Gender and scholarly productivity: The case of criminal justice

Abstract

Research on scholarly productivity in science has consistently found that women scientists publish only 50–60 percent as many scholarly papers as men. Common limitations of this work include a focus on the hard sciences to the neglect of other fields and lack of controls for type of location or employment. This study contributed to the literature by investigating a soft science (criminal justice) and focusing on a particular location: scientists in tenure track, academic positions. Further, it was contended that females were more integrated into the male research networks in criminal justice than in the hard sciences. This greater integration should narrow the gap between male and female productivity. Data were based on eighty-nine faculty in Master's-level criminal justice departments. The results of a multiple regression analysis indicated that gender was not significantly associated with either the number of articles or the impact (citations) of scholarly work. The leading predictors of scholarly productivity included faculty rank and year of PhD. The full model explained 37 percent of the variance in article production and 44 percent of the variance in scholarly impact.