Star wars: aspects of the social construction of citations in Anglo‐Canadian sociology*

Abstract

Il ressort clairement de la lecture des textes en sociologie de la connaissance et de la science que les savants élaborent leurs interprcctations de la réalité en tant que membres de groupes et de réseaux sociaux. Autrement dit, les savants ne réagissent pas uniquement en fonction de la problématique à l'étude ou de normes scientifiques largement diffusées. D'où l'hypothèse selon laquelle les sociologues canadiens citeront les études de leurs collègues en fonction de l'emplacement géographique des universités de ces derniers et des contacts sociaux qui en découlent. L'auteur analyse les citations de deux livres, From Culture to Power de Brym et Fox et Sociology de Stebbins. L'analyse révèle que les auteurs de l'Ouest sont sous‐représentés dans les références de From Culture to Power, qui surreprésentent ceux des grandes universités ontariennes, tandis que Sociology accorde une plus grande attention aux ouvrages d'auteurs des Prairies et de 1'Ouest. Writing in the sociologies of knowledge and science makes it clear that scientists construct their interpretations of reality as part of social groups and social networks. That is, scientists do not react solely to the research problem at hand or to widely diffused scientific norms. This view leads to the hypothesis that, in Canadian sociology, authors will cite others' studies as a function of the geographical location of their universities and resulting social contacts, emphasizing the latter. Analyses are conducted for citations in Brym and Fox's From Culture to Power and Stebbins' Sociology. Results show that references in From Culture to Power underrepresent scholars in the West and overrepresent scholars from Core universities in Ontario, while Stebbins' book gives greater attention to works from the Prairies and the West.

Gender Differences in Publication among University Professors in Canada*

“…Stebbins had been teaching in Calgary and Newfoundland, outside the core universities. Nock (1992) finds lesser evidence for regional bias in terms of articles published in the two leading Canadian sociology journals (CJS and CRSA), although Atlantic sociologists were somewhat under-represented. However, sociologists from the core universities were more overrepresented in the CRSA than in the CJS, the latter being more representative than the former.…”

“…Such a "halo" effect (1967: 195) confers publishing receptivity to the scholar's work by publishing companies and/or journals. In Canada, Nock (1992;1993) demonstrates the relevance of the sociology of knowledge by showing that citation pattern in two selected Canadian sociology books matches authors' locations. The citation counts in Brym and Fox (1989) included a higher number of social scientists from the five core universities while authors from peripheral universities were undercited, compared to the general distribution of sociologists.…”

“…In addition, the year since completion of PhD as a continuous variable is used as 1. Nock (1992) invokes the Canadian regionalism theory rooted in dependency theory and breaks the data into six regions based on authors' place of employment. Nock relies on the definition of metropolis and hinterland suggested by Davis (1971) wherein metropolises are the centres of economic and political control while hinterlands are relatively underdeveloped colonial areas.…”

Half a Century of Sociological Scholarship in the CRS(A)

“…Since its founding in 1964, there have been 17 sociology editors of the CRS(A) (see Table ) . In the sociology of sociology, the role of “invisible colleges,” discerned on the basis of university affiliations, citations, co‐authorship and so on, has been a longstanding topic of investigation (cf., Nock ; Varga ). Often, particular departments have served as venues for these formations, as in the Chicago school, centered at the University of Chicago, whose influence in the early decades of the twentieth century reached across the border, into Canada's first sociology department at McGill.…”

Mapping the Social Space of Opinion: Public Sociology and the Op-Ed in Canada

“…There are a number of reasons for academics to write op-eds, motivations sometimes linked to professional careers: publicity for a book, the promotion of research findings that have policy implications, and a general desire to gain influence and attention for one's ideas. Nonetheless, the very logic of the academic field runs in the opposite direction, stressing peer-reviewed scholarship and the battle for status within restricted audiences in the academic field (Clemens et al 1995;Coser et al 1982;Nock 1999;.…”