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 2021
| American Sociological Review
Journal of Health and Social Behavior |
Society and Mental Health |
American Sociological Review
Despite the continuing impact of Covid-19, sociologists managed to maintain high levels of scholarly productivity in 2021, as the number of submissions to American Sociological Review increased compared to 2019, but decreased compared to 2020. Thanks to the important work performed by our staff, our editorial board, and hundreds of ad hoc reviewers, we were able to maintain an efficient review process focused on providing constructive feedback to authors, and we continued to publish cutting edge articles that will shape the field for decades to come.
We began our term as new editors on January 1, 2021. However, we started handling new submissions on August 1, 2020, and revised and resubmitted manuscripts on November 1, 2020. The transition process went smoothly, as the previous editors provided us with very helpful information and advice, and our new graduate student staff learned their roles very quickly, enabling us to process and review papers.
Submissions. From January 1 through December 31, 2021, American Sociological Review (ASR) received 783 submissions, a decrease over the 814 submissions received in 2020. Of those, 46 were accepted unconditionally, 18 conditionally accepted, and 87 were given invitations to revise and resubmit. Given the high standards at ASR, most papers were rejected–434 were rejected after going through the peer-review process and another 183 were desk rejected. No papers were withdrawn by the authors and decisions had yet to be reached (as of April 1, 2021) for an additional 15 papers. Among new (first) submissions to the journal, 507 (or 73.5 percent) were sent out for peer review. Among those that underwent the peer review process, 421 (83.0 percent) were rejected outright. 68 (13.4 percent) received an invitation to revise and resubmit, and 5 papers were accepted unconditionally (these latter papers include the presidential address as well as comments and replies to comments). Among the 93 submissions that were invited revisions, the majority were either accepted subject to minor revisions (19.4 percent) or accepted outright (44.0 percent). 19 papers received a second revise and resubmit decision, and 13 were rejected outright. As of April 1, 2021, decisions were still pending for two papers. Importantly, only one paper was rejected after a second revision and no papers were rejected after a third revision. One of our important goals while editing the journal has been to eliminate scenarios where authors submit multiple revisions—especially multiple revisions that do not lead to publication.
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 2020 was 5.99 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 7.46 percent.
Efficient and High-Quality Review Process. We continued to focus on giving authors a timely decision with quality feedback. We are grateful to our board members as well as ad hoc reviewers for making it possible for us to reach that goal. Among first submissions, the average time from submission to decision was 8.3 weeks. Counting only papers that went through the peer review process, the average time from submission to decision was 11.1 weeks. Papers that receive a revise and resubmit decision typically take a little bit longer since we aim to reduce the need for multiple revisions by providing extensive feedback and direction for a successful first submission. It is at this stage that our board members can be particularly helpful. But even with this extra work, the average turnaround time for papers that received a revise and resubmit decision is 12.6 weeks. These figures remained low but the turnaround time was slightly longer than in previous years. This, we feel, is understandable in light of the time constraints that reviewers continued to face during the pandemic.
Visibility of Journal Content. ASR maintains its topmost rank among general-interest sociology journals according to all well-established quantitative measures of scholarly impact available. The journal impact factor (IF) score (published by Journal Citation Reports) rose for the fifth straight year to 9.67 using citation data from papers published in 2018 and 2019. The five-year impact score rose to 11.68. This is the first time since this metric has been recorded that ASR’s impact factor has been above 6.5 (and the first time that the five-year IF has been above 8.5). ASR also ranks as the top journal in sociology according to the Google Scholar h-index, with 64 articles published between 2016 and 2020 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 103, the highest score that has been recorded for ASR since this measure has been kept.
Articles published in 2020 received a substantial amount of media attention, scholarly engagement, and consideration by policy stakeholders outside of academia. Most notably, the October issue paper “College and the ‘Culture War’: Assessing Higher Education’s Influence on Moral Attitudes” by Miloš Broćić and Andrew Miles was the most downloaded article in the last six months. It was downloaded over 8,000 times and garnered significant attention on social media, including over 8,000 Tweets. Pilar Gonalons-Pons and Markus Gangl’s June issue paper, “Marriage and Masculinity: Male-Breadwinner Culture, Unemployment, and Separation Risk in 29 Countries” was downloaded by over 6,000 readers and recognized by international news outlets such as Psychology Today, Science Daily, Yahoo, The Financial, and Informationsdienst Wissenschaft. Susan Olzak’s December issue paper “Does Protest Against Police Violence Matter? Evidence from U.S. Cities, 1990-2019” was featured in MSN and Time Magazine. Finally, the August issue paper “The Wealth Inequality of Nations” by Fabian T. Pfeffer and Nora Waitkus was covered by Business Insider. Papers published in ASR garner attention because they focus on some of the core issues of our time, including the August issue paper by Eva Rosen, Philip M. E. Garboden, Jennifer E. Cossyleon entitled “Racial Discrimination in Housing: How Landlords Use Algorithms and Home Visits to Screen Tenants.”
The ASR twitter feed following continues its impressive year-to-year growth and now 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 9,000 followers, and now stands at 9,207 (as of April 10, 2021) up from 7,121 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 for 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 2021, the board had 11 deputy editors and 63 regular board members. The total editorial board (including deputy editors) includes 53 percent women, 4 percent who did not identify as men or women, and 1 percent unknown/unreported. Our data indicate that 46 percent of board members represent racial and/or ethnic minorities. As always, we are extraordinarily grateful for the outstanding work of ad hoc reviewers who have impressed us with their expertise, thoroughness, and a clear desire to help authors to improve their papers, even if those papers don’t end up in the pages of ASR.
DEI Initiatives. Our efforts to increase the number of underrepresented groups who review and publish in ASR include building a diverse editorial board and expanding the number of deputy editors (among the 11, 7 are women and 5 are 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 (international and domestic). One of our aims in bringing “younger” reviewers into the conversation at ASR is 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 participated in 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.
