect data, changing affiliations or inserting nonsensical sentences into text. These errors are exacerbated by a resistance to solving the problems caused by the production team, problems that could affect the careers of the scholars involved.
Ryan Light, Aaron Gullickson, and C.J. Pascoe, Editors
Teaching Sociology
Teaching Sociology continues to be at the forefront of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in sociology. We have extended our reach within the broader SoTL field by offering a total of 14 free virtual webinars (monthly webinars and smaller coffee and conversation discussions) on topics from articles recently published in Teaching Sociology that are relevant to individuals in higher education and others focused more on the teaching within the discipline of sociology. Topics this past year included tools for teaching environmental topics, teaching with TikTok, teaching theory, and how engagement with Teaching Sociology can assist with writing statements of teaching and teaching philosophies. We also offered webinars related to publishing in Teaching Sociology including writing and using reviews for the job market and scholarly teaching and multiple webinars on demystifying the publication process in Teaching Sociology. These webinars were attended by over 300 different individuals (significantly more watched the recorded webinars) including people from outside of the discipline of sociology, directors of centers for faculty development, and faculty of all ranks from graduate students to professor emeriti representing all institution types. A special effort was made to reach out to graduate students and faculty of underrepresented groups.
Under the editorship of Michele Lee Kozimor and with deputy editor Barbara Prince, Teaching Sociology reached a significant milestone and celebrated the 50th volume. Volume 50 (2022) published 51 works, including conversations (7), articles (9), notes (12), as well as book, film, podcast, and website reviews (23). The special issue “Teaching Horror, Dystopia, and the Postapocalypse” was published as the October 2022 issue.
The Teaching Sociology editorial team continues to work with the editorial team of the Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology to create linkages between these two resources. Searches performed in TRAILS identify Teaching Sociology citations. A reciprocal arrangement began in Summer 2017, with citations for new TRAILS resources published in one-two page promotions in each issue of Teaching Sociology as an ongoing practice. In addition, Stephanie Medley-Rath provided a special list of TRAILS resources on teaching environmental sociology for the participants of the webinar. We are thankful for that resource and would like to see this unique collaboration continue.
Manuscript Flow. In 2022, excluding reviews, 72 manuscripts were received (25 new manuscripts and 47 revised manuscripts). This total of manuscripts received does not include submissions to the guest edited special issues (of which there were three accepting submissions last year–“Teaching Horror, Dystopia, and the Postapocalypse”; “A Class of Our Own: Teaching Sociology by, for, and about First-Generation and Working-Class People”; and “Teaching and Learning a Humanistic Sociology”). All three special issues have a team of guest editors. “A Class of Our Own: Teaching Sociology by, for, and about First-Generation and Working-Class People” is scheduled to be the July 2023 issue. At first glance, this volume appears slightly lower than last year, but not if you count the special issue submissions. For new submissions, 16 percent were rejected without peer review. Most rejections were accompanied with guidance from the editor to encourage future submission of a manuscript that would have greater prospects of receiving favorable reviews, often requiring new data collection or more rigorous assessment efforts. Of those manuscripts sent for peer review, 0 were accepted unconditionally, 14.3 percent were accepted conditional on minor changes, 81 percent rejected but invited to revise and resubmit, and 4.8 percent were rejected outright. Most manuscripts that were revised (89.4 percent) ultimately moved on a path toward publication after the first revision as either accepted or conditionally accepted. These statistics on acceptance and revision decisions are comparable to recent previous years and the high number of revised manuscripts eventually accepted reflects the quality of mentoring inherent in the editorial process. In the opinion of the editorial team, the quality of manuscript submissions has increased since the webinars were initiated.
The volume of submissions in 2022 was slightly lower than in previous years which may be due to the continued impact of COVID-19 and its aftermath on teaching loads and expectations. This year, to encourage more submissions, we held in-person workshops on publishing in Teaching Sociology at the Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meeting and at the Southwestern Social Science Association Annual Meeting. Teaching Sociology will continue to hold virtual monthly webinars in 2023 and will continue to hold workshops at national, regional, and local sociology and social science meetings including the Alpha Kappa Delta Teaching and Learning Workshop Series.
Despite a wonderful set of reviewers and strong commitment from members of the editorial board, the current challenges of teaching in higher education continue to have a significant effect on the mean time from submission to decision for 2022. It has become more challenging to find reviewers and reviews are taking longer to be submitted due to the many challenges teaching faculty are facing. The mean time from submission to first decision of all manuscripts submitted in 2022 was 9.5 weeks with revised manuscripts just over 7.6 weeks. For new manuscripts that were rejected without peer review, decisions occurred within 1.5 weeks of receipt.
Editorial Board. There were 44 members on the Editorial Board comprised of 55 percent women, 39 percent men, 7 percent genderqueer/gender-nonconforming/other, and 32 percent were minorities. Individual members of the editorial board commonly performed 4-5 reviews in 2022.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives. The free virtual Teaching Sociology webinars have been designed to build a community of teacher-scholars, make the publication process in Teaching Sociology more transparent, increase the quality of submissions, and provide mentoring and resources to underrepresented scholars. Results from a survey and interviews with webinar participants were shared at the August 2022 Teaching Sociology Editorial Board meeting. Findings from the study suggest that the webinars are successful at creating community and there are high levels of satisfaction with the Teaching Sociology editorial process (no matter what the outcome). When examining satisfaction, involvement, and inclusion, there were few (if any) differences by race, gender, institution type, or first-generation status. One notable exception was that faculty at community colleges and first-generation individuals were significantly more satisfied with the webinars. Based on these results, the editorial team will continue to offer monthly webinars. Another initiative adopted by the editorial team at Teaching Sociology was to work with teams of guest editors for the special issues allowing for more direct mentorship of the editing process for individuals from underrepresented groups.
The editor expresses gratitude to the American Sociological Association for its continued support of her work and the journal. She is excited to be editor for another exciting year of Teaching Sociology.
Michele Lee Kozimor, Editor
[email protected]
