Ethnic and Racial Studies

About Ethnic and Racial Studies

History and development

Ethnic and Racial Studies began publishing in 1978, founded by Routledge & Kegan Paul, and has appeared continuously ever since under the Routledge imprint, now part of Taylor & Francis. Its first volume appeared in 1978, and the journal's archive on the publisher's platform runs unbroken from Volume 1 (1978) through Volume 49 (2026), with the journal's 50th volume scheduled to begin in 2027 — a milestone the journal itself is marking as its 50th anniversary.

The journal's early decades coincided with a period in which race, ethnicity and nationalism moved to the centre of social and political life in Britain, Europe and beyond. Christopher Husbands of the London School of Economics published a formal outline history of the journal's first forty years (2018), tracing how Ethnic and Racial Studies developed in its editorial arrangements, its format, the types of contribution it carried, the characteristics of its authors, and the countries and topics its articles covered. Among his findings, the increasing feminization of both the editorial board and the corpus of authors stood out as a defining change across the journal's second and third decades.

Book reviewing has been a distinctive part of the journal's identity from early on. Reviews of the latest books on race, ethnicity and nationalism appear in every issue, and the reviewing operation grew large enough that in 2014 the journal spun it off into a companion publication, Ethnic and Racial Studies Review, which carries expert guidance to new research through reviews, symposia on books of current interest, discussion pieces and longer overview articles of up to 12,000 words.

The journal celebrated its 40th anniversary with the edited volume Celebrating 40 Years of Ethnic and Racial Studies (Routledge, 2020), edited by Martin Bulmer and John Solomos. The volume reprints eleven classic papers first published in the journal, each accompanied by commentary from invited specialists and responses from the original authors, and it remains the best single record of which contributions the field itself regards as the journal's defining articles.

From the beginning the journal has positioned itself as the leading international venue for the sociological and interdisciplinary analysis of race, ethnicity and nationalism. Its publication rhythm settled at ten issues per year, a frequency it has maintained into the 2020s (Taylor & Francis lists the journal as publishing ten times a year; some third-party directories describe it differently, but the publisher's figure is authoritative).

Aims and scope

Ethnic and Racial Studies publishes peer-reviewed research on anthropology, cultural studies, ethnicity and race, and sociology, with an explicitly interdisciplinary remit. The journal's stated scope draws on sociology, social policy, anthropology, political science, economics, geography, international relations, history, social psychology and cultural studies. Its editorial line, as stated by the publisher, is that race, ethnicity and nationalism sit at the heart of many of the major social and political issues in the present global environment, and that new antagonisms require a rethinking of traditional theoretical and empirical perspectives.

In practice the journal publishes:

• Original research articles — empirical and theoretical contributions on race, ethnicity, migration, nationalism, racism and anti-racism, identity, belonging, diaspora and related themes;
• Review articles and discussion pieces — longer interventions that map a field of debate, often emerging from the Ethnic and Racial Studies Review stream;
• Book symposia — multi-author engagements with books of current interest or issues of current contention, a format the journal has cultivated more actively than most sociology journals;
• Book reviews — carried in every issue, covering the latest scholarship on race, ethnicity and nationalism.

Recent issues (Volume 49, 2026) illustrate the breadth: articles on climate change and migration, critical race theory, the politics of Palestine, and a special issue on the intersections of migration, religion, spirituality and the transnational lives of African youth. The journal welcomes contributions from established and younger scholars alike, and from any of the main areas of interest above — a deliberate openness that has helped it attract authors from across the social sciences and humanities.

Editorial leadership

The journal's editors-in-chief are listed in Journal Citation Reports records as Martin Bulmer (University of Surrey) and John Solomos (University of Warwick). Bulmer is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Surrey and co-editor of the 40th-anniversary volume; Solomos is Professor of Sociology at Warwick. In the journal's own 50th-anniversary communications in 2026, John Solomos is identified as Editor-in-Chief, reflecting the current leadership arrangement.

The journal operates with an international editorial board drawn from the sociology of race and ethnicity, migration studies, anthropology and related fields, and its day-to-day work is supported by a professional editorial office acknowledged in the journal's anniversary materials. Authors should note that editorial personnel change over time; the definitive current listing is on the journal's Taylor & Francis page rather than in any static directory.

Journal metrics

Ethnic and Racial Studies is one of the most-cited journals in its field. The figures below are given with their source and year, because different databases compute metrics on different citation windows and third-party aggregators sometimes disagree:

For context: the 2014 Journal Citation Reports gave the journal an impact factor of 0.956, ranking it 58th of 142 journals in Sociology and 5th of 15 in Ethnic Studies. The subsequent rise to the 2.0–2.5 range reflects both the growth of the field and the journal's success in publishing agenda-setting papers. Independent rounded JIF rankings place it around 2.0 in the 2024 data, roughly 10th among ethnic-studies journals. Readers should treat third-party metric sites as indicative rather than authoritative; the canonical figures are those in Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports and Elsevier's Scopus.

Open access and APCs

Ethnic and Racial Studies is a hybrid journal: the default route is subscription publication at no charge to the author, with an open-access option for authors who want their article freely available on publication. The open-access list price is reported by the aggregator countryofpapers as €2,395, attributed to Taylor & Francis open-access pricing. This figure should be treated as indicative — Taylor & Francis adjusts article processing charges periodically and by currency — and authors should confirm the current APC on the journal's official page before budgeting.

The journal is not a fully open-access title and is not listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals. Authors choosing the subscription route pay no publication fee. Funded authors should check their funder's open-access mandates; Taylor & Francis offers standard green open-access (accepted-manuscript deposit) terms alongside the gold option.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is indexed in Scopus and in the Web of Science Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), which is what makes it eligible for a Journal Citation Reports impact factor. It is also listed in the UGC CARE list used for academic assessment in India. Its standard identifiers are:

• Print ISSN: 0141-9870; Online ISSN: 1466-4356
• ISO 4 abbreviation: Ethn. Racial Stud.
• Publisher: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), United Kingdom
• Frequency: 10 issues per year
• Language: English

Landmark papers

The following are among the most-cited articles ever published in the journal. Citation counts are from OpenAlex (October 2026); every DOI below was verified as resolving via the Crossref API at the time of writing.

1. Steven Vertovec, "Super-diversity and its implications" (2007), Ethnic and Racial Studies 30(6): 1024–1054. DOI: 10.1080/01419870701599465 (~5,500 citations). The journal's single most-cited paper and the article that introduced the concept of "super-diversity" — the diversification of diversity itself in global cities — which went on to reshape urban sociology, migration studies and British public policy debate.
2. Alejandro Portes, Luis E. Guarnizo and Patricia Landolt, "The study of transnationalism: pitfalls and promise of an emergent research field" (1999), Ethnic and Racial Studies 22(2): 217–237. DOI: 10.1080/014198799329468 (~2,270 citations). A agenda-setting review that disciplined the fast-growing transnationalism literature by specifying what the concept should and should not explain.
3. Herbert J. Gans, "Symbolic ethnicity: the future of ethnic groups and cultures in America" (1979), Ethnic and Racial Studies 2(1): 1–20. DOI: 10.1080/01419870.1979.9993248 (~1,800 citations). Published in only the journal's second year, Gans's argument that later-generation white ethnics practice ethnicity as a voluntary, symbolic identity became one of the most assigned readings in the sociology of ethnicity.
4. Rogers Brubaker, "The 'diaspora' diaspora" (2005), Ethnic and Racial Studies 28(1): 1–19. DOI: 10.1080/0141987042000289997 (~1,760 citations). A widely cited critique of the inflation of "diaspora" as a category of analysis, arguing for a sharper distinction between diaspora as a category of practice and as a category of analysis.
5. Richard Alba, "Bright vs. blurred boundaries: second-generation assimilation and exclusion in France, Britain and the United States" (2005), Ethnic and Racial Studies 28(1): 20–49. DOI: 10.1080/0141987042000280003 (~1,330 citations). A comparative framework contrasting contexts where ethnic boundaries are bright (hard to cross) versus blurred (porous), influential in comparative integration research.

Other highly cited contributions include Steven Vertovec's "Conceiving and researching transnationalism" (1999), Thomas Faist's "Transnationalization in international migration" (2000), Joane Nagel's "Masculinity and nationalism" (1998) and Nicholas De Genova's "Spectacles of migrant 'illegality'" (2013), all with 1,000+ citations each in OpenAlex.

Publishing guidance

Ethnic and Racial Studies is a selective journal. One third-party aggregator reports an acceptance rate of around 24%, which would place it among the more selective sociology journals — but the publisher does not publish an official acceptance rate, so this figure should be treated as an estimate rather than a fact.

Manuscripts are evaluated through rigorous peer review with anonymized refereeing. The journal's editors look for work that makes a clear contribution to the theoretical or empirical understanding of race, ethnicity or nationalism; purely descriptive case studies without broader analytical purchase tend to fare poorly. The journal's history shows a particular appetite for papers that intervene in a live debate — the landmark articles above all reoriented an existing conversation rather than simply adding data to it.

Practical advice for prospective authors:

• Fit the conversation. Read recent issues and the book symposia: the journal rewards engagement with debates it is already hosting.
• Theory matters. Even strongly empirical papers are expected to articulate their conceptual contribution; the journal's top-cited papers are almost all conceptual interventions.
• Book reviews are a route in. Because reviewing is central to the journal's identity, a well-placed review can introduce a younger scholar to the editors and readership.
• Check the current instructions. Word limits, referencing style and open-access options are set by Taylor & Francis and change periodically — always consult the journal's official "instructions for authors" page before submitting.

