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Characteristics of gender studies publications: a bibliometric analysis based on a Swedish population database

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Abstract

Gender studies is a growing field in academe. It is intrinsically associated with feminism and political reforms, and has in Sweden enjoyed exclusive resources and legislated support. The present study aims to characterize gender studies published by authors based in Sweden, and poses a number of hypotheses regarding its rate of growth, impact, and other bibliographical variables. To this end, publications concerning gender by authors based at Swedish universities were collected from a range of sources and compiled to form a population database of publications between 2000 and 2010. The results show from which universities and disciplines the gender studies authors come from, and in which journals they are most frequently published. We also compare the proportion of gender studies to the entire body of publications from a number of countries, and show that in Sweden it has grown faster than other types of publications. A comparison between literatures that consider socially constructed gender or biological sex showed that the former is less cited and published in journals with lower IF than the latter. Our Swedish Gender Studies List population database, which also features an international, non-exhaustive comparison sample that is matched to the Swedish sample in certain respects, is made available for further scientific study of this literature, for example by enabling the extraction of random samples.

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Notes

  1. Läroplanen utgår från det genusperspektiv som menar att könsroller är något som kan förändras. Att könsroller är konstruktioner som förändras när genusordningen förändras.

  2. Begreppet statsfeminism har angetts som ett kännetecken för den svenska välfärdsstaten. Det betecknar i Helga Hernes definition’feminism uppifrån’, i form av jämställdhet mellan könen och socialpolitiska åtgärder, samt en feminisering av yrken som är relevanta ur ett välfärdsstatligt perspektiv.

  3. Den nordiska synen är dock att kön är en konstruktion och att maskulinitet är föränderlig.

  4. I enlighet med förordningen (1992:1668) om den officiella statistiken (ändrad 1994:1108) skall individbaserad officiell statistik vara könsuppdelad, såvida inte särskilda skäl talar emot det. In our translation: According to the decree (1992:1668) concerning official statistics (adjusted 1994:1108), should official statistics based on individuals be divided per sex, unless particular arguments speak against it.

  5. Könsfördelningen inom olika områden och på olika nivåer beträffande såväl studenter som personal skall vara jämn.

  6. Kvantitativ jämställdhet innebär en jämn fördelning mellan kvinnor och män inom alla områden i samhället, t.ex. inom olika utbildningar, yrken, fritidsaktiviteter och maktpositioner. Finns det mer än 60 procent kvinnor i en grupp är den kvinnodominerad.

  7. Det är också viktigt att ett genusperspektiv anläggs i själva undervisningen.

  8. Genusperspektiv skall få ett ökat genomslag i utbildningen.

  9. 1. … synliggöra och problematisera betydelser av kön i all verksamhet som rör högre utbildning.

    2. … tillgodose kvinnliga och manliga studenters lärande vid varje enskilt moment i grund- och forskarutbildning.

    3. … ett ifrågasättande och en förändring av pedagogikens och den konkreta undervisningens struktur, innehåll och praktik.

    4. … utvidga vårt sätt att se på och förstå verkligheten, kritiskt belysa vår uppfattning om vad vetenskap är, samt förändra maktrelationer mellan kvinnor och män.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Umeå University, 901 87, Umeå, Sweden

    Therese Söderlund & Guy Madison

Authors
  1. Therese Söderlund
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  2. Guy Madison
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Therese Söderlund.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Databases and homepages

Appendix 2: Search parameters and search results

Web of Science, SGSL search 2011-11-28: Topic: Gender; Country: Sweden; Years: 2000–2011; 1883 hits.