We plan to continue the above efforts and 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. The prior ASR editors developed special instructions to reviewers for different areas–ethnography, comparative historical, theory, policy—and we plan to revisit these instructions and add to them (i.e., non-U.S. research), signaling our enthusiasm in a whole range of methods and topics. We also plan to send out a note to ASA sections to encourage section members studying topics (e.g., race, sexualities), areas (e.g., global South), and methods (e.g., qualitative) underrepresented in ASR to submit their work. To reach a broader international audience, we are in the process of moving forward with the translation of abstracts. While English is the language of international sociology, we believe more can be done to make American sociological research accessible worldwide and to signal welcome to the international community. We are currently working to revive practice of preparing Spanish language translations of ASR abstracts for the ASR website and to expand the translations to other languages such as French (Francophone Africa) and Chinese.
Staff. Last but not least, we also benefited from outstanding work of our managing editor, Mara Nelson Grynaviski, and our coordinating editors and editorial assistants Muna Adem, Nora Weber, and Helge-Johannes Marahrens who have all made invaluable contributions to keeping the journal running effectively during our first year as editors.
Art Alderson and Dina Okamoto, Editors
City & Community
Introduction
Last year featured two transitions at City & Community. First, I became the new editor on January 1, taking over from Deirdre Oakley. Second, the journal switched publishers from Wiley to SAGE, which means City & Community now shares the same publisher as every other ASA journal. We were also coming off a hiatus in 2020 for reviewing new articles to resolve a backlog and prepare for these transitions. Both of these changes have gone smoothly and 2021 was an excellent year for the journal on many fronts.
Manuscript Submissions and Decisions
In 2021, 258 total manuscripts were submitted to the journal. Of these, 14 were accepted, 72 were invited to revise and resubmit, 63 were rejected, 1 was withdrawn by the author, and 108 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 new (that is, first) submissions to the journal, 90 (or 45.5%) were sent out for peer review. Among those that underwent the peer review process, 50 (55.6%) were rejected outright, 39 (43.4%) were invited to revise and resubmit, and 1 paper was withdrawn by the author.
Among the 60 submissions that were invited revisions, 14 (23.3%) were accepted, 33 (54%) were invited to revise and resubmit, and 13 (21.7%) were rejected. First, of these 60 invitations, 32 were for first revisions. None of these 32 were accepted, 23 (71.9%) were once again invited to revise and resubmit, and 9 (28.1%) were rejected. Second, of these 60 invitations, 20 were for second revisions. Of these 20, 8 (40%) were accepted, 8 (40%) were invited to once again revise and resubmit, and 4 (20%) were rejected. Finally, of these 60 invitations, 8 were for third and/or fourth revisions. Of these 8, 6 (75%) were accepted and 2 (25%) 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 5.4%. 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 9.3%.
Editorial Board
Last year I made several positive additions to the editorial board. The 2020 board consisted of 39 members: 22 men (56%) and 17 women (44%); 26 White (67%) and 13 racial/ethnic minorities (33%); and of these 13 minority board members, 10 were African American, 2 Hispanic/Latino(a), and 1 Asian/Asian American. I reduced the 2021 board’s membership to 30 and have diversified it. Last year’s 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. And of these 30, 5 are deputy editors who help review manuscripts and 2 are book review co-editors.
New Policies, Initiatives, and Features
Policies and Guidelines. I made several changes to the journal’s policies and guidelines last year. First, I increased the number of reviewers required for each paper from 2 to 3 to make the peer review process more robust. Second, I formalized the policy of not allowing consecutive “major revision” decisions. In other words, revisions that have not progressed toward publication in the eyes of reviewers and the editor are rejected. Third, we reduced the maximum word limit from 15,000 words to 12,000, but will make exceptions in some cases. We believe this change will cumulatively allow us to publish more articles annually. Fourth, we clarified the use of self-citations in manuscripts. Finally, we both formalized the inclusion of a cover letter with submissions and clarified what information should be included in them.
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 7 mentees to faculty mentors. Five of our mentees are women and five are 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. Like other ASA journals, ASA began to conduct interviews of published City & Community authors in 2021. They 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. 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. After a hiatus from 2019-20, the City & Community Twitter account (@CiCoJournal) is active again. Our activity has been positively received and we have increased our number of followers to 1,382.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
I made improving diversity, equity, and inclusion at the journal a priority last year. First, we diversified our editorial board, including our deputy editors. I lean heavily on these scholars to review and handle manuscripts. Second, the Urban Scholars Development Program was launched in part to increase the representation of minority scholars early in their careers. Third, we released a call for a special issue on “racial capitalism” that will be published later this year. It is being co-edited by a Black man (who is also a deputy editor) and two women. Some key aims for this special issue (and future ones) are to call attention to racial issues from an urban perspective, encourage authors from diverse backgrounds to submit their work to the journal, and expose the journal’s content to a broader readership. Fourth, in late 2021 we began surveying authors who submit their work to the journal, review for the journal, have their work accepted by the journal, and apply for the development program. We ask for basic demographic information, which has no bearing on our decision-making. Our aim here is to get a clearer picture of which scholars are most involved at City & Community and which ones are not to inform our efforts of inclusion (this includes diversity of topic as well as geography in addition to race, ethnicity, and gender). Finally, DEI principles inform much of our decision-making. For instance, we try to diversify our issues and reviewers as much as possible and our book review editors select texts from minority scholars and find underrepresented reviewers for them. Each of these DEI initiatives will continue at City & Community during my editorship.
Richard E. Ocejo, Editor
Contemporary Sociology
Due to Covid 19, campus closures and warehouse closures, Contemporary Sociology worked remotely January 1, 2021-June 2021. During Summer 2021, Contemporary Sociology transitioned from operating remotely to working in-person. The total number of books that the editor examined was 521 and we received 350 physical books.
