The 1990s Publication Productivity of Schools of Social Work with Doctoral Programs: “The Times, are They A-Changin'?”

The majority of previous studies of publication productivity of social work faculty reviewed only a handful of social work journals and did not distinguish between types of academic programs. This study focuses on 1,349 full-length articles published by the faculty of 45 U.S. doctoral programs between January 1990 and September 1993 in 21 social work journals and 193 non-social work journals. Analysis of the rankings of journals and of the total and per capita production of individual programs produced several notable findings: programs varied greatly in publication rates, but 42.2% averaged less than one article per faculty member during the 3 3/4 years studied; seven journals contained nearly 60% of the articles in social work journals; and over 40% of the articles appeared in non-social work journals. Implications of these findings for professional education are identified and discussed.