Scientific Integration in Sociology
James Moody
Duke University
Achim Edelmann
Department of Sociology, University of Bern
Duke Network Analysis Center
With thanks to:
Ryan Light – University of Oregon
Erin Leahey – U Arizona
Crystal Peoples, Duke U
Networks & Science
"Science, carved up into a host of detailed studies that have no
link with one another, no longer forms a solid whole."
Durkheim, 1933
Stratification
Social
Welfare
Organizations
Historical
Sociology
Crime
Gender
Health
Two Problems of Intellectual Integration:
1. Topical Diversity. Consider the number of ASA sections…
Numbers of ASA Sections
52
Year
Two Problems of Intellectual Integration:
2. Local vision. We
all see our own local
point in the topic
space as larger than it
is…
Two Problems of Intellectual Integration:
Which combined
leads to shallow &
largely misinformed
views of the
remainder of the
discipline.
I want to move away
from caricatures
towards an “evidence
based” map of the
discipline.
Focus on two types
of integration:
intellectual & social
Publication Patterns
•Data Sources:
•Citation Networks
•Compiled from the ISI web of science Journal citation tables
•Covers 1681 social science journals indexed in 2003,
•- 2925 in 2009
•Topic & Collaboration Networks
•Compiled from Sociological Abstracts or Web of Science.
• Web of Science: 1865-present (focus 1970),146 journals (all of
the sociology category, plus the top Demography journals and top
Management journals); N(papers):126,925
•Sociological Abstracts. 1965-2011, with full coverage of ~530
journals and at least one observation on over 4000 (many not
primarily recognized as sociology); N(papers) 472,275.
•SRA members list: Names of the 453 SRA members.
Publication Patterns
Who publishes?
Publication volume distribution
68.1%
13
WoS corpus; 1970 to 2015.
Publication Patterns
Who publishes?
Publication volume distribution
68.5%
22.3%
Non SRA Top 1%
SRA Top 1%
12
43
WoS corpus; 1970 to 2015.
Most work is shaped by a minority of scholars at the tail of the distribution
Intellectual integration
View from 30,000ft
Building co-citation networks
Links in a co-citation
network are constructed by
measuring how similar each
journal is to every other
journal.
Similarity is gauged by
correlating the pattern of
citations received by each
journals from every other
journal.
AJS ASR AER … JER
J1
#
#
0
0
J2
#
#
0
0
J3
0
0
#
#
J4
.
.
.
JER
0
#
#
#
0
0
#
#
Comparing across columns tells us whether the two
journals are recognized by others as similar.
Intellectual integration
View from 30,000ft
Building co-citation networks
Links in a co-citation
network are constructed by
measuring how similar each
journal is to every other
journal.
Similarity is gauged by
correlating the pattern of
citations received by each
journals from every other
journal.
AJS ASR AER … JER
AJS
1.0
ASR
High 1.0
AER
.
.
.
JER
Low Med
1.0
Low Low High
1.0
This create a valued network of ties between two
journals. I use a cosine similarity score developed
in bibliometrics, selected for those with ties > 0.45
& at sharing at least 2% of their citation volume.
Source: Loet Leydesdorff
Intellectual integration
View from 30,000ft
Economics co-citation similarity network
Density = 0.197
N=152
Isolates (not shown): 5
Node size proportional to log(degree)
Intellectual integration
View from 30,000ft
Political Science co-citation similarity network
Density = 0.160
N=69
Isolates (not shown): 10
Node size proportional to log(degree)
Intellectual integration
View from 30,000ft
Sociology co-citation similarity network
Density = 0.140
N=69
Isolates : 7
Intellectual integration
(2005)
Intellectual integration
(2005)
Intellectual integration
(2009) – really no substantive change, some growth
Intellectual integration
Intellectual integration
View from 30,000ft
•Sociology “fits” at the center of the social sciences. We are not as internally
cohesive as Economics or Law, but more so than many (anthropology, allied
health fields).
•This represents a tradeoff. We have traded unique dominance of a topic
(markets, politics, mind, space) for diversity & thus centrality.
•Sociology is an interstitial discipline in at least two-senses:
•There is no content topic we can reasonably exclude
•We pull together, and generate, the ideas and topics covered by
specialty disciplines.
