Abstract
I am grateful to Fanniff and Alexander (this issue) for so cogently and powerfully articulating why Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) considerations are important for this journal. Social science is conducted by people, within existing systems, and it is increasingly clear that people and systems can be biased in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. There are many potential forms of bias that can influence the design, handling, interpretation, dissemination, and journal review process of research. Fanniff and Alexander point out how racism and other forms of bias are relevant in the research that is published in this journal, given race and ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation can be associated with perpetration, victimization, reporting, law enforcement, and criminal justice and social service processes that in turn influence how we understand sexual exploitation and abuse.
In this editorial, I 1 will summarize actions the journal will be taking as part of a JEDI initiative. These actions are the culmination of an extensive process of consultation led by Fanniff and myself with the Editorial Board and other stakeholders. I am committed to the following efforts by Sexual Abuse to begin facilitating sustained change in how this journal operates.
Describing Sociocultural Identities of Sample
The submission guidelines will specifically instruct authors to describe the demographics of their sample in more detail, including race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sex, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, primary language, and any other participant characteristics that are particularly relevant to the research questions. Justification of a study’s reliance on WEIRD (Westernized, Educated, Industrialized, Rich Democracies: Henrich et al., 2010) samples should be provided, and authors should consider including sample descriptors in the title or abstract of the manuscript (see Buchanan et al., 2021). Researchers are therefore encouraged to collect data on a range of demographic characteristics and identities. Researchers should also explicitly document how these identities were operationalized and assessed (American Psychological Association, 2019). The reasons for selecting a particular sample should be explicitly stated (e.g., Rad et al., 2018). Information regarding all relevant characteristics might not be available for all studies; the reasons this information is not available can be provided. There may be circumstances in which some details are unavailable, for example, research using administrative correctional datasets or file reviews with missing information.
Nonetheless, my hope is that providing more information about participants and sampling will become the norm, as it is impossible for the consumers of research to consider generalizability of results if the characteristics of the study sample are not well described. In their analysis of all articles published in 2014 in Psychological Science—a flagship journal in psychological sciences—Rad et al. (2018) found that only gender was reported in a majority of samples, and even then in only 75% of samples; race/ethnicity was unreported in 80% of samples, socioeconomic status was unreported in 92% of samples, and education 2 was unreported in 48% of samples. Authors will also be asked to explicitly address the limits to generalizability associated with the sample demographics.
Language
Authors will be reminded this journal adheres to the publication style of the American Psychological Association, which includes guidelines about bias-free and person-first language. We have specifically addressed person-first language in this journal (see Seto, 2018; Willis & Letourneau, 2018). Consistent with Buchanan et al.’s (2021) recommendation, we will also encourage authors to use system-centered language when appropriate, which means framing data and results in terms of the systemic structures that maintain disparate outcomes (O’Reilly, 2020). For example, low socioeconomic status is often described as a characteristic of people, but this framing ignores historical and contemporary systemic forces (e.g., redlining in the United States) that cause some people to have lower incomes and earning potential than others (see American Psychological Association, 2019, for an open access document suggesting alternative framing).
Prioritization of Research on Diverse Samples and Research that Takes a Diversity Science Approach
(Miller et al., 2019) have argued that research is more rigorous and generative when researchers are “mindful of historical patterns of oppression and inequality” (p. 1243), work in diverse teams to conduct research with diverse samples, consider intersectionality, and focus on the translation of science to real-world settings and audiences.
As a psychologist by training, I am aware that the American Psychological Association (2019) encourages psychology researchers to consider race, ethnicity, and related constructs in psychological research. Explicitly describing how race, sex, gender, and other characteristics were operationalized would be a relatively simple change that would advance our understanding of these constructs. For example, authors may consider using updating the categories offered for individuals to select their racial and ethnic identity (e.g., https://www.census.gov/about/our-research/race-ethnicity.html), asking separate questions regarding sex and gender, and noting whether participants provided their identities or they were coded from administrative files.
A Commitment to Highlighting the Work of BIPOC3 Researchers and Others with Marginalized Identities
Researchers with marginalized identities face a variety of barriers to academic success, including devaluing research topics that BIPOC and other scholars are more likely to focus on (e.g., Hoppe et al., 2019), and being cited less often than White scholars (e.g., Bertolero et al., 2020; Ginther et al., 2018). The journal will thus provide temporary open access to articles written by self-identified BIPOC authors, if they agree, to increase visibility of their work. Further, the journal will provide temporary open access for articles written by geographically underrepresented authors (including lower-income nations in the European Union, and authors based in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Central and South America), to increase visibility of their work as well as recognize economic disparities, such that local and regional colleagues may not be able to access (and thus cite) work published behind publisher paywalls (an important argument for more open access distribution, including preprint repositories and open access publishing options).
Reducing Bias in the Review Process
I increased the diversity of the Editorial Board when I became Editor-in-Chief in 2015 in terms of age, gender, nationality, and professional discipline. I will continue to make efforts to diversify the editorial board. We will also be working with the publisher to introduce options for authors, editorial board members, and reviewers to self-identify regarding gender and race/ethnicity, in order to collect data to later analyze whether there are differences in acceptance rates based on these characteristics. The American Psychological Association, for example, invites reviewers to indicate their gender, race/ethnicity, and disability status. This can be extremely helpful, as I was able to examine manuscript submission data by author country and therefore identify geographic underrepresentation.
Thanks to funds provided by the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, we will be able to offer subsidies for professional English copy-editing for manuscripts that are invited to revise and resubmit when one of the common expectations for acceptance is writing quality in English for authors with a different primary language. This subsidy recognizes that many otherwise worthy submissions are disadvantaged because the authors are not fluent in English, resulting in a bias towards English-fluent authors and likely research by WEIRD authors on WEIRD samples. We will also work with reviewers to ensure that recommendations are primarily based on the quality of the research and readability, rather than English fluency.
Open Call for Papers Addressing JEDI Considerations
To advance the field, we encourage authors to submit papers focusing on characteristics such as age, gender, sex, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and other marginalized (or privileged) aspects of personal identities (e.g., Diemer et al., 2013; Helms, 2007). Past research, including research published in this journal, has addressed age (and developmental stage) and gender/sex (Schudson et al., 2019), but relatively few studies have focused on race and/or ethnicity, and fewer still have considered other characteristics. Fanniff and Alexander (this issue) provides examples of research questions that could be addressed (see Table 1 in Fanniff and Alexander). Guidance on how to standardize description of characteristics across existing systems would also be helpful, given the journal’s international readership and scope.
Conclusions
These are only the first steps towards greater justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in this journal; the work is ongoing. I am pleased to have support for launching a set of concrete actions that this journal can take to improve scientific research on sexual exploitation and abuse perpetration. I am particularly eager to commit to measuring and analyzing information about author, editorial board, and reviewer characteristics in order to evaluate change over time. I hope that others will take the call by Fanniff and Alexander (this issue) to analyze the articles appearing in this journal to assess the impact of this initiative.