Persona Non Grata: The Marginalization of Legal Scholarship in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals

Recently, concern has been voiced within the academy regarding the marginalization of legal scholarship within the criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) discipline. Although conventional wisdom and anecdotal evidence indicate that it is difficult to get legal scholarship published in CCJ journals, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the representation of legal scholarship in CCJ journals. The present study assesses the representation of legal scholarship in 20 CCJ journals from 2005 to 2015, examining both trends over time and variation across journals. Findings indicate legal scholarship comprises a very small portion of articles published, there has been a steep decline in the number of legal articles published in recent years, and the average number of legal articles per year is very low for nearly all of the journals in the sample. The implications of the marginalization of legal scholarship within the CCJ discipline are discussed.     

The Most Prolific Female Scholars in Elite Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals, 2000-2010

There has been a steady stream of research exploring the impact of scholars' research within criminology/criminal justice journals (CCJ), but only a small number of studies have examined the impact of female scholars in particular. Extending that line of work, the present study identifies the most productive sole and lead female authors published in eight top-ranked CCJ journals between 2000 and 2010. Findings reveal that individual ranks of the female scholars are relatively stable when adjusting for frequency and journal impact factor. However, there is more movement in the ranks when they are adjusted based on the year the PhD. degree was earned. Consistent with previous research including both males and females, a handful of female scholars, in particular Robin Engel, Beth Huebner, Jodi Lane, and Nicole Leeper Piquero appear to be responsible for a large portion of work in the selected eight elite CCJ journals.     

Article Productivity Among the Faculty of Criminology and Criminal Justice Doctoral Programs, 2010–2014

One important dimension of the quality of a graduate program is the quality of its faculty. Previous assessments of the publication productivity of criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) faculties have been needlessly incomplete and narrow, reflecting publications only in a small number of CCJ journals. Assessments covering only CCJ journals fail to reflect the multi-disciplinary nature of CCJ and bias results against programs whose most productive scholars publish in non-CCJ journals. The present research covers the full array of major journals in which CCJ-related research appears, by searching for articles using the Web of Science and ProQuest databases. This article is an update of two previous evaluations, covering 2000–2004 and 2005–2009. Based on article counts, the most productive faculties are those of Sam Houston State University, Florida State University and the University of Cincinnati. The article also summarizes changes in rankings of CCJ programs from 2000 through 2014.     

What Journals are the Most Cited Journals in Criminology and Criminal Justice’s “Big Three” Journals?

Recently, scholars have sought to learn more about scholarly activity within the fields of criminology and criminal justice (CCJ). Research in this area has examined which departments have the most productive faculty, which scholars are the most productive, and which journals are the most prestigious. However, no study of which we are aware has determined what journals criminologists are most likely to cite in their scholarly research. In this study, we rank the most influential journals by the number of times those journals were cited between 2009 and 2013 in Criminology, the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and Justice Quarterly. Our analyses suggest that Criminology is clearly the most influential CCJ journal in terms of citations, while the American Sociological Review, the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and the American Journal of Sociology remain influential in CCJ as well.     

Higher education publication and institutional and national diversity

ABSTRACT

Educational scholarship is used by practitioners, policy makers, and scholars to shape educational practices. Since education takes place across the globe and incorporates students from a wide variety of backgrounds, educational scholarship should incorporate diverse perspectives. This study examines how institutionally and internationally diverse five leading journals of higher education are. Twelve years of publications are examined to determine the level of diversity among top higher education journals and compare diversity among these publications over time. Maps displaying the distribution of authors across the world are provided to illustrate the findings that higher education publication in the leading journals tends to come mostly from the US and to show the differences in distribution between leading journals.     

Gender Composition of Editors and Editorial Boards in Seven Top Criminal Justice and Criminology Journals from 1985 to 2017

This paper examines the gender composition of editors and editorial board members of seven top criminal justice and criminology (CCJ) journals from 1985 through 2017. The findings indicate that women have historically been, and continue to be, underrepresented in these positions. From 1985 through 2017, women comprised 14% of all Editors-in-Chief, 27% of all Associate Editors, and 22% of all Editorial Board members. While there was a period during the early 2000s when Justice Quarterly and Criminology achieved gender parity in representation across all of the editorial roles, this equality was short lived. The other journals have never achieved gender parity, and, on average, women have comprised 3.8% to 35.2% of the editorial positions at each of the journals. The implications of this imbalance for women’s scholarship and professional success are discussed, and recommendations for changes to CCJ journal policies and practices to ensure more equity are provided.     

