Journal rankings · indicator year 2017
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Domain ranking · 2017
Social Sciences journal rankings 2017
6,155 ranked journals · Domain
Social Sciences has 6,155 ranked journals in 2017. Its median journal scores above the world average: OJR 1.18 against 1.00, unchanged on 2016. A journal needs OJR 2.24 to reach Q1. The top three are The Quarterly Journal of Economics, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, and Journal of Economic Growth.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2017. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2014–2016, the window the 2017 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Fields in Social Sciences (6)
Up to All journals6,155 ranked journals
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Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2016. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2014–2016, the window the 2017 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2014–2016 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2008 to 2017. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1The Quarterly Journal of EconomicsOxford University Press · United States | 19.58Q1 | 12.19 2.55 up from 2016 | 157 | 53% | $7,619 | ||
2The Journal of Economic PerspectivesOAAmerican Economic Association · United States | 18.42Q1 | 9.39 1.63 down from 2016 | 147 | 60% | — | ||
3Journal of Economic GrowthSpringer Science+Business Media · Netherlands | 17.82Q1 | 13.08 6.50 up from 2016 | 32 | 58% | $4,290 | ||
4Therapeutic Recreation JournalUnited States | 15.84Q1 | 0.45 32.42 down from 2016 | 77 | 10% | — | ||
5American Journal of Political ScienceWiley · United States | 15.79Q1 | 4.60 0.64 down from 2016 | 197 | 23% | $4,100 | ||
6Journal of Interactive MarketingSAGE Publishing · United States | 15.33Q1 | 5.52 3.68 down from 2016 | 66 | 29% | $5,400 | ||
7Academy of Management AnnalsRoutledge · United States | 15.02Q1 | 11.29 0.98 up from 2016 | 87 | 33% | — | ||
8IMF staff discussion noteInternational Monetary Fund | 13.91Q1 | 8.55 2.72 down from 2016 | 46 | 83% | — | ||
9Educational ResearcherSAGE Publishing · United States | 13.67Q1 | 7.13 2.62 down from 2016 | 141 | 15% | $2,500 | ||
10Granular ComputingSpringer Science+Business Media · Switzerland | 13.64Q1 | 20.22 17.03 down from 2016 | 32 | 45% | $2,390 | ||
11Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social MediaOAPublisher not listed | 13.57Q1 | 3.00 2.78 down from 2016 | 83 | 100% | — | ||
12American Sociological ReviewSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 13.34Q1 | 8.07 1.31 up from 2016 | 149 | 37% | $3,900 | ||
13The Internet and Higher EducationElsevier BV · United States | 13.28Q1 | 10.35 1.93 up from 2016 | 97 | 31% | $4,120 | ||
14Journal of MarketingSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 12.52Q1 | 10.60 3.73 up from 2016 | 137 | 18% | $5,400 | ||
15American Economic Journal Applied EconomicsAmerican Economic Association · United States | 12.40Q1 | 8.45 1.58 up from 2016 | 112 | 42% | — | ||
16Journal of the Academy of Marketing ScienceSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 12.28Q1 | 9.83 2.19 up from 2016 | 137 | 35% | $4,790 | ||
17Government Information QuarterlyElsevier BV · United States | 12.19Q1 | 6.88 0.97 up from 2016 | 228 | 31% | $4,360 | ||
18MIS QuarterlyMIS Quarterly · United States | 11.98Q1 | 8.95 0.72 down from 2016 | 179 | 14% | — | ||
19South European Society & PoliticsTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 11.84Q1 | 2.95 1.05 down from 2016 | 96 | 44% | — | ||
20Journal of International Business StudiesPalgrave Macmillan · United Kingdom | 11.73Q1 | 7.17 1.46 down from 2016 | 172 | 47% | $4,790 | ||
21Academy of Management ReviewAcademy of Management · United States | 11.71Q1 | 7.74 0.29 up from 2016 | 140 | 34% | — | ||
22Educational Evaluation and Policy AnalysisSAGE Publishing · United States | 11.63Q1 | 4.30 1.21 down from 2016 | 94 | 10% | $2,500 | ||
23Academy of Management JournalAcademy of Management · United States | 11.56Q1 | 7.27 0.70 down from 2016 | 269 | 30% | — | ||
24The Journal of FinanceWiley · United States | 10.83Q1 | 5.39 1.05 down from 2016 | 273 | 30% | $4,430 | ||
25Harvard Educational ReviewHarvard University Press · United States | 10.72Q1 | 3.58 1.88 down from 2016 | 112 | 23% | — | ||
26Translation SpacesJohn Benjamins Publishing Company · Netherlands | 10.54Q1 | 6.23 4.44 up from 2016 | 39 | 30% | — | ||
27Big Data & SocietyOASAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 10.44Q1 | 4.94 3.41 down from 2016 | 132 | 100% | $2,000 | ||
28Journal of Accounting and EconomicsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 10.42Q1 | 4.33 0.79 down from 2016 | 123 | 29% | $4,170 | ||
29International SecurityThe MIT Press · United States | 10.37Q1 | 4.58 1.24 up from 2016 | 75 | 19% | — | ||
30European Journal of Political ResearchOAWiley · United Kingdom | 10.35Q1 | 3.91 1.12 up from 2016 | 138 | 42% | $3,550 | ||
