Assessing the quality of American doctoral program faculty in criminology and criminal justice, 1991–1995

This article assesses the quality of 299 faculty in 20 American doctoral programs in criminology and criminal justice by counting the number of citations of their work in six major American criminology and criminal justice journals published between 1991 and 1995. The University of Maryland, the University of Cincinnati, Rutgers University, and SUNY-Albany were the institutions with most citations. The individual faculty members most often cited were Francis T. Cullen (University of Cincinnati), Raymond Paternoster, Lawrence W. Sherman and Douglas A. Smith (all University of Maryland). The majority of the most-cited scholars in these six journals, however, were not members of criminology or criminal justice departments.     

Perceptions of effectiveness and the actual use of technology-based methods of instruction: A study of California criminal justice and crime-related faculty

The field of criminal justice/criminology has few studies that examine faculty opinions regarding the use of technology as a replacement and supplement to traditional classroom instruction. Using a sample of criminal justice and crime-related higher education faculty members in the state of California, this study examines perceptions of effectiveness and the actual use of various classroom-based technologies. The results reveal that while most faculty members hold positive views toward the use of technology, far fewer are actually integrating technology-based methods of instruction into their courses. Meanwhile, most faculty members do not perceive the presence of adequate administrative supports or incentives at their institutions for the development of distance learning courses. Overall, support for the integration of technology into criminal justice education appears to be greatest when it is used as a supplement rather than a replacement for face-to-face classroom instruction.     

Academic productivity of African Americans in criminology and criminal justice

This study explores the productivity of African American scholars in the field of criminology during the period of 1987 through 1998. Issues about the relative benefits of mentoring are explored. The impact of external and internal barriers with respect to authorship are also addressed. Journals included in the study were randomly selected from a list of criminology and criminal justice journals. Authorship order is also identified, that is, we look at primary, secondary and tertiary authorships by African American faculty as well. Findings provide empirical evidence that the contributions of African American faculty do not appear in many mainstream journals. The reasons behind the under representation are explored.     

Criminal justice doctoral programs in the United States and Canada: Findings from a national survey

Characteristics of 13 doctoral programs in criminal justice and criminology are examined. Features described include the age and size of the programs, representation of women and minorities among faculty and graduate students, admissions requirements and admissions activity, financial support available to graduate students, and characteristics of the curricula. Criminal justice doctoral programs vary widely on each of these characteristics.     

The “I” and the “ME” of criminology and criminal justice students: Symbolic interaction in an educational setting

This study examines the self-concept of criminology and criminal justice students, vis-`a-vis the perceptions held of them by non-criminology and criminal justice students, using a framework of symbolic interactionism. The data in this study were obtained from a sample of both criminology and criminal justice students and non-criminology and criminal justice students attending a large state university in north Texas. The findings reveal a lack of consensus among perception patterns held by criminology and criminal justice students and non-criminology and criminal justice students. Implications regarding the future of criminology and criminal justice education follow.     

Who has come out of the pipeline? African-Americans in criminology and criminal justice

This study analyzes survey data collected from African-Americans with PhDs who teach criminology or criminal justice. This research is particularly concerned with the experience of African-Americans in institutions of higher education. In addition to demographic data, the survey collected information on school of graduation, scholarly productivity, and collegial relations. The results indicate that African-Americans are graduating from, and being hired at, some of the top-ranked PhD programs in criminology/criminal justice. African-Americans are generally entering the academic profession as assistant professors with limited publication experience. Finally, African-Americans, in most cases, feel included and a part of their departmental activities.     

h-Index and m-Quotient Benchmarks of Scholarly Impact in Criminology and Criminal Justice: A Preliminary Note

Because Scopus and metrics like the h-index and m-quotient have become increasingly popular for assessing the impact of social science scholarship, criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) departments may be tempted to use those metrics when making important decisions like tenure and promotion. However, since no discipline-wide standards based on those metrics yet exist, CCJ departments have no comparative basis for interpreting the results of citation analyses of a particular faculty member’s scholarship. To identify what a set of disciplinary standards might look like, we used Scopus and calculated mean and median h-index and m-quotient values for faculty members (n?=?504) in CCJ Ph.D. granting departments (n?=?35) by rank and for editorial board members (n?=?91) of Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. Our results illustrate how comparative disciplinary standards could be developed and used by those in CCJ departments to assess the impact of faculty members’ scholarship.     

