Race & Class is a peer-reviewed

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

 academic journal

Academic journal

An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

 on contemporary racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 and imperialism

Imperialism

Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

. It is published quarterly by SAGE Publications

SAGE Publications

SAGE is an independent academic publisher of books, journals, and electronic products in the humanities and social sciences and the scientific, technical, and medical fields. SAGE was founded in 1965 by George McCune and Sara Miller McCune. The company is headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California,...

 on behalf of the Institute of Race Relations

Institute of Race Relations

The Institute of Race Relations is a think tank based in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1958 in order to publish research on race relations worldwide, and in 1972 was transformed into an 'anti-racist think tank'....

.

History

The journal was established in 1959 as Race, before obtaining its current title in 1974 (when it was subtitled a 'Journal for Black and Third World Liberation'). Race & Class was responsive to some of the major events that shaped the 1970s, specifically the period's widespread and rapid, mass, social and political changes; liberation struggles and the installation of popular governments in some of the newly independent countries of the Third World

Third World

The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...

; the phenomenon of Black Power

Black Power

Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...

; and the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. The journal's founding editor, Ambalavaner Sivanandan

Ambalavaner Sivanandan

Ambalavaner Sivanandan is a Sri Lankan novelist, and director of the Institute of Race Relations, a London-based independent educational charity. His first novel, When Memory Dies, won the 1998 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, best first book, Europe and South Asia...

, opened the journal to radical scholars and activists, three of whom were so closely involved in the liberation movements they wrote of – Orlando Letelier

Orlando Letelier

Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar was a Chilean economist, Socialist politician and diplomat during the presidency of Socialist President Salvador Allende...

, Malcolm Caldwell

Malcolm Caldwell

James Alexander Malcolm Caldwell was a British academic and a prolific Marxist writer. He was a consistent critic of American imperialism, a campaigner for Asian communist liberation and socialist movements, and a strong supporter of Pol Pot...

 and Walter Rodney

Walter Rodney

Walter Rodney was a prominent Guyanese historian and political activist, who was assassinated in Guyana in 1980.-Career:...

 – they were killed in the pursuit of their realization.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed by EBSCO databases

EBSCO Publishing

EBSCO Publishing, headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is an aggregator of premium full-text content. EBSCO Publishing's core business is providing online databases via EBSCOhost to libraries worldwide. EBSCOhost is used by libraries, schools, academic institutions, medical institutions, and...

, Current Contents

Current Contents

Current Contents is a rapid alerting service database from the Institute for Scientific Information, now part of Thomson Reuters, that is published online and in several different printed subject sections.-History:...

/Social and Behavioral Sciences, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences

International Bibliography of the Social Sciences

The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences is a bibliography for social science and interdisciplinary research. The database focuses on the social science disciplines of anthropology, economics, politics and sociology, and related interdisciplinary subjects, such as development...

, MLA International Bibliography

Modern Language Association

The Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...

, and Social Sciences Citation Index

Social Sciences Citation Index

Social Sciences Citation Index is an interdisciplinary citation index product of Thomson Reuters' Healthcare & Science division. It was developed by the Institute for Scientific Information from the Science Citation Index....

. According to the Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports is an annual publication by the Healthcare & Science division of Thomson Reuters. It has been integrated with the Web of Knowledge, by Thomson Reuters, and is accessed from the Web of Science to JCR Web. It provides information about academic journals in the sciences and...

, Race & Class has a 2009 impact factor

Impact factor

The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...

 of 0.316, ranking it 57 out of 75 in the category Anthropology, 10 out of 13 in Ethnic Studies, 28 out of 35 in Social Issues, 64 out of 83 in Social Sciences-Interdisciplinary, and 101 out of 129 in Sociology.

Themes and Topics

The journal is by its nature interdisciplinary, publishing material across the humanities and social sciences by authors such as the novelist John Berger

John Berger

John Peter Berger is an English art critic, novelist, painter and author. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a university text.-Education:Born in Hackney, London, England, Berger was...

, the historian Manning Marable

Manning Marable

William Manning Marable was an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University. Marable founded and directed the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. Marable authored several texts and was active in progressive political causes...

, the sociologist Hilary Rose

Hilary Rose (sociologist)

Hilary Rose is a prominent British feminist of sociology of science and social policy. Currently she is Visiting Research Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, Professor Emeritus of Social Policy at the University of Bradford and Professor Emeritus of Physick, Gresham College,...

, the biologist Steven Rose

Steven Rose

Steven P. Rose is a Professor of Biology and Neurobiology at the Open University and University of London.-Life:...

 and the literary theorist Edward Said

Edward Said

Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...

. The themes and topics that are central to the journal are shown below (references are to indicative articles published in the journal):

• Black politics and Black history
• Colonial imperialism and liberation struggles
• Cultural imperialism
• Globalisation
• The information society
• Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism
• Modern warfare
• Palestine/Israel and the wider Middle East
• Postcoloniality
• Racism and its changing forms
• The state, migration and asylum
• Technological change and its political, economic and social impacts
• The war on terror and civil rights

External links

• Journal page at Institute of Race Relations website