Biases in gendered citation practices: an exploratory study and some reflections on the Matthew and Matilda effects

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tchilinguirova, Karolina, Belle, Alvine Boaye, Mahamud, Gouled
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866917849467977728
author Tchilinguirova, Karolina
Belle, Alvine Boaye
Mahamud, Gouled
author_facet Tchilinguirova, Karolina
Belle, Alvine Boaye
Mahamud, Gouled
contents Recent studies conducted in different scientific disciplines have concluded that researchers belonging to some socio-cultural groups (e.g., women, racialized people) are usually less cited than other researchers belonging to dominating groups. This is usually due to the presence of citation biases in reference lists. These citation biases towards researchers from some socio-cultural groups may inevitably cause unfairness and inaccuracy in the assessment of articles impact. These citation biases may therefore translate to significant disparities in promotion, retention, grant funding, awards, collaborative opportunities, and publications. In this paper, we conduct the first study aiming at analyzing gendered citation practices in the software engineering (SE) literature. Our study allows reflecting on citations practices adopted in the SE field and serves as a starting point for more robust empirical studies on the analyzed topic. Our results show that some efforts still need to be done to achieve fairness in citation practices in the SE field. Such efforts may notably consist in the inclusion of citation diversity statements in manuscripts submitted for publication in SE journals and conferences.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_02801
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Biases in gendered citation practices: an exploratory study and some reflections on the Matthew and Matilda effects
Tchilinguirova, Karolina
Belle, Alvine Boaye
Mahamud, Gouled
Digital Libraries
Software Engineering
Recent studies conducted in different scientific disciplines have concluded that researchers belonging to some socio-cultural groups (e.g., women, racialized people) are usually less cited than other researchers belonging to dominating groups. This is usually due to the presence of citation biases in reference lists. These citation biases towards researchers from some socio-cultural groups may inevitably cause unfairness and inaccuracy in the assessment of articles impact. These citation biases may therefore translate to significant disparities in promotion, retention, grant funding, awards, collaborative opportunities, and publications. In this paper, we conduct the first study aiming at analyzing gendered citation practices in the software engineering (SE) literature. Our study allows reflecting on citations practices adopted in the SE field and serves as a starting point for more robust empirical studies on the analyzed topic. Our results show that some efforts still need to be done to achieve fairness in citation practices in the SE field. Such efforts may notably consist in the inclusion of citation diversity statements in manuscripts submitted for publication in SE journals and conferences.
title Biases in gendered citation practices: an exploratory study and some reflections on the Matthew and Matilda effects
topic Digital Libraries
Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.02801