Hillary Potter
Associate Professor Ethnic Studies, University Of Colorado Boulder
Key Findings
- There is a positive link between gender and the number of articles published for criminal justice academics.
- Male academics in criminology published more articles than female academics in the field.
- When broken down by race, Whites published more criminal justice articles than non-Whites, and Latinas published fewer criminal justice articles than non-Latinas.
Description
In the article, “The Influence of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Faculty Perceptions on Scholarly Productivity in Criminology/Criminal Justice,” Potter and her co-authors examine the role that race and gender play in the attitudes and productivity of academics in the criminal justice field. Previous studies have shown that female faculty of color encounter more stress and face greater burdens and expectations in their careers than other groups of faculty. This study aimed to go further and target how these differences impact criminal justice scholarship by women of color. To conduct their study, the researchers surveyed 450 respondents from two different American professional criminological associations that self-selected themselves as academics (not just practitioners or researchers). The results showed a positive link between gender and the number of articles published for criminal justice academics. Male academics in criminology published more articles than female academics in the field. When broken down by race, Whites published more criminal justice articles than non-Whites and Latinas published fewer criminal justice articles than non-Latinas. Other factors that increase the number of criminology articles published by academics include having a PhD, working at a research institution, high rank, and publishing books. Having a longer tenure in their degree is a factor that influences an academic’s likelihood to publish criminal justice books. The differences in ways to increasing publications for males and females criminologists are not significant. In conclusion, the authors note that future studies on this topic can look more deeply into minority group differences.