Research notes: 45 years of the Canadian Review of Sociology (and Anthropology).

Research notes: 45 years of the Canadian Review of Sociology (and Anthropology). THIS RESEARCH NOTE HAS FOUR OBJECTIVES: first, I will reiterate themission statement of the Canadian Review of Sociology (and Anthropology)henceforth From this time forward.The term henceforth, when used in a legal document, statute, or other legal instrument, indicates that something will commence from the present time to the future, to the exclusion of the past. CRS CRS CourseCRS Certified Residential Specialist (real estate certification)CRS Central Reservation SystemCRS Can't Remember Stuff (polite form)CRS Cost Reduction StrategyCRS Consumer Relations Specialist ; second, I will provide an empirical analysis of thearticles published in the CRS; third I will compare the articlespublished in the CRS and the Canadian Journal of Sociology, henceforthCJS CJS?The abbreviation for Corpus Juris Secundum, which is a comprehensive encyclopedia of the principles of American law.Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS) serves as an important research tool that enables a user to locate statements and reported decisions on , and, finally I will briefly discuss the CRS's role in thetransfer of knowledge to the public and policy makers. In the process,we may have a better understanding of the past and present intellectualand professional structure of the CRS, and help researchers andadministrators to compare the relative value of the two leading journalsof sociology in Canada. THE CANADIAN REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY: ITS GOALS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS The Canadian Review of Sociology, formerly known as the CanadianReview of Sociology and Anthropology, is the oldest peer reviewedsociology (and anthropology) journal in Canada. It is the flagship ofthe Canadian Sociological (and formerly Anthropological) Association andis the discipline's prestigious and influential Canadian journal.Its task is the dissemination of innovative theories and research whichare at the core of the discipline. It aims to ensure that sociologistswith a wide variety of expertise and interests are able to communicatewith one another and build on each others' work. Thus, its goal isto serve as an outlet that counters forces of specialization,differentiation and fragmentation. From 1964 to 2009, the CRS has published 933 articles. The subjectmatter of these articles include such broad areas as social inequality,work and occupation, industry and technology, education, politics,gender and sexuality, race, immigration immigration,entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. and ethnicity, family, religion,crime and deviance, health, media, culture, socialization socialization/so��cial��iza��tion/ (so?shal-i-za��shun) the process by which society integrates the individual and the individual learns to behave in socially acceptable ways. so��cial��i��za��tionn. ,globalization globalizationProcess by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation , and environment and many other topics. Core subjects ofsociology are often embedded Inserted into. See embedded system. with a theoretical framework and aresubstantiated quantitatively, qualitatively, or both. At the same time,through special issues on Canadian society, Anglo and French sociology,the academy, memory of John Porter John Porter may refer to: John Porter (captain) (fl. 1759), first captain of the first HMS Hercules John Porter (bishop) (fl. 1790s), a Bishop of Clogher John Porter (Pennsylvania politician) (fl. 1810s), a Pennsylvania politician, U.S. , feminism, sexual harassment sexual harassment,in law, verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature, aimed at a particular person or group of people, especially in the workplace or in academic or other institutional settings, that is actionable, as in tort or under equal-opportunity statutes. ,cultural studies, social movements This is a partial list of social movements. Abahlali baseMjondolo - South African shack dwellers' movement Animal rights movement Anti-consumerism Anti-war movement Anti-globalization movement Brights movement Civil rights movement , environment, and globalization, theCRS has kept pace and even at times led the discipline as it has grownand moved into innovative areas. The articles published in the CRS have been instrumental inproducing dynamic dialogue among sociologists and other intellectualswho represent Canada's mainstream and scientific sociology which isacademic and at times critical, radical, and oppositional. As such, theCRS represents and has been an outlet for the dissemination of ideas anddialogue among Canadian professionals and critical academics. This doesnot mean that the CRS has not represented or had impact on othersubsections of society. In fact, it has made a significant contributionto the scholarly development of Canadian sociology and anthropology;been instrumental in nourishing nour��ish?tr.v. nour��ished, nour��ish��ing, nour��ish��es1. To provide with food or other substances necessary for life and growth; feed.2. intellectual development of a largenumber of graduate students; and, arguably ar��gu��a��ble?adj.1. Open to argument: an arguable question, still unresolved.2. That can be argued plausibly; defensible in argument: three arguable points of law. , been influential in thedevelopment of policies by private and public organizations. QUALITY OF OUTPUT The aforementioned general comments do not address the quality ofarticles published in the CRS. For this purpose, we need to look at howother scholars perceive the CRS, and how it has impacted their work.Citations are measures of a journal's impact and reflect thecontribution of an article to future research by other scholars. Theyrepresent dissemination of facts and ideas as assimilated by andgrounded in a network of scholars. The online database of Google Scholar This article or section