•This makes us uniquely positioned to provide insights on many different
empirical questions; but also makes it difficult to recognize disciplinary
coherence. Intellectual coherence rests on a common intellectual core…does
sociology have one?
Intellectual integration
What gets noticed?
Citation Distributions
50% of papers
90% of papers
6
WoS corpus, 1970-2015
56
Intellectual integration
What gets noticed?
Citation Distributions
About 16% of non-sra
papers go uncited
Non-SRA paper
SRA paper
About 0.4% of SRA
papers go uncited
WoS corpus, 1970-2015
Notes some of the
most cited papers are
non-SRA…
Intellectual integration
What gets noticed?
Intellectual integration
What gets noticed?
Intellectual integration
What gets noticed?
Intellectual integration:
Within-Discipline Citation Structure
In practice,
Sociologists
recognize a common
set of works. This is
the co-citation core
for the most
commonly cited
papers…
Intellectual integration:
Topic Structures
Soc Abs Corpus
Intellectual integration: Topic Structures
Topical Specialization
(Soc only Sample)
(compiled)
Sample restricted to just those with more than 1 publication in a core sociology journal, Soc Abs Corpus
Intellectual integration: Topic Structures
A fine grained view: Content
(Soc only Sample)
Our lack of specializations create topical connectivity
Expanding to all
clusters identified over
this same 10-year
period (color indicates
k-core level; a
measure of cohesion)
692 clusters
Mean size: 45 (std=30)
Min=12, max=203:
Intellectual integration:
Brief summary
• Big Picture: Sociology is centrally located; lacking a strong boundary
• But, a set of key papers (many published in the 70s and 80s) provide
explanatory power and are mutually recognized by top producers
• The distribution of recognition is highly unequal; which for science
suggests agreement
• Explanation is about verbs: how and why things get done, and we
have a cohesive set of such works.
• Topical diversity is large, but authors migrate between adjacent topics
in cross-cutting ways..
• Which generates heavy topical cohesion (even before you add in
bridges created through collaboration)
• Collaboration provides the social dimension of disciplinary
integration…
Social integration:
Collaboration
Mean number of authors per paper
Excludes obvious notes/comments/responses; full WoS Sociology+ corpus. Since 1970, 46% of all papers are
collaborative.
Social integration:
Collaboration
Mean number of authors per paper
SRA Authors
Non SRA
Authors
Excludes obvious notes/comments/responses; full WoS Sociology+ corpus. SRA authored papers are
about 2.4 times more likely to be coauthored
Social integration:
Collaboration
Papers indexed by SocAbs
1965-2012
Social integration:
Collaboration
Proportion of papers w. >1 author
1
Child
Development
Collaboration Variability across journals
0.8
Soc.
Forces
J. Health &
Soc. Beh.
ASR
0.6
AJS
J.Am.
Statistical A.
0.4
Atca
Politica
Soc.
Theory
0.2
Signs
J. Soc.
History
0
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
Coauthorship Rank
Sociological Abstracts, 1963-1999*; The figures through 2015 WoS sample are similar …more journals and a slightly steeper curve…
1100
Social integration:
Collaboration
Overall connectivity is
increasing over time
Short-term connectivity:
Sociological Abstracts, core sociology journals only, 5-year moving average
Social integration:
Collaboration
Total number of unique collaborators
Non-SRA members
SRA members
Social integration:
Collaboration
Collaboration results in an expansive network
Largest collaboration component
amongst SRA members
92% of SRA members are connected to
each other within the full WoS corpus;
Social integration:
Collaboration
Closeness Centrality*
Non-SRA members
SRA members
*Only
applicable for those in the largest component
Social integration: Collaboration
Why?
How do we account for the increase in collaboration volume and cohesion over time?
Universalist Science model:
•Change in nature of the work requires team production
•Tools are largely content-free and thus methodologists float across topics
•Theories are similarly empirically portable (though more constrained than
methods)
•Creativity and new ideas derive from bridging methods & areas
Cynical Market Model:
• Market for PhDs is acceleration, requiring longer CVs to win, leading to more
(but “softer”) faculty-student publications
•Striving for “interdisciplinary work”: token names on grants from different fields
• Seems inconsistent w. the coherence of topics mixing, but can’t rule it out
entirely…
Intra-disciplinary discipline model:
• Sociology is a unique field; positioned at the cross-roads of many social
sciences. This creates a wide individual variance in topics that create linkages
across distinct sub-disciplinary areas.
