Following Apartheid: Authorship Trends in the South African Journal of Psychology after 1994

Abstract

This article explores the salience of racialised authorship trends in South African psychology post-1994. Specifically, the article investigates whether Black authors currently are better represented in South African psychology than during the pre-1994 period; and whether earlier racialised disparities in authorship in South African psychology are narrowing. The article is based on an analysis of the 36 issues of the South African Journal of Psychology (SAJP), published from 1994 to 2003. The names, institutional affiliation, authorship positions, gender and ‘race’ of authors were identified for all contributions of the identified issues of the journal. Simple frequency counts and cross-tabulations were calculated to produce descriptive information. This article reports that, irrespective of authorship position, approximately 78% of authors who had been published in the SAJP during the period under consideration were White and approximately 22% were Black. Despite representing an ongoing marginal voice in the realm of psychological knowledge production, Black authors' contributions to the SAJP increased nearly three-fold since the early 1990s. Similar increases were identified for sole authorship and first authorship, amongst others. These results are examined within the context of a population of Black psychologists that has been increasing steadily since the 1990s.