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This paper documents and estimates the extent of underrepresentation of women and people of color on the pages of Wikipedia devoted to contemporary American sociologists. In contrast to the demographic diversity of the discipline, sociologists represented on Wikipedia are largely white men. The gender and racial/ethnic gaps in likelihood of representation have exhibited little change over time. Using novel data, we estimate the “risk” of having a Wikipedia page for a sample of contemporary sociologists. We show that the observed differences (in academic rank, length of career, and notability measured with both H-index and departmental reputation) between men and women sociologists and whites and nonwhites, respectively, explain only about half of the differences in the likelihood of being represented on Wikipedia. The article also enumerates both supply- and demand-side mechanisms that may account for these continuing gaps in representation.
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The Ladies Vanish? American Sociology and the Genealogy of its Missing Women on Wikipedia
Many notable female sociologists have vanished from the canonical history of American sociology. As the most influential crowd-sourced encyclopedia, Wikipedia promises – but does not necessarily deliver – a democratic corrective to the generation of knowledge, including academic knowledge. This article explores multiple mechanisms by which women either enter or disappear from the disciplinary record by analyzing the unfolding interaction between the canonical disciplinary history of sociology and Wikipedia. We argue that the uneven representation of women sociologists as (1) remembered, (2) neglected, (3) erased or, finally, (4) recovered is shaped by the emerging interactional space of knowledge production.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1322971
- PAR ID:
- 10086411
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Comparative sociology
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 1569-1330
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 519-556
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/DOI:https://doi.org/10.1163/15691330-12341471
