The Status of Women's Research in Educational Publications

Abstract

Sex differences in the content and authorship of articles published in major educational, women's, and minority journals from 1973-1977 were examined. In that five-year period, research related to women in education accounted for approximately 10% of the research published in four major educational research journals, 24% of the research published in two women's journals, and 6% of the research published in two minority journals. No increase in the relative number of articles related to women and education published from 1973 through 1977 was found.Articles authored by women accounted for 9%, 59%, and 17% of the research published in educational, women's, and minority journals, respectively.No increase in the relative numbers of articles authored or coauthored by women from 1973 through 1977 was found.The relationship between publications and the status of women in educational research is discussed. Publication of scientific research is presumed to serve two important but distinct functions:to disseminate scientific knowledge about the research topic and to be a record of a scientist's productivity and, consequently, an objective criterion for allocating academic prestige.The publication of research in a prestigious, widely read journal that is sponsored by a professional association is a good indicator of the research topic's status, and the quantity of a researcher's publications in such journals is often an indicator of her or his scientific status. This is as true for research on women and education and for women educational researchers as it is for other sciences and scientists.By 1972 it was noted that educational research on women and girls was not widely available and that women educators were not advancing within the profession as rapidly as their male counterparts (Fishel & Pottker, 1977).That is, women's status in both areas was low.Partly in response to a heightened awareness regarding the problems of women in education, the federal government took action intended to improve the status of educational research on women and to improve the status of women educational researchers. The greater numbers of female doctoral students. female researchers. and female faculty at prestigious institutions should have increased the probability of female authored and coauthored articles being published.There has been no investigation to date. however. The purpose of the present study was (1) to determine how many articles on women and education were published in the major education journals and in women's and minority journals in the five years from 1973 through 1977; (2) to determine how many of these articles were authored solely by women. solely by men. or coauthored by men and women; (3) to determine whether the percentage of articles on women and education in the major educational journals increased during that time; (4) Publications and Women's Academic StatusThere is a growing debate regarding the direction of the relationship between scientific productivity and career outcomes. Cross-sectional stud...

Characteristics of Frequently Cited Articles in Learning Disabilities

“…First, highly cited research in the field of learning disabilities is adequately represented by females, which is in stark contrast to citations in cognitive psychology (White, 1983) or in general education (Lockheed & Stein, 1980;Tittle, 1985). Lockheed and Stein have indicated that only 15.9% of the articles published in five educational research journals were published by women, suggesting that women have not traditionally influenced educational research.…”

“…The majority of authors are from institutions of higher education. The gender of the authorship is unique, in that females tend to dominate frequently cited articles, whereas males dominate randomly selected articles (also, see Lockheed & Stein, 1980, for discussion related to gender comparisons). Authors of infrequently cited articles (random) are usually associated with program areas of special education, whereas frequently cited authors are not.…”

“…These categories were selected from research methodology texts (e.g., Borg & Gall, 1982;Campbell & Stanley, 1963) and recent analyses of authors and article quality (e.g., Goodwin & Goodwin, 1985;Lockheed & Stein, 1980;Smith & Caulley, 1981). These categories included (1) institutional affiliation of first author, (2) department or program affiliation, (3) number of co-authors, (4) source of funding, (5) gender of first author, (6) subject area under investigation, (7) type of article (data based or non-data based), (8) focus of research article (basic or applied orientation), (9) type of research hypotheses (directional-specific predictions based on theory-or nondirectional-null), (10) sampling procedures (e.g., simple random sampling, stratified random sampling), (11) sample size, (12) psychometric information (e.g., type of standardized test or rating scale used to idenify LD and control sample), (13) research design (e.g., one group pretest post-test design, correlational design), (14) primary statistical analysis (e.g., factorial ANOVA, factorial MANOVA/MANCOVA, path analysis), (15) instrument validation and reliability, and (16) number of experiments.…”

An Analysis of Statistical Techniques Used in the Journal of Educational Psychology, 1979-1983

“…IEP was chosen for this undertaking because of its emphasis on empirical research and because of the high regard in which it is held. For example, publishing in JEF' frequently has been used as an indicator of faculty and institutional research productivity (e.g., Cox & Catt, 1977;Eash, 1983;Guba & Clark:, 1978;Lockheed & Stein, 1980;Walberg, Rashier, & Mantel, 1977;West, 1978). Further, it was highly ranked in surveys of American Educational Research Association (AERA) members and of American Copyright 1985 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.…”

Exploring the relationship between gender and career outcomes for social scientists

“…Using similar methods, but drawing the opposite conclusion that women had reached a "plateau" in the field of health education, Ransdell et al (2000) reviewed articles from seven health education journals between 1990 and 1998, noting that the ratio of papers with a female first author was constant (at 50 percent), as was the proportion of papers with one or more female co-authors (at 71 percent). Studies describing trends in the proportion of papers by women have also appeared in fields such as marketing (Walters et al, 1990), education (Lockheed and Stein, 1980), public administration (Slack et al, 1996), and science education (White, 1997).…”