Academic Integrity and Distance Learning∗

The present study examines research trajectories of 20 academic “stars” relative to scholarship in 20 prominent and 7 elite criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) journals. We employ a modest subset of career concepts (frequency, specialization, seriousness, and co‐offending) to identify divergent pathways open to CCJ professionals as they begin work in academe or subsequently shape more mature careers. Findings suggest that research productivity varies depending on the measure utilized (e.g., type of outlet; weighted or unweighted; standardized or unstandardized). Different measures of central tendency provide different snapshots of institutional output. Publication frequencies are found to be far greater among stars employed at Carnegie Research I institutions. Regarding research type‐mix, the stars tend to be more eclectic than specialized, with indications of a relationship between number of articles published and breadth of topic areas. Future directions for research are also discussed.     

Publication Productivity of Criminologists

This article investigates the number of publications of thousands of members of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) in hundreds of journals listed in the Criminal Justice Periodical Index (CJPI). Publications in 2004–2005 of ASC members in 2005, and publications in 2010–2011 of ASC members in 2011, were investigated. Only ASC members who were considered to be “at risk” of publishing in Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ) journals were included. About one-third of ASC members published at least one CJPI article in 2004–2005, but this increased to one-half by 2010–2011. The number of articles published per year by those who published any articles also increased, from 1.0 in 2004–2005 to 1.4 in 2010–2011. The number of articles published in the 26 most central CCJ journals also increased, by about 75%. The most-published scholars in the first time period were Alex R. Piquero, Brian K. Payne, Francis T. Cullen, David W. Webb, and Julian V. Roberts; the most-published scholars in the second time period were Alex R. Piquero, Kevin M. Beaver, Wesley G. Jennings, George E. Higgins, and Matthew J. Delisi. Alex R. Piquero was the most prolific publisher on all measures in both time periods. Female scholars were more likely to appear among the most-published scholars in the second time period.     

K-12 online learning journal articles: trends from two decades of scholarship

In this study, we examined the research literature in the field of K-12 online learning to identify the leading scholars, journals, top cited articles, research methods, and topics in this field of inquiry. Our research process involved collecting a corpus of journal articles focused on K-12 online and distance learning; categorizing these articles according to their research methodologies; analyzing trends not only in methodologies employed but also in authorship, citations, journals, and topics addressed. We found the field of K-12 online learning to be growing rapidly in recent years with acceleration not only of new articles but especially of new authors. We also found the field began primarily with emphasizing theoretical articles but is now maturing and emphasizing increasingly more data-based articles. We found K-12 online learning scholarship is scattered among many journals, providing rich opportunities for scholars while also making it more difficult to discern trends across the discipline.     

Where is the Research on Community College Students?

An understanding of where community college scholarship is published can be beneficial to practitioners seeking to identify and use scholarly evidence to support policies and programs that promote student success. Such an understanding will also benefit aspiring and new scholars seeking to identify community college scholarship. Unfortunately, there has been little effort to document journal characteristics of scholarship focused on community college students. The present study identified, reviewed, and described community college student scholarship published in P–20 education journals between 1990 and 2014. The study also examined trends over time in journals publishing articles focused on community college students. We found a sizable increase in scholarly work published in education journals since 1990—in particular within the past several years. Importantly, results also revealed an underrepresentation of empirical work focused on community college students published in P–20 education, top-tier, and open access journals. A discussion of implications for practice and recommendations for future research was also provided.     

Criminology and Criminal Justice Hit Parade: Measuring Academic Productivity in the Discipline

Previous research assessing the productivity of criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) scholars has sought to determine the overall most productive scholars based on various measures (e.g. total articles published, total cites, and articles per year). While such lists may be important for those who rank high, they may be best used to establish benchmarks for the discipline. To date, research examining the stars in CCJ has focused on overall stars. The aim of the current research is to highlight the most productive scholars (in CCJ doctoral programs), but to do so based on academic rank. As such, our sample is more inclusive than others that have assessed highly productive scholars in the field. By disaggregating productivity measures by academic ranks, it is possible to determine rising stars in the discipline as well as top stars overall. Additionally, and we think more importantly, such rankings give insights into the state of the discipline.     

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.     

A Content Analysis of Ethnographic Research Published in Top Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals from 2000 to 2009

Despite qualitative research having much to offer to the understanding and prevention of crime, academic research in criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) is primarily quantitative. The relatively limited amount of ethnographic research in the field contributes to difficulties in understanding what represents sound ethnographic designs and the most appropriate ways to present such information. The current study examines the relative frequency with which ethnographic research appears in CCJ journals, and more importantly, the content of these articles. We find that less than 4% of all research published in 15 top CCJ journals use ethnographic methods. We present patterns about the methodological (e.g., sample size, type of data collection, and characteristics of participants) and stylistic (writing style, discussion of coding, and policy recommendations) content of these articles. We conclude with implications for our findings and point to substantive areas of research that may need more attention.     

Where do educational technologists really publish? An examination of successful emerging scholars’ publication outlets

This study engages the question of where successful emerging (pretenure) scholars are most likely to publish their research. Spurred on by findings of a survey of leaders in the field of educational technology/instructional design and technology (ET/IDT) to determine the advisability of a rank‐ordered list of journals for the purposes of decision making about tenure and promotion, this document analysis presents the results of measuring the conventional wisdom against the actual practices of emerging scholars. Findings suggest that pretenure scholars publish in a wide variety of outlets including some, but not all of those identified in earlier surveys. While it is understood that the tenure decision is a complicated one—based on many criteria (eg, teaching, service, grantsmanship, etc), research and scholarship remain primary determinants. Therefore, these findings will be useful to emerging scholars and to those decision makers seeking direction regarding research outlets. The study is limited by a focus from an original survey conducted in 2003 to primarily North American scholars as participants, however, international considerations are included. The findings indicate that a list of journals for tenure decision making may not be advisable at this point in the development of the field of ET/IDT.     

Key Authors in Business and Management Education Research: Productivity,Topics, and Future Directions

Previous studies of author productivity in business and management education (BME) research have focused on single disciplinary areas, and even single journals. This study is the first to examine the productivity of BME scholars across multiple disciplinary areas (i.e., accounting, economics, finance, information systems, management, marketing, and operations/supply chain management). We analyzed a pool of 17 BME journals with the highest hg‐index, by including the top three journals in the accounting and information systems areas, the top two journals in each of the other disciplinary areas, and an interdisciplinary BME journal. This examination covered a 10‐year period (2005‐2014), 4,464 articles and 9,617 article co‐authors. We identified 7,209 unique authors in this pool and ranked their productivity to create a “Key Authors” list. Each of the top 99 authors had five or more articles in our database. Our findings indicate the potential for cross‐disciplinary dissemination of research ideas and opportunities for scholars to enhance their research profile, because even a small increase in productivity can lead to substantial movement in the BME rankings of authors.     

Kinesiology’s Tower of Babel: Advancing the Field with Consistent Nomenclature

The knowledge base of kinesiology can be compared to the construction of a fragmented, diffuse tower. Much of the lack of identity and progress of kinesiology as the leader in the study of human physical activity may result from inconsistent nomenclature. Several examples of improper and inconsistent use of kinesiology nomenclature are noted and three solutions are proposed. A call to action for kinesiology organizations, editorial boards of kinesiology journals, and individual scholars on standardizing kinesiology terminology is presented to advance kinesiology knowledge and recognition of the field, and to support integrated, interdisciplinary scholarship.     

Cripping Human Rights Education with Disability Studies: An Undergraduate Reading List

Aiming to place disability studies in conversation with other antioppressive educational frameworks, this article “crips” human rights education (HRE), a field that, by definition, teaches people about equality, dignity, and respect. A theoretical sampling of HRE journals and an online library database uncovers that human rights scholarship largely overlooks disability outside a medical or legal framework, though disability scholars consistently reference human rights in their work. We argue that these absences exemplify the active erasure of disability at the ontological level, and in response we urge scholars to reconceptualize where and how politics, activism, and social change take place. This “visibilizing” project follows Baxi's dictum that HRE must constantly adapt to people’s localized experiences and the needs of future generations. We offer a reading list to begin this “visibilizing” project in undergraduate university settings, proposing that teachers use “Disability and Human Rights Praxis: Intersectional, Interdisciplinary Readings for Educators” to conceptualize how they might pair disability studies in education and HRE texts to facilitate interdisciplinary class discussions and student projects.