Due to Covid-19, campus closures as well as warehouse closures and publisher policies not to send physical books, Contemporary Sociology adapted to the new realities to ensure the timely completion of book reviews. During summer 2021, we transitioned back to working in person and opened our physical office again. Currently, we request books from publishers directly and log every book sent to our offices. I go through the books and determine their suitability for review. Every two months, our editorial associates prepare lists of new books along with abstracts for our editorial board, asking for suggested reviewers. I rank 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. We are still receiving many requests for extensions and are experiencing higher drop-out rates due to illness, caregiving responsibilities as well as increased teaching responsibilities.
During the 2021 calendar year, of the 521 titles considered, we requested 350 physical books for potential review. In Volume 50, in 2021, we published six issues covering 191 regular reviews, 29 review-essays covering 36 books, and 4 symposia. Some of the symposia offered comparative analysis of multiple books on the same theme, while some had discussions and different perspectives on the same book. In addition, we featured review essays on authors and themes. We also did a commemorative Max Weber special. In addition, we also had 4 “Briefly Noted” reviews (250-500 words). Overall, we have featured 235 books. In the past year, we also started a Twitter account to reach a wider audience and have a social media presence.
Editorial Board Members and Reviewers: Currently, there are 43 editorial board members. The editorial board is comprised of 67% (29) women, 26% men (11), 4.6% (2) non-binary and 1 member who identified as other. This includes 47% (20) minority and 2 international editorial board members. Complete list of the editorial board is on our website: https://journals.sagepub.com/editorial-board/CSX.
Diversity: 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 my 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 2021, Contexts: Sociology for the Public has continued to bring the best sociological research to the public. Last year, Contexts generated over 1.3 million views, clicks, and downloads across all platforms. This represents an increase of about 30% over the five years that we have edited the journal. We are grateful for the previous editors and for the community of readers and authors who have made this success possible.
Contexts magazine continues to cover new ground. In Winter 2021, Marco Garrido and Victoria Reyes guest edited an issue on the global south. Then, we had issues focusing on economic crisis, diversity of sexual identity, and reforming the criminal justice system. We continue to summarize academic research in our “In Brief” section and promote social reform with our policy briefs. We are grateful for the thought leaders who agreed to be interviewed such as Maria Ressa, who was interviewed for the Winter 2021 and then won the Nobel peace prize later that year.
In terms of numbers, 82 papers were submitted for consideration as Feature peer-review articles. Sixteen were accepted for publication, yielding an acceptance rate of 23%. The magazine also included 22 In Brief articles, four Q&As, five photo essays, nine book reviews, 11 culture articles, six trend articles, four policy briefs, and four One Thing that I Know articles. We also published 17 blogs on the Contexts website.
Contexts has strived to be inclusive and in 2021 we conducted a survey to understand the demographic profile of our authors. We found that 65% self-identified as female, 34% identified as male, and 1% identified as neither male nor female. We found that 51% identify as White, 19% identify as Asian American, 6% identify as African American or Black, 10% identify as Latinx/o/a or Hispanic, and 5% as Native American or Indigenous. While there is much to be done, we are proud of the women and scholars of color who have brought their work to the magazine.
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 2021, JHSB published 41 articles and four open-access policy briefs across four issues. These articles included qualitative and quantitative studies of the U.S. 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 2021, I completed my second year of a three-year term as the editor of JHSB. This year, JHSB received 452 new manuscripts, which was lower than the 501 manuscripts received in 2020, but a substantial increase from the submissions received in 2019 (391). After initial review by the editorial team—either by me or in consultation with a deputy editor—69.5 percent were rejected without being sent out for peer reviewer. The average time between submission and desk-rejection was 1.6 weeks. Of the 138 (30.5%) papers sent out for peer review, 24 percent received a revise and resubmit decision. Overall, the average time between initial submission and first review decision was 12.7 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 5.6 months, which was an increase from the 2.8 months under the previous editors. JHSB’s production is still superior to many other journals.
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://journals.sagepub.com/editorial-board/HSB).
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 (60 percent women in 2021) and race-ethnicity (28 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 Gray 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
The two 2021 issues of the Journal of World-Systems Research fully introduced the new editor team headed up by Andrej Grubačić as Editor, Rallie Murray as Managing Editor, and Sasha White as Book Review Editor. Along with the new team, Journal of World-Systems Research introduced four new sections: “Lectures,” “Commentaries,” “Essays,” and “Interviews.” All four of these reflect a more direct connection between academia and current affairs, along with content that might not otherwise be accessible in traditional peer-reviewed journals.
In our 2021 Winter/Spring issue we were also pleased to present a Special Issue, “Capitalist World-Economy in Crisis: Policing, Pacification, and Legitimacy,” edited by Zeynep Gönen and Zhandarka Kurti; and in 2021 Summer/Autumn issue we were pleased to present a symposium on Nandita Sharma’s 2020 book Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants. Sharma’s book brought in contributions from diverse voices across academia to engage with each other. Our 2022 Winter/Spring issue brought to the fore conversations about rethinking the world-system, including development of feminist world-systems analysis founded upon women’s roles in revolutionary movements in the periphery. Critical engagements of this nature continue to further our efforts to elevate historically silenced voices—people of color, women and other non-male contributors, queer voices, those from the periphery, and in the case of our new sections voices from outside academia to participate in conversations too often closed off or exclusionary.
This year we look forward to a Special Issue, “Non-State Movements and Spaces,” edited by Spencer Louis Potiker and Yousuf Al-Bulushi, along with ongoing and diverse contributions to our new sections from authors around the world.
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.
In 2021, one of five manuscripts currently under contract was completed and will be published in Spring 2022: Collateral Damages: Landlords and the Urban Housing Crisis by Meredith Greif. She will present her work at ASA 2022 in a Book Forum (formerly Author Meets Critics) session.