Sociological integration:
Intellectual Integration
Linking Collaboration and Knowledge Production
Archival Integration
Well-defined problem
frontiers and techniques allow
individuals to build on each
other’s work independently
Complete Integration
People working with each
other & employing similar
theoretical toolkits
Completely Fractured:
People working (largely)
alone w. idiosyncratic
theory, data and methods
Opportunistic Collaboration
Work with others in ad-hoc
manner to promote particular
projects, but no work done to link
ideas across projects.
Social Integration
Integration Space for Scientific Disciplines
Sociological integration:
Intellectual Integration
Linking Collaboration and Knowledge Production
Archival Integration
Well-defined problem
frontiers and techniques allow
individuals to build on each
other’s work independently
Organic Integration
People working with each
other, but on diverse and
distinct topics employing
cross-pollinating theoretical
and methodological tools
Completely Fractured:
People working (largely)
alone w. idiosyncratic
theory, data and methods
Opportunistic Collaboration
Work with others in ad-hoc
manner to promote particular
projects, but no work done to link
ideas across projects.
Social Integration
Integration Space for Scientific Disciplines
Sociological integration:
Good news:
•
Socially cohesive discipline with
• Increasingly clustered topical structure
• Moderately cohesive citation structure
•
Individually diverse publication trajectories – low specialization levels
•
Coauthors cross (sub)disciplines quickly
•
This is the structure of Organic Solidarity in science; contrasts with
the naïve view of a discipline as united under one singular point of
view (Econ is closer, it appears, to this). But not clear that’s a bad
thing..
• Sociology as an Accidental Science
Publication Patterns
What to worry about next…
Average number of pages* per paper
Papers are getting longer…
Excludes obvious notes/comments/responses; full WoS Sociology+ corpus. *Yes, pages is a
silly metric due to different word counts…but wait…
Publication Patterns
What to worry about next…
Average number of pages* per paper
SRA Authors
Non SRA-Authors
Excludes obvious notes/comments/responses; full WoS Sociology+ corpus. *Yes, pages is a
silly metric due to different word counts…but wait…
Publication Patterns
What to worry about next…
Estimated number of words per paper, ASR/AJS
Article Length (estimated words)
Padgett & McLean (2006)
Giordanno et al. (2002)
Aral & Van Alstyne (2010)
Powell et al. (2005)
Maris (1970) Goodman (1974)
DiMaggio et al. (1996)
Goldstone (1986)
Boorman & White (1976)
Publication Patterns
What to worry about next…
Article Length (estimated words)
Estimated number of words per paper, ASR/AJS
A simple model suggests SRA authors are about 25% more likely to publish papers in the top 10%
of the length distribution , in any given year. Some of you are multiple offenders…
Publication Patterns
What to worry about next…
Average number of references per paper
Excludes obvious notes/comments/responses; full WoS Sociology+ corpus
Publication Patterns
What to worry about next…
Average number of references per paper
Has SRA Author
Non SRA Author
Excludes obvious notes/comments/responses; full WoS Sociology+ corpus. SRA authors are about 1.2
times more likely to be in the top 10% of bibliography lengths, within journal and year (decreasing over
time)
Publication Patterns
What to worry about next…
Average number of word in the title
Excludes obvious notes/comments/responses; full WoS Sociology+ corpus.
Publication Patterns
What to worry about next…
Average number of word in the title
Publication of
Moody’s landmark
paper on title
length…
Excludes obvious notes/comments/responses; full WoS Sociology+ corpus. SRA authors are less likely
than average, since 2003.
Publication Patterns
What to worry about next…
Our papers are getting longer and more heavily referenced.
• Ho: This is both cause and consequence of our current review system.
Number of papers published each year…
Note these are accepted papers,
What reviewer load is implied here?
•
•
•
Assume 25% of papers submitted disappear
Papers are reviewed by 2.5 people..
And go through 1.5 review cycles
Publication Patterns
What to worry about next…
Our papers are getting longer and more heavily referenced.
• Ho: This is both cause and consequence of our current review system.
…results in many required reviews.
This implies a need for about 26K reviews in 2014
(and the shape of the curve is not promising)
Solutions?
Let’s try an alternative mode of publication…