HomeBest Paper in JoS

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Best Paper in Journal of Sociology

The Sage/TASA Best Paper Award for the Journal of Sociology (JoS) is an annual process that uses academic peer review to select papers of outstanding quality published in JoS (prior to 2018, this was a biennial award).The prize is awarded to the paper judged by the panel to be the best published during a 12 month period for the Journal of Sociology. For the 2025 Award, for example, papers being assessed will be from the final issue of 2024 and the first 3 issues of 2025. Note, special issue papers will be considered but symposia or parts of symposia, replies or rejoinders, notes and book reviews (but not review essays) are excluded from consideration.

The JoS BP Award is presented every year at the TASA annual conference. The Award is sponsored by Sage.

Voting Process
The voting process takes place as soon as it is known what papers will be included in issue 3 of the year the award is taking place. Note, although some papers may be published as online first during the eligible judging period, it is only those papers that have been assigned to an Issue that are included in the assessment.

Round 1: Each member of the panel reviews their allocated papers and ranks them in order with a ranking of ‘1’ being their top choice.

Round 2: The EIC and two self-nominated members of the JoS EB review the papers ranked with a ‘1’ and choose 4 top papers from this batch.

Round 3: All members of the selection committee review the 4 papers and place them in ranked order from 1 – 3, providing brief comments to support their decision.

From the voting in Round 3 a winner is picked and the decision of the selection committee communicated to the TASA Executive for ratification. The winner of the prize is notified and the result publicly announced at the annual TASA conference dinner.

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Prize

The recipient of this award receives:

1. A complimentary registration for the TASA Annual Conference and dinner, where the award will be presented
2. A trophy
3. A TASA ‘Best Paper in JoS’ certificate
4. A listing on the JoS Best Paper Prize TASAweb page
5. Travel funding

Recipients

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2024: Sara James & Anne-Maree Sawyer

James, S., & Sawyer, A.-M. (2023). How to navigate a pandemic: Competing discourses in The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine. Journal of Sociology, 60(2), 329-345. https://doi.org/10.1177/14407833231155972 (Original work published 2024)

Helen Forbes-Mewett & Sara James at our TASA 2024 Award Ceremony

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2023: Sharyn Roach Anleu & George Sarantoulias

2023: Sharyn Roach Anleu &George Sarantoulias

Roach Anleu, S., & Sarantoulias, G. (2022). Complex data and simple instructions: Social regulation during the Covid-19 pandemic. Journal of Sociology, 59(3), 733-753. https://doi.org/10.1177/14407833211066926 (Original work published 2023)

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2022: Yoko Kanemasu & Asenati Liki

Kanemasu, Y., & Liki, A. (2021). ‘Let fa’afafine shine like diamonds’: Balancing accommodation, negotiation and resistance in gender-nonconforming Samoans’ counter-hegemony. Journal of Sociology, 57(4), 806–824. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783320964538

Yoko and Asenati were not able to attend the prize presentation ceremony so they recorded their acceptance speech, which you can view here.

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2022: Special Commendations

‘An agenda for Australian rural sociology: Troubling the white middle-class farming woman’
By Barbara Pini, Laura Rodriguez Castro & Robyn Mayes
https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783321999830

‘Rural youth in southern Nigeria: Fractured lives and ambitious futures’
By Barbara Crossouard, Mairead Dunne, Carolina Szyp, Tessy Madu & Béla Teeken
https://doi.org/10.1177/14407833211042422

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2021: Jacob Prehn, Michael Andre Guerzoni & Huw Peacock

Prehn J, Guerzoni MA, Peacock H. ‘Learning her culture and growing up strong’: Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander fathers, children and the sharing of culture. Journal of Sociology. 2021;57(3):595-611. doi:10.1177/1440783320934188

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2020: Joanna Kidman

Kidman J. Whither decolonisation? Indigenous scholars and the problem of inclusion in the neoliberal university. Journal of Sociology. 2020;56(2):247-262. doi:10.1177/1440783319835958

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2019: Anna Anderson

Anna Anderson - Anderson, A. (2019). Parrhesia: Accounting for different contemporary relations between risk and politics. Journal of Sociology, 55(3), 495–510. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783319829245

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2018: Michelle Peterie

Kate Huppatz (L) and Steve Matthewman (R) congratulating Michelle Peterie on being the 2018 JoS Best Paper Award winner for Docility and Desert: government discourses of compassion in Australia’s asylum seeker debate.

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2016: Sharyn Roach Anleu and Kathy Mack

Roach Anleu, Sharyn and Kathy Mack (2015) ‘Performing Authority: Communicating Judicial Decisions in Lower Criminal Courts’ 51(4) Journal of Sociology 1052-1069.

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2014: Gerard Delanty

Gerard Delanty (2013) The prospects of cosmopolitanism and the possibility of global justice, The Journal of Sociology.

You can listen to Gerard’s podcast about his winning article by clicking on the 'play' icon below:

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2012: Dr Andy Furlong, Professor Johanna Wyn and Dr Dan Woodman

The recipients’ thoughts on winning the 2012 JoS Best Paper can be read in Nexus 25_1 2013.

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1995-2010

2010: Brad West was awarded the TASA Prize for the Best Paper in the Journal of Sociology for his article titled: Collective memory and crisis: the 2002 Bali bombing, national heroic archetypes and the counter-narrative of cosmopolitan nationalism

2008: Amanda Hosking and Mark Western (2008) “The effects of non-standard employment on work—family conflict” Journal of Sociology 44 (1) 5-27

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

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.

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.

1999: Marion Collis, 1999, ‘Marital conflict and men’s leisure: how women negotiate male power in a small mining community’, Vol 35, No 1.

1997: Michael Emmison, 1997, ‘Transformations of Taste: Americanisation, generational change and Australian cultural consumption’, Vol 33, No 3.

1995: Eric Livingston, 1995, ‘The idiosyncratic specificity of the methods of physical experimentation’, Vol 31, No 3.

From left, Andy Bennett (JoS Eic), Johanna Wyn & Dan Woodman (two of the 2012 JoS Best Paper recipients)

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Best Paper in Journal of Sociology

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Awards, Prizes & Funding