Frequently asked questions

Is Ethnic and Racial Studies a good journal?

Yes. It is the leading specialist journal in the sociology of race and ethnicity, indexed in SSCI and Scopus, Q1 in three Scopus subject categories, with a 2024 Journal Impact Factor of 2.0 rising to 2.5 in the 2025 data. Its most-cited papers are among the most-cited in the social sciences.

Who publishes Ethnic and Racial Studies?

Routledge, part of Taylor & Francis (United Kingdom). It was founded by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1978.

What is the impact factor of Ethnic and Racial Studies?

The 2024 Journal Impact Factor is 2.0 (Clarivate, via bioxbio); the June 2026 JCR release (2025 data) lists 2.5. The Scopus-based impact score for 2024 is 2.73 (Resurchify) and the Scopus CiteScore is 5.5.

How often is it published?

Ten issues per year, per the publisher.

Is it open access?

It is a hybrid journal: subscription publication is free to authors, and open access is available for a reported article processing charge of around €2,395 (indicative — confirm the current figure with the publisher).

Who are the editors?

Martin Bulmer (University of Surrey) and John Solomos (University of Warwick) are listed as editors-in-chief in Journal Citation Reports records; the journal's 2026 anniversary communications identify John Solomos as Editor-in-Chief.

What are the most famous papers published in it?

Steven Vertovec's "Super-diversity and its implications" (2007), Herbert Gans's "Symbolic ethnicity" (1979), Rogers Brubaker's "The 'diaspora' diaspora" (2005), Portes, Guarnizo and Landolt on transnationalism (1999), and Richard Alba's "Bright vs. blurred boundaries" (2005) — all verified above with DOIs.

Does the journal publish book reviews?

Yes — reviews appear in every issue, and since 2014 the longer review operation has run as the companion title Ethnic and Racial Studies Review.

The journal's place in the field

Ethnic and Racial Studies sits at the centre of a cluster of specialist journals that includes the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (also Taylor & Francis), Ethnicities (SAGE), Sociology of Race and Ethnicity (SAGE/American Sociological Association) and Patterns of Prejudice (Taylor & Francis). Among these, ERS is the oldest and the most generalist: where some competitors focus on migration or on prejudice specifically, ERS covers the full terrain of race, ethnicity and nationalism, and its citation footprint reflects that breadth. Rounded 2024 impact-factor rankings place ERS at roughly 2.0, behind the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (~3.1) but ahead of Ethnicities (~1.3) and Patterns of Prejudice (~0.8) — a solid mid-field position among specialist journals, with a back catalogue of agenda-setting papers that few competitors can match.

The journal has also functioned as a debating chamber for the field's defining controversies. Its pages hosted the exchanges through which concepts such as super-diversity, transnationalism and diaspora were refined; the 40th-anniversary volume's format — classic papers re-examined by invited critics with responses from the original authors — captures a deliberative style that the journal has cultivated since its early years. The launch of the book-symposium format and the ERS Review companion in 2014 extended that deliberative function beyond the standard article.

One measurable trace of the journal's influence is its author base: Husbands's forty-year analysis documented a steady internationalization of contributors and a marked feminization of both the editorial board and the published corpus, mirroring — and in some periods leading — wider changes in sociology. The journal's readership and authorship now span every continent, with the archive's most-cited papers drawing on American, European and global-South cases alike.

The journal maintains an active public presence beyond the printed page. It operates an official account on Bluesky (@ersjournal.com) announcing new issues, book symposia and calls, and participates in publisher-run webinars on research data management and sharing. For authors, this visibility is a practical asset: the journal actively promotes published articles through its social channels, and its editors use the anniversary year (2027) to commission reflections on the field's evolution — including a recorded interview with Editor-in-Chief John Solomos on fifty years of ethnic and racial studies. Prospective contributors watching these channels get an early read on the debates the editors want to host next.

More questions, answered

What does Ethnic and Racial Studies publish besides research articles?

Review articles, discussion pieces, multi-author book symposia, and book reviews in every issue. The longer review operation also runs as the companion title Ethnic and Racial Studies Review, established in 2014.

What is the acceptance rate?

No official acceptance rate is published by Taylor & Francis. A third-party aggregator estimates around 24%, which would make the journal selective — but treat that figure as an estimate, not a fact.

How should I cite the journal?

The ISO 4 abbreviation is Ethn. Racial Stud. Print ISSN 0141-9870; online ISSN 1466-4356. All articles carry Crossref DOIs under the 10.1080 prefix.

Is there a companion journal?

Yes: Ethnic and Racial Studies Review, launched in 2014, carrying reviews, symposia, discussion pieces and overview articles of up to 12,000 words.

Where is the journal's archive?

The full archive from Volume 1 (1978) is on Taylor & Francis Online under the journal code rers20, with every article assigned a Crossref DOI. Institutional access runs through standard library subscriptions; many recent articles are also available open access.