Books under contract with the Rose Series are:
- Collateral Damages: Landlords and the Urban Housing Crisis, Meredith Greif
- Journey to Adulthood in Uncertain Times, Robert Crosnoe and Shannon Cavanagh
- Learning to Lead: The Intersectional Politics of the Second Generation, Veronica Terriquez
- Social Mobility Among Second Generation Mexican Immigrants, Robert Smith
- Race and Gender Discrimination in the Stalled Revolution, Reginald Byron and Vincent Roscigno
- Who Benefits from College, Jennie Brand
- Immigrants, Entrepreneurs, and Urban Redevelopment, Angie Chung and Jan Lin
We are grateful for the 26 members on our 2021 editorial board and would particularly like to thank outgoing members Leisy Janet Abrego, Edwin Amenta, Cynthia Feliciano, Roberto G. Gonzales, Michael Hout, Peggy Levitt, Fernando I. Rivera, and Wendy D. Roth for their service. We brought on new members who started January 2022:
- Daniel B. Cornfield, Vanderbilt University
- Jessica Fields, University of Toronto
- Jennifer A. Reich, University of Colorado-Denver
- Randa B Serhan, Barnard College
- Rhys H. Williams, Loyola University-Chicago
- Alford A. Young, Jr., University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
The CUNY team will be handing over the reins to Joanna Dreby, Aaron Majors, Steven Messner, and Katherine Trent (SUNY-Albany) at the end of 2022. We are excited for the future of the Rose Series under their direction and could not imagine a better home for the next term of the journal.
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. The series has seven editorial board positions to fill for the next year, and we are working closely with the SUNY-Albany team to use those spots to broaden the diversity of editorial board.
Amy Adamczyk, Richard Alba, Lynn Chancer, Nancy Foner, Philip Kasinitz, and Gregory Smithsimon, 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. Two outstanding University of Georgia graduate students held the position of Managing Editor in 2021. Malissa Alinor was our inaugural Managing Editor, serving until July 2021 when she completed her PhD and accepted a post-doc at Stanford’s VMware Women’s Leadership and Innovation Lab. Doctoral candidate Kylie Smith then took over the reins and guided us through the rest of 2021. 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, Corey 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 2021, the board had 39 members. Special thanks to our editorial board: Seth Abrutyn, Mark T. Berg, Kraig Beyerlein, Celeste Campos-Castillo, Damon M. Centola, Sapna Cheryan, Coye V. Cheshire, Steven E. Clayman, Jenny L. Davis, Jacob Dijkstra, Long Doan, Susan Rebecca Fisk, Ara Allene Francis, Linda E. Francis, Carla Goar, Ashley Harrell, Jason N. Houle, Judith A. Howard, Verna M. Keith, Nikki Khanna, Ko Kuwabara, Freda B. Lynn, Christabel L. Rogalin, David Rohall, Kimberly B. Rogers, Mary R. Rose, David R. Schaefer, Hana Shepherd, Alicia D. Simmons, Erika Summers-Effler, Nobuyuki Takahashi, Catherine J. Taylor, Linda R. Tropp, Beate Volker, Murray A. Webster, Jr., and Geoffrey Thomas Wodtke.
Journal Operations
From January 1 through December 31, 2021, Social Psychology Quarterly received 185 submissions, an increase over the 140 submissions received in 2020. Among new (first) submissions to the journal, 92 percent were sent out for peer review. Among those that underwent peer review, 62 percent were rejected outright. Thirty-three percent received an invitation to revise and resubmit, and one paper was accepted subject to minor revisions. Five manuscripts were awaiting decisions as of April 1, 2022. Among the submissions that were invited revisions, the majority were either accepted subject to minor revisions (38.6 percent) or accepted outright (38.6 percent). Seven papers received a second revise and resubmit decision, and only three were rejected outright. No 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 2020 was 9.2 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 14.5 percent. The average number of weeks from submission to decision was 7.6 weeks, up from 5.4 weeks in 2020.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives
The editorial team engaged in discussions with each other and with editors from other ASA and non-ASA journals to consider ways to increase the involvement of underrepresented scholars as authors, reviewers, and readers of SPQ. As initial steps toward these goals, we engaged in a few different forms of outreach. First, to raise awareness of SPQ across a broad array of subdisciplines, twice we sent tailored emails to the chairs of relevant ASA sections about SPQ’s interest in publishing research related to their specialties and asked for this information to be disseminated to section members. Our first outreach effort was early in our term as editors. Our second outreach was part of our communications about the journal’s special issue on “Race, Racism, and Discrimination.” In addition to publishing our call for papers in ASA section newsletters, we promoted the special issue 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 in expanding the scholarly and demographic diversity of our reviewers. We had 81 scholars complete the form to sign up as new reviewers.
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 are organizing a 20th anniversary special issue on the same topic to appear in 2023. We issued the call for papers in 2021 with a submission deadline of January 15, 2022. We received 69 submissions and are currently quite busy processing all of the manuscripts.
Journal Visibility and Audience
The 2021 five-year impact factor was 3.093. Clarivate (mis-)classifies SPQ under ‘Psychology, Social’ rather than under Sociology. Consequently, it does not get ranked in the list of Sociology journals. The field of social psychology has interdisciplinary roots, but arose out of, and has been a distinct subfield within, the field of sociology for more than 100 years. SPQ has been published by the American Sociological Association since 1955 and is the flagship social psychology journal in sociology. One of the efforts of our editorial team this year has been to work with ASA and SAGE to develop a proposal for Clarivate to classify SPQ as Sociology in the Web of Science Categories.
We also continued the efforts of previous editorships to increase our social media presence on Facebook and Twitter. In addition, we developed a new approach to SPQ Snaps. SPQ Snaps is a longstanding complementary resource associated with SPQ and hosted on the ASA website. SPQ Snaps historically consisted of author-crafted synopses along with optional teaching tools. This year, we worked with the ASA Director of Publications and SAGE Publishing to re-envision SPQ Snaps by replacing the synopses with author-created downloadable slides that summarize the research in a format for use in classrooms. These presentation slides (and optional tools) will be hosted as online Supplemental Material associated with the article published on the SAGE SPQ site. This means that the slides will be permanently available for download along with the published article. 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 enthusiastic about this method for getting more SPQ research into classrooms.