Journal publications of Ph.D. graduates from American criminology and criminal justice programs

This article assesses the quality of 12 American doctoral programs by counting the number of publications of their Ph.D. graduates in a large number of criminology and criminal justice journals, and in 20 more “academic” journals. While half of the Ph.D. graduates had no publications, the 4 percent who were the most productive (the “stars”) accounted for one third of all journal articles. Publication rates up to graduation predicted publication rates after graduation. The University of Maryland, Michigan State University, the University of California at Irvine, Florida State University, and Sam Houston State University had the most productive Ph.D. graduates in academic journals. There was a significant correlation between the productivity of a program's Ph.D. graduates and the productivity of its faculty members. The academic publication rate was influenced most by prevalence (the percentage of Ph.D.s with at least one publication), rather than by the percentage of “stars” or the frequency of publications.     

Moving through the Faculty Ranks: An Exploratory Study on the Perceived Importance of Book Publishing and Publishing in Peer‐Reviewed Journals in Criminology/Criminal Justice

This research explored the perceptions of members (N = 454) from two national criminology/criminal justice organizations regarding the significance of book publications and publishing peer‐reviewed journal articles for tenure and promotion. The research revealed the sentiment that journal article publications were perceived to be important publications when it came to promotion to both the associate and full professor ranks. More specifically, white faculty, those employed at research institutions, held a doctorate, and had considerable journal article publications, felt peer‐reviewed articles were important for tenure and promotion. The authors close by arguing that tenure and promotion committees should be open to book publications.     

Mentoring and the Changing Paradigm

This study examined mentoring and organizational socialization among law faculty at American Bar Association (ABA) approved law schools. Data obtained from respondents (n = 298) captured the types of mentoring (formal or informal) occurring in law schools and faculty perceptions of the effectiveness of each type of mentoring. Comparative analysis was used to examine mentoring as an antecedent of organizational socialization by comparing senior mentored faculty to senior non‐mentored faculty, junior formally mentored faculty to junior faculty with more informal types of mentoring, male to female faculty, and majority to non‐majority faculty. Results indicated that senior mentored faculty had higher mean scores than senior non‐mentored faculty on two of the six organizational socialization subscales. However, organizational socialization differences were not significant for other comparisons. The findings regarding mentoring are discussed within the context of diversity and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Criminology and Criminal Justice Doctoral Programs in 2012–2013: Transformation of a Male-Dominated Arena

This study provides a cross-sectional portrait of female scholars working as tenure-track faculty members at institutions offering doctoral degrees in criminology and/or criminal justice. Relying primarily upon departmental websites as an initial source of information, it was determined that the 35 programs were comprised of 198 (35.9%) female and 353 (64.1%) male tenure-track faculty members. Despite the historical male domination of criminal justice professions as well as higher education instructional roles, this study finds that females represent an increasingly visible and instrumental component of doctoral education within the discipline. Females comprised at least 50% of faculty members within seven doctoral programs, and seven programs had female administrators. Most importantly, a majority of the hires over the previous 12?years were female. Assuming this trend continues, a once male-dominated academic discipline will soon find itself in the midst of unprecedented change.     

Critical Conversations on Social Justice in Undergraduate Mathematics

Abstract

This article explores how critical conversations engage undergraduate mathematics faculty in a community of practice that enhances their knowledge about teaching and learning mathematics for social justice. More broadly, critical conversations are defined as a cooperative learning strategy that can be used to identify, explore, and respond to various interests and issues situated across differing values and beliefs. We present a case study of a critical conversation that took place at a 2016 Mathematics for Social Justice workshop organized by a group of junior faculty. Participant reflections situate perspectives that can help novice and experienced instructors design conversations about teaching mathematics for social justice. Specifically, individual and group reflections highlight the importance of: (i) framing and reflecting on the conversation; (ii) exploring implications and content connections; and (iii) identifying barriers. Implications for faculty members and mathematics departments are provided.     