contains information about computer software currently in development.The content may change as the software development progresses. in October 2009, can be used as a measure of the CRS's impact overa given time. Google Scholar is preferable to the Social ScienceCitation Index Science Citation Index (SCI ?) is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in 1960, which is now owned by Thomson Scientific. (SSCI SSCI Social Sciences Citation Index (Thompson Scientific)SSCI Senate Select Committee on IntelligenceSSCI Steel Service Center Institute (Cleveland, Ohio)SSCI Self Service Check-InSSCI Scientific Systems Co. ) or other indices because Google Scholar includescitations in books, has more journals than other citation databases, andis a resource available to all scholars. It offers some indication ofthe reach of scholarship within disciplines beyond the narrowly definedacademic limits. As Table 1 shows, the number of citations for each article,averaged to a five year interval, was about 15 in the 1960s and thendropped to just over 6 in the 1970s. It fluctuated between 6 to 10citations per article from 1970 to 2004. It declined thereafter largelydue to the recently of the published articles and the fact that it takestime for them to be recognized. In this respect, Jacobs (2007) resembledsociological research to works of fine art, since it often takes aconsiderable period of time for fine art to become recognized, too.Similarly, the full impact of articles recently published in the CRS, orany other journal, will not be known until many years past theirpublication. Hamilton (1990) has argued that many published articles are nevercited and therefore the majority of published articles are essentially"worthless." His study of data from the Institute forScientific Information showed that 55 percent of articles publishedreceived no citations five years after publication. His study ofsociology articles showed that 77 percent of articles published receivedno citation four years after publication (Hamilton 1991). However, Bott bott?n.Variant of bot1. and Hargens' (1991) study of 553 articles sampled from 19 sociologyjournals published during the 1974 to 1985 period showed that only 9.2percent of these articles were uncited. The percentage of never-citedarticles published in the CRS is far lower than those reported byHamilton for the United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. and are more comparable to those reportedby Bott and Hargens (1991). Only 15.3 percent of the CRS articlespublished during the 1964 to 2007 period and 10.1 percent of articlespublished during the 2000 to 2005 period were subsequently not cited(Table 2). Another way of looking at the impact of the CRS is to evaluatearticles which had the greatest number of citations. This is importantbecause not all articles published in a journal are path-breakingstudies with tremendous influence on other researchers' work.Jacobs (2007) showed that 379 articles published in the AmericanSociological Review (ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) Using voice recognition to replace keypad entry for telephone voice menus. Typically used to speak the digits 0 through 9 insted of keying them, ASR systems may be able to recognize a limited vocabulary. See voice recognition and AVSR. ) between 1955 and 1995 were cited 500 times ormore. The CRS can not claim to have as high an impact as the ASR.However, there are noteworthy articles published in the CRS, as well.Four articles received more than 100 citations. Among these are: ASocio-economic index for occupations in Canada by Blishen (623citations); No exit for wives: Sexual division of labour by Meissner,Humphreys and Meis (171 citations); The three political economies of thewelfare state by Esping-Andersen (117 citations) and Occupationalprestige in Canada by Pineo and Porter (107 citations). There were noarticles with more than 100 citations in a shorter five year time frameand only one received over 50 citations compared to 9 articles in thelonger 19642007 time frame (Table 2). These are listed in the Appendix. HOW DOES THE CRS COMPARE? Although Canadians have a tendency to compare themselves to theirneighbour to the South, it is more reasonable to evaluate the strengthand weakness of the CRS with other Canadian journals, such as the CJS.The first issue of CJS appeared in 1975 with its mandate being topublish research articles and innovative theoretical essays by socialscientists in Canada and elsewhere on issues facing Canadian society andother countries. From 1975 to 2007, the editorial and co-editorialpositions in the CJS were occupied by the same two persons, though fourother editors occupied the CJS's helm for two to three year periodseach, from 1981 to 1997 and another two persons acted as co-editors from1975 to 1985. In contrast, the CRS editorship included 18 differentsociologists and 7 anthropologists. Surely, the CRS can boast thediversity of its editorial board. In its history, the CJS published an article authored by Luhmann(1975) called Differentiation of Society, with 790 citations. This wasthe only article in the CJS with more than 100 citations. Otherwise,articles in both journals experienced about similar impact. Bothjournals published articles with substantial citations impact in theearly years of their inception. However, their impact has declined andbeen similarly fluctuating since the 1980s (see Figure 1). Although theCJS published articles which were slightly less likely to be un-cited,the CRS published articles which were more likely to have the greatesthits. Nevertheless, Figure 1 and Tables 2 and 3 show that, generally,both journals received a similar citation impact and impact trend. We can also use the quantitative/qualitative divide as anothermeasure of "scientific-ness" of articles published in thesetwo journals. 