Where it turns out that the method does not break the glass ceiling…

Abstract

We are delighted to publish two more articles in the “the design of my research” section in which colleagues with prestigious reputations agree to look back over various stages of their careers and to reflect on the place and role survey methods have played in them. This time it is Paul M. Sniderman, known for his work on prejudice, who has greatly contributed to the development of an experimental approach to opinion; and Pierre Lascoumes, a sociologist of law and public action, who at one point in his career was called on to supervise a collective project on the representations of probity. We are very grateful to these colleagues for having accepted our invitation, each in their own way, and for offering us the fruits of their reflections, while observing how difficult it is to anticipate the way in which each of them will interpret the proposal we are making. There is no need here for inclusive writing as we are struggling to find female colleagues available for the adventure. Nonna Mayer kindly agreed to take part early on, as did Christine Musselin, and we thank them. However, this means there are only two testimonies from women for every ten contributions from men. Seeing this, we had the idea of having a quick look at the overall publications in BMS over the last five years and we were surprised to see the overall ratio was also very unbalanced, especially when removing from the count the contributions to the two guest issues on children and gender, both of which mostly contained articles (co-)authored by women. We do not have the means here to put these observations into perspective with the kind of articles published in general social science journals. All we can say is this result surprised us. We had indeed felt that since methods are not a particularly renowned field in our disciplines, they should be more easily open to women’s work. Apparently this is not the case. We are interested in the issue and will certainly return to it in a future editorial. In addition, we will double our efforts to convince women colleagues to contribute to this section. For now, we hope you will enjoy the two new contributions by Paul Sniderman and Pierre Lascoumes, whom we thank again. This issue also includes two ‘implementation’ articles, both of which focus on data collection. The first, written by Sven Stadtmüller in collaboration with several colleagues from GESIS in Mannheim, examines the efficiency of mixed-mode selfadministered surveys, focusing in particular on how different incentive systems and mode choice designs influence response rates, net sample composition and survey costs, depending in particular on the age of respondents. The second, also co-authored, with Anica Bowe as corresponding author, presents the NGO BECO’s Equity Audit tool, designed to measure racial diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. The tool is assessed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The