Women’s Involvement in Educational Psychology Journals from 1976 to 2004

Abstract

Previously, Robinson, McKay, Katayama, and Fan (1998) examined women’s involvement in six educational psychology journals (American Educational Research Journal, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Educational Psychologist, Educational Psychology Review, Journal of Experimental Education, and Journal of Educational Psychology) from 1976 to 1996 and found that although women made gains as authors and editorial board members, they remained underrepresented as editors. In this Reflections on the Field article, we compare the Robinson et al. data with our more recent data. We found that from 1996 to 2004, the percentage of women members in education and psychology organizations has risen. Meanwhile, the percentage of women authors has remained stable; the percentage of women editorial board members has risen slightly; and the percentage of women editors has risen dramatically. We also found that the percentage of women authors and editorial board members lags slightly behind what would be expected based on organizational membership percentages for women. On the other hand, there are now more female editors than would be expected.