To support our efforts to expand the audience for research published in SPQ we created an undergraduate Science Communication Internship program at UGA in 2021. A small team of interns worked closely with the Managing Editor and Editors-in-Chief to (1) study best practices in communicating scholarly findings to broader audiences and (2) develop strategies for communicating research findings published in SPQ to new scholarly and public communities. Interns read newly published and forthcoming SPQ articles as well as articles and videos about science communication practices. Other activities include interviewing SPQ authors, posting on social media, coordinating with university press offices, communicating with scholarly societies and news organizations. We plan to continue and refine this program in 2022.
Jody Clay-Warner, Dawn T. Robinson, Justine Tinkler (University of Georgia), Editors
Society and Mental Health
2021 marks the eleventh 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, as well as articles on public policy, community mental health, and mental health reform.
During 2021, SMH published 15 articles.
Journal Operations
During my final year as editor, 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 2021, SMH received 176 new manuscripts, compared with 170 in 2020 and 98 new manuscripts received in 2019. Of these, 130 (74%) were rejected without further review. Desk rejected decision time in 2021 averaged less than one week, which is similar to the desk reject time in 2020 and significantly below the average of four weeks in 2019.
Of the 46 papers sent out for peer review, 15 (33%) received an invitation to revise and resubmit. Of the peer-reviewed papers in 2021, 30 (65%) were rejected after receiving reviews. The average time to a decision for peer-reviewed papers was seven weeks in 2021, compared with eight weeks in 2020, and over eleven weeks in 2019.
For papers accepted, production lag time improved over the course of my editorship from a high in 2020 of 14.8 months to 13 in 2021. As I noted in last year’s annual report, a considerable backlog representing 682 journal pages when the editorship transitioned to me (and Timothy J. Owens as co-editor) in 2018 has been an ongoing operational challenge, but this backlog was considerably reduced when the journal leadership was passed to the current editors, Alex Bierman and Scott Schieman.
Deputy Editors, Editorial Board, Peer Reviewers, and Journal Staff
The successful management of SMH depends on the work of many colleagues to whom I am most grateful. This includes the three Deputy Editors, Holly Foster, Eric Wright, and Chloe Bird and the invaluable contributions of the associate editors. The following associate editors ended their term on December 31, 2020: Kenneth Ferraro, Bridget Goosby, Janet Hankin, Stephani Hatch, Pamela Braboy Jackson, Robert J. Johnson, Verna M. Keith, Fred E. Markowitz, Sigrun Olafsdottir, Eliza K. Pavalko, Brea Louise Perry, John Taylor, Robert Joseph Taylor, Kristen Turney, and David Warner. I am particularly appreciative of many of the individuals on this list who served years beyond the usual three-year term.
New members to the SMH board for January 1, 2021 include Owen Whooley, David Takeuchi, Stacy De Coster, Sirry Alang, Karen Van Gundy, Deniz Yucel, and Sarah Burgard. Michael Hughes has also agreed to join the SMH board January 1, 2022. The SMH board is diverse, with 66% women and 31% men, 3% gender non-conforming, and with 24% of the board representing ethnic minorities. This compares favorably with the board prior to my editorship which was similar with respect to gender but with fewer ethnic minority members (<10%).
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
As the new editors of Society and Mental Health who took over management of the journal in August 2021, Scott Schieman and Alex Bierman focused efforts to extend diversity, equity, and inclusion at the journal. First, as incoming editors they were tasked with nominating new deputy editors, and in inviting scholars to fill this role were conscious of diversity in academic status, race, and gender. Four deputy editors were selected. Two identify as men and two as women, including one junior scholar, and two of the four are Black scholars. Second, the number of editorial board members was expanded in inviting new members of the board, which facilitated further increasing the diversity of the board. As a result of these efforts, the number of board members increased in 2022 to 36 (from 29 in 2021). The percentage of board members reporting a minority race or ethnicity increased from 24% to 47%. These efforts will continue in 2022, including canvassing 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.
I would also like to thank members of the production team including Kiran Yadav (SAGE Content Manager), and Shobana Ramalingam (Production Editor). Finally, Karen Gray Edwards (ASA Director of Publications) with her many years of experience, provided invaluable advice and assistance in 2021.
Susan Roxburgh, Editor
Sociological Methodology
The year 2021 was the second 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 approved for extension for a total period of five years. Editors Melamed and Vuolo work alongside continuing managing editor Lisa Savage.
Volume 51 in 2021 marked the first 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 move brings the journal into line with the other ASA journals, with the goal of expanding the impact, reach, and diversity of the journal. This approach has also permitted articles to appear quickly in a print issue. The journal also had its first podcast for an article, which will continue with each 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.
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 the journal.
For the entire year of 2021, 73 manuscripts were considered, 55 of which were new submissions, and 18 were resubmissions. Of the 55 new submissions, 26 were rejected without peer review and 29 were placed into the review process. Of the 29 manuscripts reviewed, 15 were rejected and 9 were invited to resubmit a revised manuscript, 2 were accepted subject to minor changes, and 3 are still pending.
The acceptance rate based on all the submissions and resubmissions in 2020 was 24.7%. The average number of weeks to decision was 6.1 (an improvement of 2 weeks over 2020), ranging from 0.6 weeks for papers rejected without peer review, to 10.7 weeks for papers rejected after review, to 9.4 weeks for papers invited to revise and resubmit, and an average of 12.4 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 52 came out in February 2022. In preparation for Volume 52(2), almost all of the manuscripts are in copyediting or production.
