PSTC faculty affiliate Rachel Franklin recently co-authored “Who Counts? Gender, Gatekeeping, and Quantitative Human Geography,” published in The Professional Geographer. With a focus on the demographic composition of the editorial teams of flagship quantitative geography journals, Franklin and her team investigated the persistent lack of gender diversity amongst academics in quantitative human geography. 

In the study’s sample, women proved underrepresented, holding just 31.5 percent of editorial roles. The research also highlighted the international imbalance in quantitative human geography, as scholars from Anglophone countries have disproportionate representation on editorial boards. An unexpected and rather disappointing finding came from diagrams that measured seniority (years since PhD) alongside gender, and indicated that most journals maintain their male majority across various age groups. 

“I would have expected the ‘younger’ cohorts to be more balanced, or even for females to exceed males in these cohorts, since I believe the gender balance is more equal in more recent PhDs,” Franklin explained. “That is, I can see why editorial teams would be mostly male, if the entire team was more senior—there simply aren't as many women to choose from in those older cohorts. If teams are more balanced in terms of age (by which I mean years since PhD), then I would have expected more women.” 

As noted in the article, the indication that journals display bias in favor of males even in younger cohorts—where there are more female PhDs to select—represents “a wider pipeline problem across the field and risks perpetuating the gatekeeping cycle.” 

Franklin noted that while human geography overall appears fairly balanced by gender—though, she added, remains dominated by non-Hispanic whites— the more quantitative subfields, such as GIScience, spatial analysis, and population, tend to be male-dominated, an observation that motivated the study’s focus on quantitative human geography journals. Of the gatekeeping cycle, Franklin reflected, “Where gender (and other characteristics such as race or ethnicity) is concerned, it really does matter who is selected for journal editorships and boards. These individuals act as gatekeepers in terms of what research is considered valuable (and publishable), but these positions also provide visibility for individuals in their field. And both matter for career development and trajectory.” 

Franklin added that while she has an excellent network of female colleagues in geography—many, she notes, from the PSTC, S4 and Brown—the lack of diversity has always been glaring. “I am sure that I am not alone in mentally tallying the number of female keynote speakers at a conference, or editorial board members on a journal. I find myself frequently doing a mental check of the presence of women in the visible parts of our field,” she said. “So, this paper was largely a realization of something I was already doing on an ad hoc basis. I bet other people do it too—the looking to see themselves reflected in their field or occupation.”

The research confirmed what Franklin had informally observed, but it also opened the door for conversation. To address the lack of diversity in in quantitative human geography, or any academic discipline, for that matter, Franklin cited two main objectives: increasing the diversity of those who receive PhDs and go into academia and retaining those individuals in the field once they are there. These objectives might be accomplished through concrete steps to increase visibility, such as inviting scholars from underrepresented groups to give seminars and conference keynotes and join editorial boards, as well as for journals to add more junior women to their editorial boards. 

“As disciplines build fences, they by definition exclude some people, research areas, and methodological approaches,” she reasoned. “The conclusions of the paper hold for all social science disciplines. How do we ensure that our fields are inclusive and representative, but also dynamic and healthy?”