{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.015479876160990712, 'fraction_numerical': 0.01393188854489164, 'mean_word_length': 5.140142517814727, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Letter from the Editors of Sociological Perspectives

intellectually by a regional association of sociologists. In an idyllic view of the past, we might imagine that such regional journals started out being written, edited, and read largely by faculty and students from within the geographical confines of their respective associations. In early years of constrained travel and communication, such outlets provided opportunities to connect and showcase colleagues nearby and to develop regional portals through which sociological knowledge could flow to and from the world “out there.” In this intellectual flow lies one of the enduring and somewhat paradoxical goals of a regional sociology journal: to keep its association relevant by extending ever further beyond its geographic boundaries to enrich not just the region or the world but the flow of quality sociological research between the two. With this in mind, we decided to take a closer look at the regional imprint of the official journal of the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) by bringing data to bear on the question of regional authorship and how it has changed over time. We recognize that this is just one dimension of “regionalism,” and we hope to address others in a forthcoming issue of The American Sociologist, which will feature a number of articles on the PSA. By way of background, the PSA launched its own journal in 1958 called the Pacific Sociological Review, which subsequently became Sociological Perspectives in 1983. In the inaugural issue of the Pacific Sociological Review, there were several invited scholars from the region, and since we want to focus on the regional representation of open submissions and how this representation has shifted over time, we decided to begin our analysis with the second and third volumes of the journal (1959 through 1960). To examine historical trends in regional authorship, we then examined it for the 1969 through 1970 period and followed this pattern of sampling through Volumes 52 and 53 (2009 through 2010). Our initial hunch was that, at least in the case of the PSA’s official journal, the regional representation of authors would decline over time. The journal would become less of a regional journal in this sense and more of a national/international journal of sociological research. We also thought that perhaps the change in title from the Pacific Sociological Review to the more generalist name Sociological Perspectives would make the journal less regionally oriented in terms of authorship. LETTER FROM THE EDITORS OF SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES