Mission and Editorial Policy
Midwest Social Sciences Journal (MSSJ) is the flagship publication of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences. The Academy approved the name change from its earlier name, The Journal of Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences (JIASS) to its current name, Midwest Social Sciences Journal (MSSJ) in 2019. The JIASS published its first volume, Volume 1 in 1998 when it replaced the earlier publication known as the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences. Our journal name, Midwest Social Sciences Journal more accurately reflects the growth of the academy and the Journal from its roots in Indiana to the wider regional level and a journal that plays an important role in the current academic discourse in a wide array of interdisciplinary subjects that have prodigious societal impact. The journal MSSJ is a vibrant source of scholarship and provides cost-free access to both authors and readers for all scholars. We are now inviting papers and manuscripts for publication in our Vol.27, due for publication in fall 2024. It is our endeavor to bring out the next volume of the Journal before our annual meeting in October.
The world has not only become “smaller”—it has also become more connected and interconnected than ever before in ways not conceivable even a decade ago. Indiana and the Midwest today is intertwined in complex ways with regional, national, and international economics, culture, business, environmental concerns, race and gender issues, politics, urban development, crime, and the media. It is simply no longer possible to understand our social fabric without simultaneously understanding the other regional, national, and global parts of this equation. We acknowledge our authors and readers from both within and outside Indiana and the Midwest for their interdisciplinary social science scholarship encourage and invite such scholarship and audience participation from all across the Midwest and beyond. Since Volume 14, mssj has had more than 100,000 downloads.
The Midwest Social Sciences Journal retains its commitment to interdisciplinary social sciences scholarship: The mission of the Midwest Social Sciences Journal is to promote and to advance the social sciences and interdisciplinary social science scholarship throughout the Midwest region, and beyond. We do so by publishing high quality research from scholars from across the Midwest and world on issues of scholarly concern at the state, Midwestern, national and global levels. Our social sciences and interdisciplinary commitment remain fixed and unchanged, representing the sine qua non of our identity. Disciplinary specialization and its institutional correlates, institutionalization, and professionalization, threaten to shortchange the promise of the social sciences to provide deep knowledge and understanding to guide constructive social policies that promote human potential and social justice. Our journal remains one of the very few places one can find high quality academic research from across the social sciences in one location.
The Journal recognizes and supports the many diverse perspectives and methods across the several social sciences; we neither espouse nor champion any specific theoretical, methodological, ideological, or political commitments. The Journal is committed to intellectual integrity, rigorous standards of scholarship, and rational and civil discourse. We encourage the presentation and free exchange of diverse viewpoints and seek to foster open and critical inquiry that privileges any particular standpoint while operating within the limits of a standard of discourse and reason that distinguishes between the pursuit of knowledge and truth versus mere assertions of dogma. While every effort will be made to publish issues that represent a fair balance of scholarship across the entire spectrum of social science disciplines, the Journal’s top priority will always be to publish the best social science research available at any given time regardless of disciplinary representation. We invite and encourage paper submissions from members and non-members of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences throughout the year. There is no submission fees and no hidden page charges for publication. All papers are accepted for editorial review and publication in the journal . We accept papers irrespective of they have been presented at the IASS Annual Conference. More details about our submission policies, aims and scope and past volumes, visit the Journal home at https://scholar.valpo.edu/mssj/
