Rice Journal Jumps in Global Rankings

By Dawn Dorsey

Since Feminist Economics was named the best new journal in 1997, it’s been obvious the publication fills a need—and does it well. A recent report of a jump in the journal’s citation rankings adds more proof.

Diana Strassman

Founded by Diana Strassmann, a Rice professor of the practice in humanities, the journal was ranked 35th—up from 135th last year—among 172 economics journals in the ISI Social Science Citation Index, the most prestigious index for scholarly social science journals. Among women’s studies journals, it placed third out of 27.

This is made even more significant by the fact that only about 8 percent of journals published internationally are covered by the index. The rankings are based on the number of articles cited in other scholarly works during 2003 and 2004 and provide an indication of a journal’s impact.

When Strassmann started the journal almost 12 years ago, nothing like it existed, and she says Rice’s support of Feminist Economics has been instrumental from the beginning. The journal’s staff has grown to include three full-time editorial staff members as well as several graduate student fellows. It has almost 400 institutional subscribers and 600 individual subscribers.