Diversity and Philosophy Journals

Nicole Hassoun, Sherri Conklin, and I have been working on a list of "best practices" or (less ambitiously) "practices to consider" for philosophy journals that wish to increase the demographic diversity of their authors.  Toward this end, we organized a session at the APA on diversity in philosophy journals, as well as inviting a series of reflections on these issues the Blog of the APA.

Below is our list of recommendations, along with a brief introduction.

The other blog posts in the series are:

• Diversity and Philosophy Journals: Introduction (Nicole Hassoun, Eric Schwitzgebel, and Subrena Smith, Aug. 23, 2018). 
• Diversity and Philosophy Journals: How to Avoid Conservative Gatekeeping (Rebecca Kukla, Aug. 30, 2018).
• Diversity and Philosophy Journals: Sophia's History of Encouraging Diversity (Purushottama Bilimoria, Sep. 6, 2018)
• Diversity and Philosophy Journals: Some Comments on Diversity (Stephen Hetherington, Sep. 13, 2018).
• Diversity and Philosophy Journals: Reforming Philosophy (Sven-Ove Hansson, Sep. 20, 2018).
• Women in Philosophy: The Words to Say It (Subrena E. Smith, Sep. 26, 2018).
• Diversity and Philosophy Journals: Diverse Aims at MIND (A.W. Moore & Lucy O'Brien, Oct. 1, 2018).

[the below was originally posted at The Blog of the APA]

Diversity and Philosophy Journals: Practices for Improving Diversity in Philosophy Journal Publishing

by Sherri Conklin, Nicole Hassoun, and Eric Schwitzgebel

The Demographics in Philosophy project aims to increase diversity in the discipline. To this end, we have initiated a broadly consultative process to arrive at a list of potentially diversity-enhancing practices.

So far, we have:

• Collected and analyzed data on under-representation in 56 philosophy journals from 1880-2010.
• Conducted a survey of 50 philosophy journals to evaluate current practices and results.
• Held an open meeting at the Pacific Division APA with the editors of 20 leading philosophy journals to discuss possible improvements.
• Circulated this list widely to those with expertise on diversity issues, including the editors of 100 journals, and recruited the editors of five journals to discuss their experiences at greater length on the Blog of the APA.

We are seeking feedback from the larger philosophical community on these ideas here.

Our main recommendations are just these:

1. Set specific, achievable targets to make progress in increasing diversity in your journal.
2. Implement promising practices to increase diversity in your journal and meet these targets.
3. Collect data and evaluate progress at regular intervals and revise practices accordingly.

While we do not aim to defend any particular way of setting these targets here, and different journals may set more or less ambitious targets, we hope that all journals will set targets and take positive steps that will eventually yield proportional representation. This may require ensuring that members of under-represented groups can publish at least in proportion to their presence as faculty in the discipline or in proportion to their presence as researchers with a particular AOS. Targets even higher than proportional representation might be desirable to restore balance after a period of inequity or due to the special value of perspectives of members from some under-represented groups on some issues.

Some of our concrete ideas for improvement will no doubt be controversial, but editors seeking to increase diversity in the profession can implement the practices most compatible with their journal’s aims and needs, and we believe the evidence supports many of the suggestions we provide for positive change.

Ultimately, we believe that bringing about positive change just requires a bit of effort. We think that, if we really want to improve diversity in the profession, we can. We invite you to collaborate with us in doing so.

Editorial Practices to Consider to Improve the Diversity of Philosophy Journals 

1. Diversify representatives – editors, editorial board members, referees, trustees, staff, etc. – to include more people from under-represented groups and on important but neglected topics of interest to a diverse range of philosophers, utilizing a diverse range of methods.

• Commit to inclusion with influence. However, also be cautious about creating disproportionate burdens on members of under-represented groups, especially if those burdens do not come with public recognition. 

2. Set specific, achievable targets to make progress in increasing diversity in your journal. 

• For under-represented groups, long-term targets might include publishing and promoting their work at least in proportion to their presence in the part of the discipline that your journal covers. 

3. Implement promising practices to meet these targets and increase diversity in your journal, such as: 

• Solicit submissions of promising work by members of under-represented groups. (PhilPeople might be a useful resource.)
• Reserve more space for articles by members of under-represented groups to help meet specific targets.
• Publish more papers of interest to under-represented groups in philosophy and on important but neglected topics of interest to a diverse range of philosophers.
• When inviting authors always bear in mind the importance of increasing diversity in the field (potentially via special issues).
• Ensure fair practice in weighing the value of anonymity and non-anonymous editorial discretion, bearing in mind that evidence is mixed regarding the effectiveness of anonymous review in increasing diversity. Take special care to ensure that any non-anonymous parts of the review process do not omit or unfairly disadvantage authors from under-represented groups.
• Attend to your regional context as well as the overall global context (e.g. the importance of including adequate geographical and indigenous representation in your journal). 

4. Implement diversity-supporting referee practices, such as:

• Encourage referees and authors to avoid using language that is insensitive to cultural differences or that inappropriately excludes or offends any group of people based on their ability/disability, age, ethnicity and race, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, nationality, etc.
• Encourage referees and authors to check that papers cite and discuss a fair representation of relevant work by members of under-represented groups.
• Encourage referees to consider accepting papers on topics of interest to under-represented groups in philosophy and on important but neglected topics of interest to a diverse range of philosophers.
• Encourage referees to not reject promising papers on grounds of writing quality, if the concerns are merely stylistic, can be repaired to an adequate level, and the philosophical content is good. This helps ensure fair consideration of work by philosophers who are not native speakers of English. 
• Encourage timely and developmental reviews, since members of vulnerable groups are especially disadvantaged by long delays before publication. 

5. Implement promising practices to increase accessibility in journals, such as: 

• Create structurally-tagged content.
• Utilize text-to-speech capability for print-impaired users in the absence of an audio book. 
• Include a navigable table of contents within your publications, and provide a defined reading order (including, for example, appropriate links between the main flow of the text and any sidebar or box out text) to help those reading through audio to navigate their way through the article.  
• Include Alt-text descriptions to explain illustrations for readers with reduced access to graphic information. 
• Give readers control over the font (size, style, and color), background color, and line spacing for online publications, and/or make them available in html. 
• Consider trying to make your journal more accessible for those in developing countries by making your journal open access in those regions.
• Employ W3C web accessibility standards where feasible, and check for web accessibility. 

6. Collect data on diversity relevant publishing practices, e.g. submission and publication rates for members of under-represented groups, referee and editorial board composition, etc. and track progress in increasing diversity in your journal.

7. Evaluate progress at regular intervals and revise practices accordingly. 

• Work with researchers to isolate and implement evidence-based practices that increase diversity in academic philosophy journals. 

 8. Officially adopt these diversity-promoting practices and widely publicize your journal’s targets and commitment to promoting diversity. 

• • Inform all representatives and bind future representatives to uphold these standards. 
• • Publicly and explicitly adopt diversity-promoting practices, helping to create a culture of concern that enhances the journal’s reputation for welcoming diversity, attracting more diverse submissions.

Promoting diversity, if done well, ought to improve the quality of work in your journal, expanding the pool of contributors and the range of submitted work relevant to your journal’s mission.

Created by the Demographics in Philosophy Project: https://www.facebook.com/PhilosophyData/

In addition to enhancing diversity in philosophy journal publishing, we would like to begin emphasizing things we can do to enhance diversity in the discipline more widely. We encourage feedback on this piece as well as ideas about how to implement inclusive practices for hiring and tenuring in philosophy departments and inclusive advising for PhD students. Please also help us in encouraging journals and departments to improve their practices!

[image source]