Institutions included in the search

Umeå University, Stockholm University, Gothenburg University, Uppsala University, Lund University, Linköping University, Örebro University, Mid Sweden University, Karlstad University, Malmö University, Luleå University of Technology, Växjö University, Gävle University or Mälardalen University

Included subject areas

Anthropology

Government law

Psychology

Area studies

Health care sciences services

Public administration

Art

History

Public environmental occupational health

Asian studies

History of social sciences

Rehabilitation

Behavioural sciences

History philosophy of science

Religion

Biomedical social sciences

Humanities multidisciplinary

Reproductive biology

Business economics

Information science library science

Social issues

Communication

International relations

Social sciences other topics

Criminology penology

Law

Social work

Demography

Linguistics

Sociology

Education educational research

Literature

Sport sciences

Environmental sciences ecology

Management

Substance abuse

Ethnic studies

Multidisciplinary sciences

Theater

Evolutionary biology

Music

Transportation

Family studies

Nursing

Urban studies

Film radio television

Pediatrics

Women’s studies

Genetics heredity

Philosophy

Zoology

Geography

Physiology

 

Geriatrics gerontology

Psychiatry

 

Excluded subject areas

Acoustics

Gastroenterology hepatology

Oncology

Allergy

General internal medicine

Operations research management science

Anatomy morphology

Hematology

Ophthalmology

Anesthesiology

Immunology

Optics

Archaeology

Infectious diseases

Orthopedics

Art

Integrative complementary medicine

Otorhinolaryngology

Arts humanities other topics

Legal medicine

Pathology

Biochemistry molecular biology

Life sciences biomedicine other topics

Pharmacology pharmacy

Biophysics

Marine freshwater biology

Physics

Biotechnology applied microbiology

Materials science

Plant sciences

Cardiovascular system cardiology

Mathematical methods in social sciences

Radiology nuclear medicine medical imaging

Cell biology

Mathematics

Research experimental medicine

Chemistry

Medical ethics

Respiratory system

Computer science

Medical informatics

Rheumatology

Construction building technology

Medical laboratory technology

Science technology other topics

Dentistry oral surgery medicine

Meteorology atmospheric sciences

Surgery

Dermatology

Microbiology

Toxicology

Emergency medicine

Mining mineral processing

Transplantation

Endocrinology metabolism

Neurosciences neurology

Tropical medicine

Energy fuels

Nuclear science technology

Urology nephrology

Engineering

Nutrition dietetics

Veterinary sciences

Entomology

Obstetrics gynecology

Virology

Environmental sciences ecology

Oceanography

 

Fisheries

  

Food science technology

  

Forestry

  

Scopus, international (INT) search 2012-10-23: Topic: Gender; Country: Sweden; Years: 2000–2011; 21,205 hits in the first search, 21,276 in the second search.

Included subject areas, first search

Excluded subject areas, first search

Arts and humanities

Agricultural and biological sciences

Business, management and accounting

Biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology

Decision sciences

Chemical engineering

Economics, econometrics and finance

Chemistry

Environmental science

Computer science

Health professions

Dentistry

Multidisciplinary

Earth and planetary sciences

Nursing

Energy

Social sciences

Engineering

Psychology

Immunology and microbiology

 

Materials science

 

Mathematics

Included subject areas, second search

Medicine

Medicine

Neuroscience

 

Pharmacology, toxicology and pharmaceutics

 

Physics and astronomy

 

Veterinary

 

Excluded subject areas, second search

 

All areas except medicine

Searches in Web of Science and Scopus, as shown in Fig. 2; 2000–2010.

  1. 1.

    WoS international: Topic: the

  2. 2.

    WoS international: Topic: gender

  3. 3.

    WoS Sweden: Topic: the

  4. 4.

    WoS Sweden: Topic: gender

  5. 5.

    WoS international: Topic: gender; Research area: Women’s Studies

  6. 6.

    WoS International: Research area: Women’s Studies

  7. 7.

    Scopus international: Keyword: the

  8. 8.

    Scopus Sweden: Keyword: the

See Table 8.

Table 8 Distribution of gender publications (2000–October 2011) across the 13 gender studies centres, WoS and KvinnSam
Full size table

Appendix 3

See Table 9.

Table 9 Journals listed under the subject category “Women’s Studies” in 2012 Journal Citation Report Social Science Edition, and their indexing in WoS and/or Scopus
Full size table

Appendix 4

See Table 10.

Table 10 Numbers of publications for the various databases and searches, and the parameters that describe them for each year
Full size table

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Söderlund, T., Madison, G. Characteristics of gender studies publications: a bibliometric analysis based on a Swedish population database. Scientometrics 105, 1347–1387 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1702-7

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