Journal profile · Multiple
Journal of Black Studies
ISSN 0021-9347 · eISSN 1552-4566 · SAGE
Journal of Black Studies: CAS Zone 4 · Sociology (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 0.97; hybrid open access; APC about USD 3,650; 49 articles in 2025; indexed in SSCI and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Journal of Black Studies is published by SAGE and is in Zone 4 of Sociology in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Race, History, and American Society, Critical Race Theory in Education and African cultural and philosophical studies, together about 36.1% of its articles. Its main subfields are Sociology and Political Science. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Journal of Black Studies (JBS), peer-reviewed and published bi-monthly, for the last half of a century has been the leading source for dynamic, innovative, and creative research on the Black experience. Poised to remain at the forefront of the recent explosive growth in quality scholarship in the field of Black studies, JBS offers important and intellectually provocative articles exploring key issues facing African Americans. View full journal description This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Multiple
Editor-in-chief Christel TemplePublisher website
Editorial board by country: none in mainland China; most named United States 37, Canada 2, United Kingdom 1, South Africa 1 (41 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Race, History, and American SocietySocial Sciences21.5%
- Critical Race Theory in EducationSocial Sciences8.2%
- African cultural and philosophical studiesSocial Sciences6.4%
- Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation StudiesSocial Sciences5.3%
- African history and culture studiesSocial Sciences5.3%
- Higher Education Research StudiesSocial Sciences5.2%
- Racial and Ethnic Identity ResearchSocial Sciences4.7%
- Caribbean history, culture, and politicsSocial Sciences4.6%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Sociology Zone 4
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Sociology | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Ethnic Studies | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Sociology Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Sociology | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Ethnic Studies | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Sociology Zone 4
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Sociology | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Ethnic Studies | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SSCIScopusLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 0.97LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 1Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher)
- 1.3Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 1.9LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.31LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.01LetPub ·
- h-index
- 83OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 966OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 1.03OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 10%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 21.5%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 38LetPub ·
- Articles per year (publisher)
- 3Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 2,404 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 38 | 6 | 3 |
| 2025 | 49 | 18 | 39 |
| 2024 | 34 | 11 | 83 |
| 2023 | 43 | 13 | 155 |
| 2022 | 33 | 5 | 161 |
| 2021 | 44 | 3 | 194 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
- Peer review
- Double anonymous peer reviewPublisher website
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Hybrid open accessLetPub
A subscription journal in which authors can pay to publish their article open access.
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAlex | USD 3,650 / GBP 2,676 | — | — | |
| Publisher website | Yes, amount not published | — | — |
A hybrid journal charges the APC only when the author chooses open access; publishing under the subscription model is usually free.
Other charges and waivers (author guidelines)
- Page charges
- USD 800
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare2 items from the author guidelines
- Abstract
- 150–200 words
- Reference style
- APA
Article types accepted5
- book reviewView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Important: Please ensure that your submission is polished and adheres to all manuscript guidelines…Length not stated
- commentaryView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Important: Please ensure that your submission is polished and adheres to all manuscript guidelines…Length not stated
- editorialView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Important: Please ensure that your submission is polished and adheres to all manuscript guidelines…Length not stated
- original research articleView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Important: Please ensure that your submission is polished and adheres to all manuscript guidelines…Length not stated
- research articleView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. Important: Please ensure that your submission is polished and adheres to all manuscript guidelines…Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAuthorship, Data availability, Publication ethics, Open access, Peer review, Plagiarism, Preprints, Trial registration / reporting guidelines
- Authorship Author contributions
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review and publication process, this journal has adopted CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy). CRediT is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, which is used to describe each author’s individual contributions to the work. You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Data availability Data availability
The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages. Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to: Share your research data in a relevant public data repository Include a data ava…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Publication ethics Ethical considerations
Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved th…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Publishing fees and open access
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal. Figures submitted in color will be published in color in the online version of the journal at no cost. If you wish to have color figures in the printed version, the following fees apply: The charges are $800 for the first color image and $200 for each additional image. Optional open access publishing is available for a fee via the Sag…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal: Identity transparency: Double Anonymized Reviewer interacts with: Editor Review information published: None Your manuscript will undergo an initial evaluation. If it does not conform to the requirements laid out in these guidelines, it will be returned to you for amendments prior to peer review. Manuscripts may be desk rejec…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Plagiarism Plagiarism
The journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Please read Sage's complete policy on plagiarism and the actions we may take.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Preprints Preprints
The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers. Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission. Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Trial registration / reporting guidelines Clinical trial registration
The journal conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first participant enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- SAGE
- ISSN
- 0021-9347
- Electronic ISSN
- 1552-4566
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗OpenAlex
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Journal of Black Studies
What CAS zone is Journal of Black Studies in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Journal of Black Studies is in Zone 4 of Sociology, and in Zone 4 of the minor category Ethnic Studies / Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 3 of Sociology. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Journal of Black Studies?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 0.97; CiteScore 1.9, h-index 83.
What are the manuscript requirements of Journal of Black Studies?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Abstract: 150–200 words; Reference style: APA. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Where are the editorial board members of Journal of Black Studies based?
Of the 41 board members whose country the journal's board page names, none are in mainland China; the countries named most often are United States (37), Canada (2) and United Kingdom (1). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Journal of Black Studies?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Journal of Black Studies is indexed in SSCI and Scopus.
Is Journal of Black Studies open access, and what is the APC?
Journal of Black Studies is a hybrid journal. For open-access publication: APC about USD 3,650.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .