The Invisible Scholar: Authors of Legal Scholarship in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals

This study assesses the authorship of legal scholarship within 20 criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) journals from 2005 to 2015, examining trends over time and variation across journals in the prevalence of sole-authorship and the mean number of authors and identifying the most prolific authors of legal scholarship published in CCJ journals. The study thus sheds light on the extent of collaboration among CCJ legal scholars and identifies CCJ legal scholars who have remained largely invisible due to their focus on a marginalized subfield.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Experimental research in school psychology internationally: An assessment of journal publications and implications for internationalization

Past studies have examined the contents of journal articles in school psychology, and more recently there has been increased interest in examining the frequency and characteristics of experimental studies appearing in school psychology journals. However, no prior studies have examined the international representation of experimental and intervention studies. This study evaluated every article published from 2002 to 2016 across eight school psychology journals that publish international scholarship. Several research questions were addressed (e.g., what is the frequency of experimental research internationally, what are the characteristics of those studies, and is the scholarship consistent with the global geography of school psychology?). Overall, findings revealed that although the field of school psychology is arguably international, the experimental research reflected in the eight journals selected for review does not adequately represent the global geography of the field, thereby also suggesting that the degree of internationalization in school psychology is relatively poor. The importance of these and related findings is discussed, and recommendations are provided that may help to improve the geographical representation of experimental research in school psychology as well as its overall internationalization.     

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.     

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.     

The Current State of Criminological Research in the United States: An Examination of Research Methodologies in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals

A recurring concern within criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) is how to best investigate criminological theory and criminal justice policy. To assess the current state of research, we conducted a content analysis of articles that appeared in seven CCJ journals over a two-year period (2013–2014). We then examined types and frequencies of data sources, analytic techniques, methodological approaches, and subject matters. Findings demonstrate that articles are predominantly employing quantitative methodologies and data where there is no participant contact. From these findings, we discuss the current state of research and how this could be used to guide graduate education, by recommending a variety of subject matters that graduate schools should emphasize in training new academics.     

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in A Christian Context

This article assesses the degree to which Christian scholarship has responded to the rise of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL). To what degree, and with what kind of disciplinary and chronological distribution, have overtly Christian publications in scholarly journals evidenced a concern with questions of teaching and learning? This question is approached through analysis of a sample of 9,028 journal articles published between 1970 and 2009. The findings show very limited engagement with pedagogical concerns, and that such engagement is uneven across disciplines. Reasons are offered for seeking stronger engagement with SOTL within Christian higher education.     

Author-field interaction following publication in “higher education” journals

This paper examines the interactions that authors of articles appearing in the core higher education journals have with members of the field subsequent to the publication of their work. Interactions were examined by the epistemological structure of the articles and data suggest that papers with different structures exact different types of reader-initiated reactions, though there are similarities regardless of type. It appears that published scholarship leads to further activities in research, scholarly, and professional sectors as a consequence of readers' initiatives and the resulting responses by authors. It is argued that examinations of knowledge use should go beyond traditional conceptions and examine the development of new communities of interest as professional actors attempt to fulfill varied agendas on the basis of published scholarship.     

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.     

Charting the development of knowledge on Soviet and post-Soviet education through the pages of comparative and international education journals

This paper examines 126 research articles from three comparative education journals to chart the development of knowledge within comparative education on the Soviet Union and post-Soviet countries. Thematic, theoretical, discursive, and methodological aspects of scholarship are linked with changing geopolitical realities in a systematic analysis of scholarship published since the late 1950s. A new framework of multi-layered colonialism is introduced to explore different features of the double disadvantage that comparative education knowledge production on post-Soviet countries has faced – Russian imperialism and Western academic colonialism. The paper contributes to comparative education knowledge creation by historicising our understanding of Western academic output and outlining a potential future direction in the development of knowledge on post-Soviet systems, policies, and practices of education.     

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.     

THE LEGAL CONTENT OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY JOURNALS: A SYSTEMATIC SURVEY

The many challenges that school psychologists face inevitably include legal issues. In light of the agreement between the two primary professional organizations for school psychologists that understanding of law is a critical competency, this study analyzed the extent of law‐based articles in leading school psychology journal articles published from 1970 to mid‐2013. The method was a systematic multi‐step search, selection and coding process. The primary findings included that (a) a very small proportion of the articles in five leading school psychology journals contained a notable level of legal content; (b) the number of these articles initially trended upward but stabilized at a lower level during recent decades; (c) assessment and special education were the most frequent subject categories, and (d) the principal sources of law were federal legislation/regulations and court decisions. The discussion includes implications for professional practice and recommendations for follow‐up research.     

Examining the Internationalization of Counseling Psychology Scholarship: A Content Analysis of Two US Journals

This content analysis examined internationally focused scholarship published from 1997 to 2009 in two counseling journals published in the United States (US), namely The Counseling Psychologist (TCP) and the Journal of Counseling Psychology (JCP). Both demographic and content criteria, including author affiliation, participant location, topic area, cultural relevancy of construct examined, method of collaboration and research design, were examined. A positive trend for the publication of non-US-based scholarship was observed; however, a 10% representation of internationally-oriented scholarship in the past 13 years suggests the potential for further international initiatives and integration in the field. Questions and implications for future development of internationalization within US-based counseling psychology are discussed.