Introduction to the Symposium by Tiffany D. Barnes and Justin Esarey

What is a political methodologist? At a 2016 APSA panel on diversity and mentoring in political methodology, female panelists and attendees reported being told by advisers that they “weren’t a methodologist” during their formative years despite their interest and expertise in quantitative analysis. At the same time, the Society for Political Methodology (SPM) has struggled for years to increase participation by women and minorities in its annual conference and to increase diversity among those who hold faculty appointments in methodology. Reports from the APSA panel (and many other anecdotal accounts) suggest that the SPM’s struggle to recruit more women may be due in part to the ambiguity surrounding what it means to be a methodologist.

Read the introduction in full here.

And you can access the articles from this symposium below.