Journal rankings · indicator year 2019
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Domain ranking · 2019
Social Sciences journal rankings 2019
6,310 ranked journals · Domain
Social Sciences has 6,310 ranked journals in 2019. Its median journal scores above the world average: OJR 1.18 against 1.00, up 0.02 on 2018. A journal needs OJR 2.15 to reach Q1. The top three are The Quarterly Journal of Economics, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, and Annual Review of Applied Linguistics.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2019. 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 2016–2018, the window the 2019 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 journals6,310 ranked journals
Filters
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 2018. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2016–2018, the window the 2019 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2016–2018 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 2010 to 2019. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1The Quarterly Journal of EconomicsOxford University Press · United States | 22.56Q1 | 17.65 1.76 up from 2018 | 133 | 59% | $7,619 | ||
2The Journal of Economic PerspectivesOAAmerican Economic Association · United States | 20.12Q1 | 20.07 8.10 up from 2018 | 146 | 100% | — | ||
3Annual Review of Applied LinguisticsCambridge University Press · United Kingdom | 17.24Q1 | 3.82 1.27 down from 2018 | 47 | 35% | $3,550 | ||
4Academy of Management AnnalsRoutledge · United States | 15.97Q1 | 18.48 1.82 up from 2018 | 96 | 31% | — | ||
5American Political Science ReviewCambridge University Press · United States | 13.81Q1 | 8.50 3.31 up from 2018 | 228 | 54% | $3,550 | ||
6Journal of democracyJohns Hopkins University Press · United States | 13.76Q1 | 5.24 0.62 down from 2018 | 221 | 3% | — | ||
7Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological ScienceOASAGE Publishing · United States | 13.61Q1 | 17.05no 2018 value | 43 | 68% | $2,000 | — | |
8Social Issues and Policy ReviewWiley · United States | 13.56Q1 | 10.96 1.57 down from 2018 | 32 | 56% | $3,800 | ||
9American Sociological ReviewSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 12.86Q1 | 10.80 1.40 up from 2018 | 136 | 30% | $3,900 | ||
10International SecurityThe MIT Press · United States | 12.62Q1 | 5.71 0.94 up from 2018 | 78 | 33% | — | ||
11American Journal of Political ScienceWiley · United States | 12.24Q1 | 8.18 1.40 up from 2018 | 149 | 39% | $4,100 | ||
12The Internet and Higher EducationElsevier BV · United States | 11.93Q1 | 11.79 3.55 up from 2018 | 83 | 8% | $4,120 | ||
13Critical Historical StudiesUniversity of Chicago Press · United States | 11.40Q1 | 0.22 1.03 down from 2018 | 33 | 12% | — | ||
14Review of Research in EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 11.26Q1 | 10.09 5.15 up from 2018 | 58 | 42% | $2,500 | ||
15Journal of MarketingSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 11.19Q1 | 7.74 3.13 down from 2018 | 151 | 34% | $5,400 | ||
16South European Society & PoliticsTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 11.15Q1 | 5.83 1.95 up from 2018 | 88 | 60% | — | ||
17Journal of European Public PolicyRoutledge · United Kingdom | 11.10Q1 | 6.75 1.37 up from 2018 | 293 | 55% | — | ||
18International OrganizationUniversity of Cambridge · United States | 10.37Q1 | 9.22 4.30 up from 2018 | 130 | 39% | $3,550 | ||
19Tourism ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 10.32Q1 | 9.44 2.34 up from 2018 | 682 | 26% | $4,690 | ||
20Big Data & SocietyOASAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 10.24Q1 | 9.22 1.03 up from 2018 | 138 | 100% | $2,000 | ||
21Journal of Interactive MarketingSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.86Q1 | 9.11 1.78 up from 2018 | 97 | 40% | $5,400 | ||
22Journal of Economic GrowthSpringer Science+Business Media · Netherlands | 9.82Q1 | 3.95 3.49 down from 2018 | 34 | 46% | $4,290 | ||
23Comparative Political StudiesSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.73Q1 | 5.99 0.29 down from 2018 | 201 | 35% | $3,900 | ||
24Sociology of EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.65Q1 | 5.98 1.93 up from 2018 | 63 | 18% | $3,650 | ||