47 percent of articles published in the CRS werequantitative, another 47 percent qualitative and the remaining mixedmethods. The comparative figures for the CJS were 43, 47 and 10,respectively. The quantitative articles received higher citation countsin the CRS (9.73 versus 8.61 for CJS) while qualitative articlesreceived somewhat higher citation counts in the CJS (7.09 versus 6.76for CRS). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] In sum, the observed differences and similarities between the CRSand CJS do not point to any marked differences between the two. In fact,a healthy competition and the diversity of articles published in thesetwo Canadian journals may have helped to counter the forces offragmentation predominant in specialized journals. These journals havehelped Canadian sociologists communicate with one another and build oneach others' research. It should be stressed that there is no claim in this Overview ofpredicting as to where Canadian sociology is going, nor to suggest thatcitation counts directly predict quality and that articles published inthe CRS are of higher quality than those in the CJS. However, there is arelationship between citation counts and quality where the former is aprerequisite of the latter. In the end, the prestige of a journaldepends, among other things, on authors submitting their best manuscriptfor review as well as a rigorous review process which ensures that thebest articles are selected and that those with the potential to becomehigh quality articles are provided with effective comments so that theauthors can make improvements to their articles before publication. CONCLUSION This short analysis suggests that there is much to celebrate in theCRS's history. In its 45-year history, it has published severalhigh quality and high impact articles and has been effective inproviding the intellectual nourishment Noun 1. intellectual nourishment - anything that provides mental stimulus for thinkingfood for thought, foodcognitive content, mental object, content - the sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned for critical and professionalsociologists, graduate students, policy makers and a segment of thepublic-at-large. Although some sociologists have taken knowledge back tothose from whom it came, we may need perhaps to do more of this in orderto make our trade relevant. Knowledge transfer does not necessarily meanits movement across the boundaries created by the specialized knowledgedomains. Rather, it means assimilation and sharing of knowledge acrossseveral domains, one of which is the public. The public needs toidentify and be aware of the right knowledge and its potential benefitsfor everyday life. The challenge is to improve public and policymakers' access to the robust bodies of knowledge available in theCRS and/or to ensure that relevant and timely articles are published. Inthis regard, the CRS just published a special issue in collaborationwith Statistics Canada on the Canadian General Social Surveys and plansto publish another on Sexual Health and Sexual Rights in collaborationwith the Public Health Agency of Canada The Public Health Agency of Canada (French: Agence de la sant�� publique du Canada) is an agency of Health Canada a department of the Government of Canada that is responsible for public health, emergency preparedness, and response and infectious and chronic disease control . The goal is that the CRS willcontinue to be innovative and will ensure publication of timely andrelevant issues facing Canadian society and elsewhere. Appendix. Articles published in the Review with 50 to 100 citations Breton, R. 1984. The Production of and Allocation of SymbolicResources: And analysis of the Linguistic and Ethnocultural Fields inCanada, 21.1. Deriedger, L. and Church, G. 1974. Residential Segregation andInstitutional Completeness: A Comparison of Ethnic Minorities, 11.1. Deriedger, L. 1975. In Search of Cultural Identity Factors, 12.2. Erickson, B.H. 1990. How Apolitical a��po��lit��i��cal?adj.1. Having no interest in or association with politics.2. Having no political relevance or importance: claimed that the President's upcoming trip was purely apolitical. Association Politicizes, 27.2. Finnie, R. 1993. Women, Men, and the Economic Consequences ofDivorce: Evidence From Canadian Longitudinal Data, 30.2. Li, p. 2000. Earning Disparities between Immigrants and Native-BornCanadians, 37.3. Myles, J. 1988. The Expanding Middle: Some Canadian Evidence on theDeskilling Deskilling is the process by which skilled labor within an industry or economy is eliminated by the introduction of technologies operated by semiskilled or unskilled workers. Debate, 25.3. Ray, B.K. and Moore, E. 1991. Access to Homeownerships amongImmigrant Groups in Canada, 28.1. Rueschemeyer, D. 1964. Doctors and Lawyers: A comment on the Theoryof the Professions, 1.1. References Bott, D.M. and L.L. Hargens. 1991. "Are Sociologists'Publications Uncited? Citation Rates of Journal Articles, Chapters, andBooks." The American Sociologist Summer: 147-58. Hamilton, D.P. 1990. "Publishing by--and for--theNumbers." Science 250:1331-32. Hamilton, D.P. 1991. "Research Papers: Who is UncitedNow." Science 251:25. Jacobs, J. 2007. "Further Reflections on ASR's GreatestHits." The American Sociologist 38: 99-131. * I thank Professors Robert Brym, Monica Boyd and Terry Wothersoponfor helpful comments.Table 1Average Impact, Five Year Intervals (CRS, 1964-2007)Year Mean N1964-1969 14.94 821970-1974 6.48 791975-1979 8.97 1271980-1984 6.35 1171985-1989 9.17 1391990-1994 10.67 1051995-1999 8.28 1002000-2004 9.64 982005-2007 3.62 61Total 8.82 908Table 2Number of Citations for Each Article (CRS) Period Period 1964-2007 2000-2005Citations Percent N Percent N0 14.1 128 10.1 161-5 41.5 377 49.1 786-10 19.2 174 17.6 2811-20 17 154 13.8 2221-50 6.8 62 8.8 1451-100 1 9 0.6 1101+ 0.4 4 - -Total 100 908 100 159Table 3Number of Citations for Each Article (CJS) Period Period 1975-2007 2000-2005Citations Percent N Percent N0 11.4 55 8.5 101-5 42.7 206 44.4 526-10 22.0 106 21.4 2511-20 15.4 74 15.4 1821-50 7.3 35 9.4 1151-100 1 5 0.9 1101+ 0.2 1 -- --Total 100 482 100 117