Editor’s Farewell

Abstract

Although journal outlets are beginning to put forth explicit criteria that define authorship, studies have also found that there are nonetheless components of authorship philosophies that remain interactional and culturally defined among members of particular scientific communities. In line with other scientific fields, authorship practices and philosophies are central to publishing in criminology. By drawing from a set of 40 interviews with elite scholars in the field, this paper investigates authorship philosophies prominent in criminology. This paper contributes to knowledge on criminological research practices in two ways. First, this paper contributes to the scant literature on authorship in criminology by investigating cultural definitions of what constitutes authorship right and order. Second, this paper contrasts widespread notions of scientific literate practices as being universal and instead builds on a body of work suggesting that literate practices in scientific communities are culturally defined.     

Being Mentored: The Experience of Women Faculty

Mentoring has been proposed as a means to enhance the career success of women faculty in the academic environment. This phenomenological study was undertaken to understand and describe the essential nature and meaning of the experience of being mentored for women faculty. In-depth conversational interviews were conducted with nine women faculty who stated that they had been mentored while in a faculty role. Their mentoring relationships were formal and informal, with male and female mentors of varying ranks, and both internal and external to the protégés' institutions. Through an analysis of the interview text, five essential themes of the experience of being mentored for women faculty emerged. These essential themes are (a) having someone who truly cares and acts in one's best interest, (b) a feeling of connection, (c) being affirmed of one's worth, (d) not being alone, and (e) politics are part of one's experience.     

White-collar crime in the criminal justice curriculum

Recognition of the significance of white-collar crime has grown substantially in recent years, but this growth has not been reflected adequately in the field of criminal justice or in the criminal justice curriculum. Through a content analysis of criminal justice and criminology textbooks and program course offerings the authors demonstrate the relative neglect of white-collar crime, and especially its marginal position in the criminal justice curriculum. Some hypothetical reasons for this relative neglect are explored. An argument is made on both theoretical and pragmatic grounds for more sustained and more systematic integration of white-collar crime into the criminal justice curriculum.     

The coverage of ethics in research methods textbooks

Ethics is one of the most important topics in criminal justice and criminological research, yet it is also one of the most neglected. Indeed, it is common for professors to merely gloss over ethical issues at the end of their research methods classes, or to exclude them completely. The present study attempts to determine if such disregard for ethics carries over into the coverage found in criminal justice research methods textbooks. Eleven research methods textbooks that are commonly used in criminal justice and criminology were analyzed, and coverage of ethics was found to vary greatly across the books. Unfortunately, we also found that some important issues within research ethics are being omitted in the majority of the books, and we make recommendations toward expanding the coverage of research ethics.     

Criminology/Criminal Justice Representation in the Discipline of Sociology: Changes between 1992 and 2002

This paper examines changes in the representation of criminology, as an area of specialization, in the discipline of sociology between 1992 and 2002. Utilizing the ASA Guide to Graduate Programs in Sociology, we note faculty areas of specialization. We expect that criminology will appear more often as a specialty area in 1992 than 2002. All full‐time faculty in U.S. graduate programs in sociology are included in the analyses. We found no significant change in listing criminal justice as a specialty between 1992 and 2002. Our findings suggest that faculty with terminal degrees from less prestigious institutions and those who teach in less prestigious institutions are more likely to list criminology as a specialty area.     

Included? The Status of African American Scholars in the Discipline of Criminology and Criminal Justice Since 2004

This article provides a re-examination of the progress of African Americans in criminology/criminal justice doctoral programs since 2004. It focuses on African-American faculty, their scholarly research, and involvement in professional associations. Recent trends in African Americans enrolled in doctoral programs also are analyzed. Findings indicate that the representation of African-American faculty and doctoral students in criminology and criminal justice programs has increased although both continue to be under-represented in programs at predominantly white institutions. Evidence of increases in their contributions to the body of knowledge and service to professional associations was notable. The article concludes with strategies and recommendations for ensuring that inclusion continues to matter in the next decade.     

Faculty Employment Trends in Criminology and Criminal Justice

The academic job search process is perhaps one of the most important and stressful events for scholars hoping to gain full‐time employment in academia. The stress that this process induces is due, at least in part, to the fact that candidates are forced to make important, life‐changing decisions with very little information. The goal of the present study is to provide an update on faculty employment trends in criminology and criminal justice by examining faculty position announcements posted in The Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) from August 2004 to July 2009. Findings reveal that candidates seeking assistant professor positions will have the most choice, as positions posted at this rank make up the largest category of advertisements. Furthermore, when a specialization was included in the announcement, most departments sought those with a law enforcement focus, followed by generalists.