David Melamed and Mike Vuolo, Editors
Sociological Theory
2021 was the first full year of my editorship at Sociological Theory. In terms of submissions and decisions, the volume was consistently high, although there was a small dip from our submission numbers pre-Covid. We received 164 new submissions, and I made 197 decisions on manuscripts, including some that carried over from the earlier, and excellent, editorship of Mustafa Emirbayer.
We published 14 papers in 2021, a dip in the number of papers from 2020, mostly due to the fact that Prof. Emirbayer didn’t have a long queue for publications (only five of 14 papers in 2021 were carried over from previous submissions to Prof. Emirbayer, along with nine manuscripts that arrived during my editorship). Our acceptance rate was around 9%, in line with previous years.
One of the things that I was especially intent on doing as editor is to shorten the time to first decision on manuscripts that are sent to review from its earlier time of 12.3 weeks in 2020. While this took some work, and the goodwill of reviewers and members of the editorial board, I am happy to report that the time to first decision has gone down to 11.5 weeks. I am hoping to continue and build on the work done to reduce reviewing times this year, and stabilize the time to review at under three months—still too long in my opinion, but in line with the time to decision in other journals. I have a made special effort to reduce time to decision for graduate student submissions and the submissions of assistant professors, who are facing time-pressures due to job-market and tenure processes.
Along those lines, and like previous editors, I have also desk-rejected 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 not a welcome outcome, I have made it priority to return these desk-rejections as fast as possible, and to try and write constructive feedback that would allow authors to either re-work their paper for submission at Sociological Theory, or to submit their work to a more appropriate journal. The average time to receive such desk rejection is 1.6 weeks—about 10 days.
One of the issues plaguing ST is its composition of authors, heavily skewing male. Only around 28% of submissions to ST in 2021 were by female authors, resulting in a similar percentage of final publications being authored by women theorists. 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—going from 53% of the board to 54%. I have, however, made a strong push to include people of diverse backgrounds in the editorial board, moving from 35% to 43.2% of the board identifying as minorities.
Obviously, the barriers to both minorities and women publishing at ST have to do with who considers him/herself a theorist, who takes a chance and sends their manuscript, and who gets trained as a theorist in the first place. Submissions are the end of a biased funnel. Still, there is much that an editor can do, such as identifying promising theorists and encouraging them to submit their work to the journal. While in 2021, ST still had around 27% of articles by women (5 out of 17 authors), 2022 is already shaping up better (with 8 women-identifying authors out of 18). This is an area I will continue working on in the coming years of my editorship.
I would like to deeply thank the reviewers who made this work possible, and who have 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
Despite the on-going pandemic, overall, the journal has been quite healthy. We continue to attract a diverse scholarship, and attentive reviewers and have published work by a breadth of scholars. We want to thank all contributors and reviewers for their hard work during this year in the midst of challenging times. The 2021 year also saw the transition of editors. This transition was smooth and exciting as the journal moves forward.
Few others sub-areas of the discipline can match the breadth of sociology of education’s substantive areas, the diversity of its theoretical perspectives, or the variety of its high-quality methodological approaches. I have been pleased with our ability to showcase scholarship that is both quantitative and qualitative, international in nature, and related to current U.S. policy issues.
Manuscript Flow: This report covers the manuscript activity of the journal from January 1, 2021, through December 31, 2021. As shown in the table below, we continue to receive a high number of manuscript submissions. This year, we received 268 original submissions and 28 revised submissions. The time from submission to decision has remained steady about 9 weeks.
| New Manuscripts | Revised Manuscripts | Weeks from Submission to Decision | |
| 2013
2014 |
195
211 |
30
34 |
8
5 |
| 2015 | 214 | 38 | 5 |
| 2016 | 237 | 32 | 5.5 |
| 2017 | 195 | 44 | 9.2 |
| 2018
2019 |
264
253 |
50
55 |
9.0
6.7 |
| 2020 | 256 | 22 | 7.3 |
| 2021 | 268 | 28 | 9 |
The overall acceptance rate for SOE–the number of unconditionally accepted articles in 2021 (18) divided by the number of final decisions (255, which excludes “revise and resubmit” decisions)—was 7.05 percent. Among revised manuscripts, 95 percent were ultimately accepted. Because we dealt with the backlog in 2020, we were able to increase our Revise and Resubmit rate in 17% in 2021 from 2020 to 13.7% of new manuscripts from. This will help increase the overall acceptance rate moving forward. SOE continues to get near 150 new submissions but by acquiring more pages we will be able to accept good science.
During 2021 the time from manuscript submission to the delivery of a decision email averaged approximately 9.0 weeks. For new submissions in 2021 that have a decision, the average time to decision is 65 days. For manuscripts that went under peer review, the average time to decision is roughly 89 days (roughly 3 months). This is slightly longer than our timeframe in 2020 and reflects the editorial transition process. We really want to thank reviewers for their hard work in returning reviews on time during the pandemic. Our ability to keep the review timeframe relatively short also reflects the work our editorial team has implemented to streamline the review process while not compromising the editorial review process. Our production lag (the time it takes for an accepted manuscript to actually appear in the journal) was 9.5 months in 2020. This was because of our backlog and this time will go down substantially for 2021 and beyond. We were able to put manuscripts online prior to their publication in a print issue.
Editorial Team: Thurston Domina, Karoyln Tyson, and Jennifer C. Lee make a great editorial team as deputy editors in the 2021 year. I couldn’t be more grateful. I have relied on each of them to advise on tough decisions, review their area of expertise, and take manuscripts in which I had a conflict. We didn’t have annual meetings with the editorial board due to Covid but from January to July, I provided the DE with a report after each issue is finalized. This report outlines the manuscripts submitted by gender, rank, and methodological type. This report and their feedback at each issue have created consistent dialogue and feedback. They have been the strength of the journal.
The editorial team transitioned in July 2021 to the new editors, John Diamond and Otis Johnson. As of July 1, the new editors handled all new manuscripts for the journal. I continued to handle revised manuscripts that came to the journal through October and by November 1 the full transition was nearly complete.