31Journal of Business VenturingElsevier BV · Netherlands | 10.29Q1 | 7.96 1.40 up from 2016 | 93 | 41% | $4,130 | ||
32Tourism ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 10.22Q1 | 6.09 0.23 up from 2016 | 645 | 30% | $4,690 | ||
33American Political Science ReviewCambridge University Press · United States | 10.14Q1 | 4.27 0.58 up from 2016 | 178 | 36% | $3,550 | ||
34Journal of Accounting ResearchWiley · United Kingdom | 10.07Q1 | 5.86 1.13 up from 2016 | 101 | 33% | $4,420 | ||
35Sociology of EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 10.05Q1 | 3.86 0.87 down from 2016 | 60 | 14% | $3,650 | ||
36International Journal of Information ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 10.04Q1 | 6.59 0.05 up from 2016 | 298 | 21% | $3,990 | ||
37California Management ReviewSAGE Publishing · United States | 10.04Q1 | 6.55 1.67 up from 2016 | 87 | 25% | $3,900 | ||
38Research on Language and Social InteractionTaylor & Francis · United States | 10.03Q1 | 2.76 0.07 up from 2016 | 74 | 46% | — | ||
39International Journal of Research & Method in EducationRoutledge · United Kingdom | 10.02Q1 | 9.26 2.91 up from 2016 | 103 | 40% | — | ||
40Journal of Political EconomyUniversity of Chicago Press · United States | 9.96Q1 | 6.70 1.64 up from 2016 | 146 | 27% | — | ||
41Journal of European Public PolicyRoutledge · United Kingdom | 9.87Q1 | 4.42 0.70 up from 2016 | 293 | 52% | — | ||
42Journal of Financial EconomicsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 9.84Q1 | 5.02 0.41 down from 2016 | 393 | 31% | $4,740 | ||
43American Journal of SociologyUniversity of Chicago Press · United States | 9.83Q1 | 5.48 1.20 up from 2016 | 125 | 8% | — | ||
44Entrepreneurship Theory and PracticeSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.83Q1 | 6.19 0.55 down from 2016 | 147 | 29% | $3,900 | ||
45QMiP BulletinBritish Psychological Society | 9.80Q1 | 7.27 3.23 up from 2016 | 78 | 23% | — | ||
46Annual Review of Applied LinguisticsCambridge University Press · United Kingdom | 9.80Q1 | 8.03 3.07 up from 2016 | 45 | 32% | $3,550 | ||
47Journal of Operations ManagementWiley · United States | 9.76Q1 | 4.90 1.55 down from 2016 | 141 | 22% | $3,520 | ||
48Review of Educational ResearchSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.75Q1 | 11.73 3.73 up from 2016 | 82 | 19% | $2,500 | ||
49Progress in Human GeographySAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 9.71Q1 | 5.19 0.24 up from 2016 | 205 | 30% | $3,900 | ||
50Journal of Teacher EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.68Q1 | 3.33 1.27 down from 2016 | 128 | 21% | $3,900 |
Fields of Social Sciences, compared.
- Social Sciences2,959
- Psychology976
- Economics, Econometrics and Finance834
- Business, Management and Accounting723
- Arts and Humanities472
- Decision Sciences191
Journals
Citations made in 2017. Corpus-wide, 77.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
1,695 additional Social Sciences journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2014–2016, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2017. Publication window: 2014–2016. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 6,155
- Window papers (baseline)
- 3,128,445 +14.4% from indicator year 2014
- Median OJR
- 1.181 -4.4% from indicator year 2014
- Rising journals (2025)
- 301
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2014–2016 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 2,933 | 3,074 | 3,257 | 3,421 | 3,551 | 3,684 | 3,847 | 4,034 | 4,222 | 4,411 | 4,638 | 4,858 | 5,103 | 5,326 | 5,550 | 5,769 | 5,975 | 6,155 | 6,251 | 6,310 | 6,367 | 6,458 | 6,516 | 6,519 | 6,456 | 6,382 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 973,082 | 1,101,576 | 1,187,966 | 1,289,835 | 1,324,068 | 1,431,668 | 1,541,994 | 1,678,086 | 1,825,065 | 1,985,403 | 2,148,912 | 2,303,999 | 2,468,040 | 2,603,480 | 2,734,303 | 2,869,634 | 3,018,278 | 3,128,445 | 3,209,329 | 3,319,936 | 3,489,326 | 3,755,807 | 4,010,665 | 4,149,019 | 4,247,103 | 4,426,831 | |
| Median OJR | 0.81 | 0.86 | 0.88 | 0.92 | 0.96 | 1.0001 | 1.063 | 1.14 | 1.196 | 1.22 | 1.242 | 1.25 | 1.26 | 1.241 | 1.236 | 1.204 | 1.179 | 1.181 | 1.165 | 1.183 | 1.158 | 1.09 | 1.067 | 1.057 | 1.065 | 1.08 |
| Measure | Category statistic | Eligible population |
|---|---|---|
| Journal self-citation share | Median: 4.6% | 4,027 journals |
| Retracted papers per 1,000 | Pooled rate: 1.605 per 1,000 | 3,404 journals |
| Output growth | Median: -2.2% | 5,924 journals |
| Open access share | Median: 56.3% | 6,382 journals |
| Listed APC (USD) | Median including $0 listed prices: $3,390 | 2,626 ranked journals with a known listed price, including $0 listed prices |
| International collaboration share | Median: 20.9% | 5,817 journals |
| Review share | Median: 0.0% | 6,382 journals |
| Articles-only OJR | Median: 1.12 | 6,330 journals |
| Uncited share | Median: 42.6% | 6,382 journals |
| Citation concentration | Median: 49.1% | 6,369 journals |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.