25Educational ResearcherSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.64Q1 | 6.40 0.57 up from 2018 | 157 | 28% | $2,500 | ||
26Progress in Human GeographySAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 9.56Q1 | 6.37 0.92 up from 2018 | 199 | 42% | $3,900 | ||
27European Journal of Political ResearchOAWiley · United Kingdom | 9.53Q1 | 5.01 0.86 up from 2018 | 179 | 57% | $3,550 | ||
28American Educational Research JournalSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 9.50Q1 | 5.89 0.77 up from 2018 | 186 | 16% | $2,500 | ||
29Government Information QuarterlyElsevier BV · United States | 9.43Q1 | 8.01 1.03 up from 2018 | 211 | 43% | $4,360 | ||
30West European PoliticsTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 9.41Q1 | 4.13 0.51 up from 2018 | 223 | 72% | — | ||
31Modern Language JournalWiley · United States | 9.27Q1 | 5.59 0.69 up from 2018 | 151 | 24% | $3,800 | ||
32Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social MediaOAPublisher not listed | 9.19Q1 | 5.17 0.36 up from 2018 | 226 | 100% | — | ||
33Educational Evaluation and Policy AnalysisSAGE Publishing · United States | 8.95Q1 | 4.80 0.97 down from 2018 | 86 | 17% | $2,500 | ||
34Psychological BulletinAmerican Psychological Association · United States | 8.92Q1 | 23.91 2.84 up from 2018 | 126 | 39% | — | ||
35Cultural AnthropologyOAWiley · United States | 8.86Q1 | 6.49 2.24 up from 2018 | 102 | 100% | — | ||
36Journal of Second Language WritingElsevier BV · United States | 8.84Q1 | 3.23 0.17 down from 2018 | 101 | 5% | $3,830 | ||
37American Economic Journal Applied EconomicsAmerican Economic Association · United States | 8.84Q1 | 8.20 1.75 up from 2018 | 112 | 53% | — | ||
38Harvard Educational ReviewHarvard University Press · United States | 8.82Q1 | 6.32 1.35 up from 2018 | 108 | 36% | — | ||
39Academy of Management JournalAcademy of Management · United States | 8.79Q1 | 7.41 1.13 down from 2018 | 262 | 30% | — | ||
40Journal of Business VenturingElsevier BV · Netherlands | 8.73Q1 | 8.60 0.97 down from 2018 | 152 | 35% | $4,130 | ||
41European Journal of International RelationsSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 8.67Q1 | 5.56 2.01 up from 2018 | 104 | 48% | $3,900 | ||
42Journal of Teacher EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 8.67Q1 | 5.23 1.21 up from 2018 | 142 | 19% | $3,900 | ||
43International Studies QuarterlyOxford University Press · United States | 8.65Q1 | 4.68 1.15 up from 2018 | 202 | 30% | $4,320 | ||
44International Journal of Information ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 8.61Q1 | 12.37 3.36 up from 2018 | 397 | 27% | $3,990 | ||
45American Journal of SociologyUniversity of Chicago Press · United States | 8.58Q1 | 6.00 0.27 down from 2018 | 128 | 6% | — | ||
46The Future of ChildrenPrinceton School of Public and International Affairs · United States | 8.57Q1 | 9.67 3.80 up from 2018 | 39 | 13% | — | ||
47Journal of ManagementSAGE Publishing · United States | 8.54Q1 | 6.99 0.89 down from 2018 | 231 | 37% | $3,900 | ||
48Journal of International Business StudiesPalgrave Macmillan · United Kingdom | 8.52Q1 | 9.13 0.39 up from 2018 | 189 | 44% | $4,790 | ||
49Personality and Social Psychology ReviewSAGE Publishing · United States | 8.51Q1 | 17.33 3.45 up from 2018 | 39 | 82% | $3,900 | ||
50Entrepreneurship Theory and PracticeSAGE Publishing · United States | 8.41Q1 | 5.22 2.57 down from 2018 | 137 | 58% | $3,900 |
Fields of Social Sciences, compared.
- Social Sciences3,028
- Psychology1,008
- Economics, Econometrics and Finance849
- Business, Management and Accounting731
- Arts and Humanities507
- Decision Sciences187
Journals
Citations made in 2019. Corpus-wide, 83.4% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
1,726 additional Social Sciences journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2016–2018, 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: 2019. Publication window: 2016–2018. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 6,310
- Window papers (baseline)
- 3,319,936 +10.0% from indicator year 2016
- Median OJR
- 1.183 +0.3% from indicator year 2016
- Rising journals (2025)
- 301
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2016–2018 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.