I have also leaned heavily on SOE’s fantastic Editorial Board. My managing editor helps identify editorial board members to select for reviewers for each manuscript. I want to first thank the following outgoing members of the Editorial Board: Janice Aurini, Patrick Denice, Yader R. Lanuza, Elizabeth M. Lee, Ann Owens, Meredith Phillips, Natasha Quadlin ,Douglas David Ready, Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj.
I also appreciate the efforts of continuing Board members: Janice Aurini, Pamela Bennett, Steven Brint, Stephanie Conizales, Sean Corcoran, Patrick Denice, Linsey Nicole Edwards, Pat Rubio Goldsmith, Andrew Halpern-Manners, Amy Gill Lagenkamp, Yader Lanuza, Elizabeth Lee, Ann Owens, Emily Penner, Meredith Phillips, Natasha Quadlin, Douglas David Ready, Salvatore Saporito, Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, Lauren Schudde, and April Sutton.
Finally, SOE welcomed several new members to the Board in 2021: Chase Billingham, Kim ChangHwan, Dennis Condron, Jordan Conwell, Renee Depalma Ungaro, Liliana Garces, Odis Johnson, Ranita Ray, and Kelly Welch.
My Managing Editor, Amy Petts, was an asset to the journal in the first half of 2021. I was pleased to have her on the team to help reduce the time to decision and add intellectually to the journal. Shannon Vakil took over as managing editor in July 2021 and has been a terrific asset to the journal.
Reviewers and Reviewing: I sincerely thank the people who reviewed for SOE in 2021 As the number of submissions has grown, so too has our reviewer pool. From July 1, 2020-June 22, 2021, 36 reviews were completed by board members during this time period.
Finally, I continued the tradition and acknowledge five exceptional reviewers to whom I gave the “Revise and Resubmit” (Reviewer of the Year) Awards in August of 2021. Lara Perez-Felkner, NaYoung Hwang, Bill Carbonaro, Ben Gibbis, Chase Billingham, Jordan Conwell. Each received a t-shirt for their service.
Diversity and Inclusion Efforts: Diversity of scholarship, authorship, and reviewers has been part of the everyday discussions and operations of the journal. In May of 2021, ASA convened journal editors to discuss this work more explicit. Sociology of Education has had an important presence in these conversations and was co-lead by Odis Johnson (our incoming editor). Starting with a strong diversity of reviewers and editorial board is key to ensuring that manuscripts are getting fair reads from the best scholars in the country. Then ensuring that implicit bias is tempered, all manuscripts are read blind by the editor. Though editors can see authorship, at every first, read, I did not have authorship information in hand.
Summary: This is my last year at SOE. I have been humbled and honored to serve the sociology of education intellectual community. The journal’s impact factor has increased over the last 5 years due to the amazing intellectual work of our authors. I am proud to have been able to help shepherd their amazing work forward. I am excited for the next phase in the journal too. I sincerely welcome John Diamond and Odis Johnson as the new editors.
Despite the uncertainty in our world right now, SOE has been steadfast for many. Reviewers have been kind to continue agreeing to review and authors are still submitting work. I hope the scientific community continues to increase our knowledge on educational issues as best we can during this time.
SOE welcomes submissions from across the broad substantive concerns of the field and is receptive to a wide array of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Send your education-related manuscripts to SOE, and have your colleagues do the same.
Linda Renzulli, Editor
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
Manuscript Submissions
We received 247 submissions in 2021—the exact same number of submissions in 2020. This represents the first of a plateauing of a previous streak of constant increases: 247 in 2020, 215 in 2019, 208 in 2018 and 210 in 2017. The vast majority of these were original research manuscripts. SRE also publishes articles within our peer-reviewed Pedagogy Section (edited by hephzibah strmic-pawl) as well as individual and thematic Book Reviews (edited by Steve Garner). In 2021, hephzibah strmic-pawl accepted three (3) of these.
In 2021, we accepted 28 of the 247 submissions, resulting in a 11.3% acceptance rate. This comes after achieving our lowest ever rate of 10.6% in 2019, followed by another 11.3% in 2020. We are proud of keeping the acceptance rate at SRE in this range. It, coupled with an approved one-time page increase for the first issue of 2022, helped to ensure that incoming co-editors James Michael Thomas and Brian Foster would have no more than two (2) backlogged issues. In fact, with the publication of Volume 8, Issue 1 in January of 2022, the new editorial team has no backlog and will be able to begin publishing their own acceptances by the second issue of that volume.
One of the key elements of any successful peer-reviewed journal is finding, securing, managing, and interpreting the peer reviews of submitted manuscripts. We worked hard in 2021 to continue to watch our average times from submission to first decision and, ultimately, to final decision downward. Our numbers stayed roughly the same in 2021 as they were in 2020: 11.7 weeks from original submission to a final decision. We note that reviewer fatigue is an industry-wide phenomenon. It is important to continue to brainstorm how we might best attend reviewers, making sure to train folx to be good reviewers, and do broad outreach to bring in new reviewers to SRE.
Transitions
Throughout 2021, the outgoing team of Brunsma, Embrick, strmic-pawl, Garner, Zevallos, and Ernstes met biweekly with incoming editors Foster and Thomas to work through the many contours of transitioning the journal. These meetings were thorough and wide-ranging, matching the many layers and intensities involved in running a successful peer-reviewed journal. Eventually, Foster and Thomas began processing all manuscripts that were submitted to SRE starting on July 1, 2021. The transition meetings, support from the outgoing team, the SAGE publication team, continued throughout 2021. By the end of 2021, Incoming co-editors, Foster and Thomas, had fully assembled the incoming SRE team: Felicia Arriaga (Pedagogy Editor, Appalachian State University), Freeden Blume Oeur (Book Review Editor, Tufts University), Donald Guillory (Managing Editor, University of Mississippi), and Mo Torres (Book Review Editorial Assistant, Harvard University). We are thrilled to see the new heights to which this team will take SRE under their leadership and stewardship.
