The Role of Editorship in the Development of Social Sciences and a Sociological Study on Academic Journal Editors
Author: Gulerce, Hakan , hakangulerce@gmail.com
Department: Social Change Social Structure
University: Istanbul University, Turkey
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Veysel Bozkurt
Year of completion: 2012
Language of dissertation: Turkish
Keywords:
social science
, editorship
, academic journal
, referee
Areas of Research:
Social Classes and Social Movements
, Science and Technology
, Professional Groups
Abstract
In the field of social sciences, peer-reviewed academic journals and these journals’ editors have distinguished roles in establishing academic standards and improving them. Editors of peer-reviewed journals have an important role in the production, development, and accumulation of scientific knowledge but we must deal with the issue that whether they perform their duties properly or not. This thesis entitled “The Role of Editorship in the Development of Social Sciences and a Sociological Study on Academic Journal Editors” explores the relationship between the social sciences and editors in the general sense and then includes findings of an in-depth research about editors of academic journals in the field of the social sciences. Our general focus is the institution of editorship but in our field research we focused only on journal editors for the sake of an in-depth analysis. The aim of this research is to test our hypothesis: namely that the institution of editorship does not function properly. The study also aims to show why and how state editors’ are not performing their duties and offer solutions. The main purpose of this thesis is urge editors to think about their roles more critically. This research tries to offer reasonable evaluations for why the social sciences are underdeveloped in Turkey.
