Rankings, research styles, and publication cultures: a study of American sociology departments

Moksony, Ferenc; Hegedűs, Rita; Császár, Melinda

doi:10.1007/s11192-013-1218-y

Cited by 17 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…One is associated with the humanities and aligned to constructivism, logical induction and theory-building in the sense of Berger and Luckmann (1991) or Glaser and Strauss (2017), while another one is related, for example, to positivism, deduction and falsification in Popper's (2008) sense. These alignments are deeply linked with the way of conducting research, are thus not reflected by the scholars and manifest in the scholarly discourse held in publication outlets (Moksony et al, 2014;Vanderstraeten, 2010). In turn, this linkage lowers the chances for consensus formation and the successive generation of knowledge in Sociology even further (Boyns and Fletcher, 2005;Burawoy, 2005;Collins, 1989Collins, , 1994Payne et al, 2004;Smelser, 2015;Turner, 2006Turner, , 2016Williams et al, 2017 for an overview on this discussion).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Methodological Divide of Sociology: Evidence from Two Decades of Journal Publications

Schwemmer

Wieczorek

2019

Sociology

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Past research indicates that Sociology is a low-consensus discipline, where different schools of thought have distinct expectations about suitable scientific practices. This division of Sociology into different subfields is to a large extent related to methodology and choices between qualitative or quantitative research methods. Relying on theoretical constructs of the academic prestige economy, boundary demarcation and taste for research, we examine the methodological divide in generalist Sociology journals. Using automated text analysis for 8737 abstracts of articles published between 1995 and 2017, we discover evidence of this divide, but also of an entanglement between methodological choices and different research topics. Moreover, our results suggest a marginally increasing time trend for the publication of quantitative research in generalist journals. We discuss how this consolidation of methodological practices could enforce the entrenchment of different schools of thought, which ultimately reduces the potential for innovative and effective sociological research.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Methodological Divide of Sociology: Evidence from Two Decades of Journal Publications

Schwemmer

Wieczorek

2019

Sociology

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“…As stated in [5], the quality of a publication can be determined by using different approaches: expert opinion (peer review), bibliometric evaluation, or a combination of these two (experts that use bibliometric data for their decisions, the most acceptable approach to evaluation of research results so far). The authors of the paper [6] state that rankings have become one of the main forms of quality assessment in higher education over the past few decades. Publication rankings are based on individual (each publication gains individual score) or collective (all publications gain the same score as a part of a larger publication, with an optional coarse granulation like scientific paper, professional paper) evaluation of publications.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A CERIF Compatible CRIS-UNS Model Extension for Assessment of Conference Papers

2015

APH

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This paper proposes an extension to CERIF compatible CRIS, enabling automated evaluation of research achievements by applying diverse (country/region/institution specific), or even multiple evaluation rulebooks and guidelines. It was implemented as an extension to the CERIF compliant CRIS system of the University of Novi Sad (CRIS UNS) that already contains information for assessment of results from scientific journals, so the focus of this research is an extension to the CERIF model aimed at evaluation of the results published through conferences. Based on a survey and an analysis of selected evaluation rulebooks and guidelines, the paper proposes an extended CERIF model that comprises conference evaluation related metadata and a machinereadable representation of a rulebook that enables automated evaluation. A rule-based expert system is proposed for representation of evaluation rules and evaluation of research results. The Serbian rulebook is represented and implemented using the expert system Jess in order to evaluate the proposed model. Reliance of the model on CERIF standard allows its easy application in any CERIF compatible CRIS system.

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“…In turn, this alignment manifests itself in the scholarly discourse held in publication outlets (Moksony et al 2013;Vanderstraeten 2010). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…the "Chicago School") and dominant research paradigms (Collins 1994;Kuhn 1996). These paradigms combine a limited number of theories, methods, epistemologies and research topics in unique ways, which are fashioned by scholars and publication outlets at the same time (Moksony et al 2013;Vanderstraeten 2010). In turn, paradigms are a focal point for the emergence of research networks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This ultimately results in the inability of scholars belonging to different paradigms to understand each other and to exchange ideas. However the exchange of ideas is a necessary prerequisite for producing new sociological knowledge and for facing societal problems in their entirety.We focus on generalist interest publication outlets as they are increasingly important for the dissemination of sociological knowledge (Münch 2018;Moksony et al 2013;Puddephatt and Mclaughlin 2015). Moreover, general interest Sociology journals cover research from a wide range of subfields and therefore are relevant for a large body of the research community.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Methodological Divide of Sociology - Evidence From Two Decades of Journal Publications

Schwemmer¹,

Wieczorek²

2018

Preprint

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Past research indicates that Sociology is a low-consensus discipline, where different schools of thought have distinct expectations about suitable scientific practices. This division of Sociology into different subfields is to a large extent related to methodology and choices between qualitative or quantitative research methods. Relying on theoretical constructs of boundary work, taste for research, and the academic prestige economy, we examine the methodological divide in generalist Sociology journals. Using automated text analysis for 8.737 abstracts of papers published between 1995 and 2017, we find evidence for this divide, but also for an entanglement between methodological choices and different research topics. Moreover, our results suggest a marginally increasing time trend for the publication of quantitative research in generalist journals. We discuss how this consolidation of methodological practices could enforce the entrenchment of different schools of thought, which ultimately reduces the potential for innovative sociological research.

show abstract

Rankings, research styles, and publication cultures: a study of American sociology departments

Cited by 17 publications

References 41 publications

The Methodological Divide of Sociology: Evidence from Two Decades of Journal Publications

The Methodological Divide of Sociology: Evidence from Two Decades of Journal Publications

A CERIF Compatible CRIS-UNS Model Extension for Assessment of Conference Papers

The Methodological Divide of Sociology - Evidence From Two Decades of Journal Publications

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