TASA Prize for Best Paper in the Journal of Sociology
The prize is awarded to the paper judged by the panel to be the best published in the previous two years of the Journal of Sociology (JoS). Symposia or parts of symposia, replies or rejoinders, notes and book reviews (but not review essays) are excluded from consideration.
The rules agreed to by the TASA Executive Committee for the award of the prize are given below.
Rules for determining the prize:
- The TASA prize will be awarded to the paper judged by the panel to be the best published in the relevant volumes of the JOS. It is awarded every two years.
- Symposia or parts of symposia, replies or rejoinders, research notes and book reviews are excluded from consideration.
- The panel will comprise the editors, the review editors, the editorial advisory committee and editorial board of the JOS. Members of these groups who are authors or co-authors of papers eligible for the award will not be members of the panel.
- All members of the panel will be invited to nominate, by a set date, three eligible papers in order of merit. Papers will be awarded 3 points for each 1st preference, 2 points for each 2nd preference, and 1 point for each 3rd preference.
- The 5 papers with the highest total points will be designated as a shortlist. In the event of ties, the shortlist may be longer than 5 papers
- All members of the panel will then be invited to nominate, by a set date, the three best papers from the shortlist, in order of merit.
- The winner of the prize will be determined by calculating the number of points awarded to each short-listed paper, where 3 points are given for each 1st preference, 2 for each 2nd preference, and 1 point for each third preference. The paper scoring the most points wins the prize. In the event of a tie on this calculation, the prize will be warded to the tied paper receiving most 1st preferences.
- The prize will only be awarded if at least 12 members of the panel, including at least 6 members of the editorial board, have participated in each of the two rounds of nominations.
- The winner of the prize will be announced in the relevant year in December, normally at the annual TASA conference.
Recipients of the Best Paper Prize to date:
- 2006: Timothy Phillips and Philip Smith (2004) "Emotional and behavioral responses to everyday incivility: challenging the fear/avoidance paradigm" Journal of Sociology 40 (4): 378-399
view paper - 2003: Ian Woodward 2003, 'Divergent Narratives in the Imagining of the Home amongst Middle-Class Consumers: Aesthetics, Comfort and the Symbolic Boundaries of Self and Home', Journal of Sociology, 39, 4, 391-412.
view paper - 2001: Philip Smith and Tim Phillips 2001, ‘Popular understandings of "unAustralian": an investigation of the un-national’, Journal of Sociology, 37, 4, December, 323-339.
view paper - 1999: Marion Collis, 1999, 'Marital conflict and men's leisure: how women negotiate male power in a small mining community', Vol 35, No 1.
view paper - 1997: Michael Emmison, 1997, 'Transformations of Taste: Americanisation, generational change and Australian cultural consumption', Vol 33, No 3.
view paper - 1995: Eric Livingston, 1995, 'The idiosyncratic specificity of the methods of physical experimentation', Vol 31, No 3.