Characteristics of the Most Productive U.S. Sociology Faculty and Departments: Institution Type, Gender, and Journal Concentration

Abstract

ABSTRACT Using data for a sample of 2,132 individuals, we examine the characteristics of the sociology faculty and departments that ranked highest on any of four measures of publishing productivity over the 2013–2017 period. While the most productive men tend to work at the top research universities, women with comparable publishing records are especially likely to be found among the most productive faculty at other types of institutions. This suggests that “striving institutions” – those that have faced the greatest competition to improve their standing relative to their peers – have benefited by hiring and retaining highly productive faculty without regard to their gender. Our results further reveal that prolific faculty are similar to other faculty in their publication outlets, although they do exhibit high levels of journal concentration. That is, they tend to publish in the same journals in which they previously published.