British Journal of Sociology: JIF & Scope

British Journal of Sociology

The British Journal of Sociology (BJS) is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the London School of Economics and Political Science (print ISSN 0007-1315, online ISSN 1468-4446). Founded in 1950, it publishes foundational scholarship across quantitative and qualitative sociology, holding a 2024 Journal Impact Factor of 3.3 in Clarivate's Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 7 Nov 2026

Overview of the British Journal of Sociology

The British Journal of Sociology is one of the oldest and most prestigious sociological periodicals in the United Kingdom. Established in 1950 at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), the publication was created to provide a dedicated platform for rigorous empirical inquiry and theoretical debate. As a leading british sociology journal, it is published quarterly by Wiley-Blackwell under Print ISSN 0007-1315 and Electronic ISSN 1468-4446, with indexing recorded in the National Library of Medicine (NLM ID 0373126, abbreviated as Br J Sociol).

The editorial purview of the british journal sociology tradition encompasses mainstream sociological research that appeals to an international scholarly readership. It features investigations into social stratification, class dynamics, race and racialization, political sociology, culture, and economic structures. Within academic curricula and research planning, scholars examine these dimensions alongside fundamental questions about what is sociology and comparative institutional frameworks addressed in sociology vs anthropology.

British Journal of Sociology Impact Factor and Bibliometric Profile

The British Journal of Sociology impact factor is tracked annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) as part of the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). The two-year Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is calculated by dividing the citations received during a target year by articles published in the preceding two calendar years by the total number of citable items published in that same timeframe.

For the 2024 JCR release, the British Journal of Sociology holds an impact factor of 3.3. This citation performance places the journal firmly in Quartile 1 (Q1) among international peer-reviewed sociology periodicals. Beyond Clarivate analytics, the journal is indexed across major bibliographic services including Scopus, MEDLINE/PubMed, and Crossref, reflecting continuous citation activity across sociology, social policy, and political science.

Editorial Governance, Peer Review, and Academic Prizes

The journal is editorially housed within the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics. Editorial leadership is directed by Co-Editors Dr Rebecca Elliott, Professor Sam Friedman, Dr Ali Meghji, and Professor Aaron Reeves, alongside Book Reviews Editor Dr Katie Higgins and an international editorial board. The editorial team maintains an operational target to reduce peer-review turnaround times to an average of 60 days for articles sent out for review.

Manuscripts submitted to the journal undergo rigorous peer review evaluating theoretical originality, empirical data collection, and methodological robustness. The journal welcomes diverse methodologies, ranging from advanced regression and demographic analyses to ethnographic fieldwork and set-theoretic approaches such as qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). To foster scholarly excellence, the journal administers the biannual BJS Prize (£500 plus Wiley publication credits) for an outstanding sociological paper and the BJS Early Career Prize, presented at the annual BJS Lecture at LSE.

Responsible Assessment and Citation Metrics

While a Journal Impact Factor of 3.3 highlights strong disciplinary circulation, research assessment policies advise against using journal-level metrics as a proxy for individual article quality. Under the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and the Leiden Manifesto, tenure review committees, hiring panels, and research institutions must evaluate an author’s scholarship on its intrinsic methodological rigor and substantive contribution rather than the impact factor of the journal where it appears.

Sources

London School of Economics and Political Science. British Journal of Sociology Journal Portal and Editorial Policy. https://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/british-journal-of-sociology (read 2026-11-07).
National Library of Medicine. NLM Catalog: The British journal of sociology (NLM ID: 0373126). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/0373126 (read 2026-11-07).
Crossref. Journal Metadata: British Journal of Sociology (ISSN 0007-1315). https://api.crossref.org/journals/0007-1315 (read 2026-11-07).
Clarivate. Master Journal List: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). https://mjl.clarivate.com/ (read 2026-11-07).

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="British Journal of Sociology"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/british-journal-of-sociology" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/british-journal-of-sociology",
  "name": "British Journal of Sociology",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/british-journal-of-sociology",
  "description": "The British Journal of Sociology (BJS) is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the London School of Economics and Political Science (print ISSN 0007-1315, online ISSN 1468-4446). Founded in 1950, it publishes foundational scholarship across quantitative and qualitative sociology, holding a 2024 Journal Impact Factor of 3.3 in Clarivate's Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/publishing#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/british-journal-of-sociology",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "author": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
  },
  "datePublished": "2026-11-07T19:24:46",
  "dateModified": "2026-11-07T19:24:46",
  "inLanguage": "en-GB",
  "isAccessibleForFree": true
}