Towards a Sociology of Sociology: Inequality, Elitism, and Prestige in the Sociological Enterprise From 1970 to the Present

TL;DR

This paper examines the evolution of inequality, elitism, and prestige within the field of sociology from 1970 to the present, revealing persistent biases and shifts in publication practices.

Contribution

It introduces a sociological analysis of sociology itself, using bibliometric data to uncover patterns of elitism and bias in academic publishing over five decades.

Findings

Top sociology journals favor PhD alumni from prestigious programs.

Bias against less prestigious PhD programs has decreased over time.

The American Journal of Sociology's bias towards UChicago alumni has increased.

Abstract

There is a science of science and an informal economics of economics, but there is not a cohesive sociology of sociology. We turn the central findings and theoretical lenses of the sociological tradition and the sociological study of stratification inward on sociology itself to investigate how sociology has changed since the 1970s. We link two bibliometric databases to trace diachronic relationships between PhD training and publication outcomes, both of which are understudied in the science of science and sociology of science. All of sociology's top 3 journals remained biased against alum of less prestigious PhD programs, and while most forms of bias in elite sociological publishing have ameliorated over time, the house bias of the American Journal of Sociology in favor PhD alumnae of UChicago has intensified.