Editorial Board
Our editorial board is comprised of 22 Men (36 percent), 34 Women (56 percent), and 5 people who identify as gender nonconforming/Other/Unknown (8 percent). Our editorial board is also comprised of 29 scholars of color (48 percent).
DEI Plan for 2022
DEI was built into the very structure of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity by its founding editors, David L. Brunsma and David G. Embrick. Since the journal’s inception, DEI has served as a cornerstone of all journal-related activities. Thus, in line with the previous editors’ mission, the journal’s mission, and the aims and goals of the ASA Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities (SREM), the incoming editors, B. Brian Foster and James M. Thomas, will build upon the strong foundations laid by the original editors and prioritize the professional development and involvement of scholars from historically underrepresented and underserved groups.
Editorial Board—Equity and Inclusion. We are actively recruiting scholars from underrepresented and underserved groups to join our editorial board, and are giving priority to junior scholars over more senior scholars.
Book Reviews—Equity and Inclusion. Under the leadership of our new book review editor, Dr. Freeden Blume Oeur, we are revamping this section of the journal with a mind toward creating greater equity and inclusion. One part of this includes recruiting junior scholars and graduate students to write book reviews for the journal. This enhances the journal’s ability to provide professional development opportunities for new scholars. A second part of this effort includes soliciting a larger number of book reviews, aiming to provide more authors opportunities to have their books reviewed in the journal’s pages. As many of us know, book reviews are important for book authors, as they help demonstrate an author’s reach and impact. For underrepresented and underserved scholars in particular, this matters for tenure and promotion.
David Brunsma and David Embrick, Editors
B. Brian Foster and James M. Thomas, Incoming 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 370 total manuscripts in the calendar year 2021. Of the 253 new submissions, we desk-rejected 69. Of the 184 reviewed new submissions, we accepted 4, offered 51 minor and 64 major revisions, and rejected 63. 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.
| Decision | Review Time |
|---|---|
| Accepted | 1.8 weeks |
| Revise and resubmit (minor) | 5.6 weeks |
| Revise and resubmit (major) | 7.5 weeks |
| Rejected immediately | 2.1 weeks |
| Rejected after review | 6.2 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 9 of the top 20 most downloaded articles from the 13 ASA journals in 2021, including the most downloaded article. This article, “Why are Fewer Young Adults Having Casual Sex” by Scott J. South and Lei Lei, has been downloaded over 250,000 times since its publication last March.
During the past two 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 21 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.
Last, we published one topical special collection this year on “Sociology’s Role in Responding to Inequality,” guest edited by Adam Gamoran. This collection consists of essays and commentaries by leading inequality scholars reinvigorating the longstanding question of how sociology can contribute to addressing pressing social issues beyond explaining how we arrived at our current state.
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 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.
Aaron Gullickson, Ryan Light, 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 9 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 survivor-centered teaching, using podcasts in the classroom, and one on the sociology minor. We also offered webinars related to publishing in Teaching Sociology including the peer review process, finding a co-author, using SoTL on the job market and for tenure and promotion, and multiple webinars on demystifying the publication process in Teaching Sociology. These webinars were attended by over 250 different individuals including editors of other notable SoTL publications, directors of centers for faculty development, and faculty of all ranks from graduate students to professor emeriti representing all institution types.
Under the editorship of Michele Lee Kozimor and with deputy editor Barbara Prince, Teaching Sociology Volume 49 (2021) published 58 works, including conversations (2), articles (18), notes (6), as well as book, film, and podcast reviews (32).
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.
Manuscript Flow. In 2021, excluding reviews, 95 manuscripts were received (49 new manuscripts and 46 revised manuscripts). This total of manuscripts received does not include submissions to the guest edited special issue Teaching Horror, Dystopia, and the Post/Apocalypse. The special issue had 47 initial submissions with 15 invitations to continue with the special issue peer review process. The special issue is scheduled to be published as the October 2022 issue. This volume is slightly higher than last year, especially if you count the special issue submissions. For new submissions, 10.2 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, 13.6 percent were accepted conditional on minor changes, 72.7 percent rejected but invited to revise and resubmit, and 13.6 percent were rejected outright. Most manuscripts that were revised (87 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.
The volume of submissions in 2021 was slightly higher than in previous years which is a remarkable accomplishment due to the continued impact of COVID-19 on teaching loads and expectations. We hope to see this trend continue as more Teaching Sociology virtual webinars are planned for 2022 and we continue to hold workshops at national, regional, and local sociology meetings including the Alpha Kappa Delta Teaching and Learning Workshop Series. We also have two special issues in the pipeline with guest editors–Teaching Sociology by, for, and about First-Generation and Working-Class Persons (to be published in 2023) and Teaching and Learning a Humanistic Sociology (to be published in 2024).
Despite a wonderful set of reviewers and strong commitment from members of the editorial board, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a significant effect on the mean time from submission to decision for 2021. 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, but the mean decision time has remained consistent with last year. The mean time from submission to first decision of all manuscripts submitted in 2021 was 8.2 weeks with revised manuscripts just over 6.3 weeks. For new manuscripts that were rejected without peer review, decisions occurred within 0.3 weeks of receipt.
Editorial Board. There were 45 members on the Editorial Board comprised of 51 percent women, 42 percent men, 7 percent genderqueer/gender-nonconforming/other, and 29 percent were minorities. Individual members of the editorial board commonly performed 3-4 reviews in 2021.
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, and provide mentoring and resources to underrepresented scholars. We are currently assessing the webinars to determine whether they are serving the intended purpose and are contributing to a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment. Results from a survey and interviews with webinar participants will be shared at the August 2022 Teaching Sociology Editorial Board meeting.
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 the 50th volume of Teaching Sociology in 2022.
Michele Lee Kozimor, Editor
[email protected]
