About the Journal

The journal is divided into three sections:

• Saggi [Essays]
• Esperienze e confronti [Experiences and comparisons]
• Note e commenti [Notes and comments]

The section Saggi [Essays] includes original contributions on social problems and emerging phenomena, as well as field surveys. It privileges contributions on territorial cases and their theoretical and empirical implications. The section wants to be a sort of thematic dossier, organized around a keyword or a title, coordinated by an editor responsible of the papers. Contributions can be invited or chosen by call for papers.

The sections Esperienze e confronti [Experiences and comparisons] includes the results of studies on individual experiences (local, national and/or international), or reports that compare different territorial areas, within sociology or other humanities and social sciences, emerging phenomena and field surveys. The section can include contributions outside of the monographic subject of the issue, if they respect aims and contents of the journal.

The section Note e commenti  [Notes and comments] includes contributions on experiences, projects and critical reflections on interventions and social policies, at diverse territorial level and/or in a specific field of social intervention. The section also includes comments and reflection on publications, both Italian and international, related to social sciences. Furthermore, this section can include short unpublished texts, of both classical and contemporaneous authors, chosen by the Scientific Committee of the journal or proposed by others.

ETHICAL GUIDELINES

The journal Culture e Studi del Sociale is a peer-reviewed scientific journal provides a space of discussion and reflection (theoretical and empirical) among scholars, operators and civil society, within humanities and social sciences. It is inspired by the ethical code of publication worked out by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE - http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors.pdf) for an ethical approach to the publication of scientific works. 

Oriented to international collaborations, CuSSoc aims to be a place of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary dialogue, which encourages the discussion without forgetting the classical studies of the individual disciplines and the research on emerging phenomena. Research results may have an impact on policy decisions, training processes, and development, as well as the integration of theories and paradigms. It is therefore crucial for the Journal to maintain a high standard of quality and transparency in the review and publication process.

The entire management of the Journal is in line with the spirit of the COPE recommendations, in order to take all possible measures against negligence and ensure good ethical practices in the publication process. In particular, it is envisaged that all the parties involved - Management, Editorial Committee, Reviewers and Authors  - know and share the following ethical principles:

Editor-in-Chief' Responsibilities

• Manage CuSSoc with the support of the Editorial Board;
• Encourage the members of the Scientific Board and Editorial Board to promote CuSSoc as a medium for the dissemination of research results;
• With the support of the Editorial Board, select the referees involved in the evaluation of each manuscript;
• Following consultation with the Editorial Board, establish the guidelines for the referees, with clear and exact criteria;
• Monitor and improve the review process;
• Evaluate quickly and equally all manuscripts sent for publication, respecting the intellectual  independence of the authors, without any discrimination related to sex, gender, religion, ethnicity or nationality. The Editors-in-Chief have the exclusive responsibility of accepting or refusing a manuscript. The contributions can be refused only for specific reasons (contents not relevant for CuSSoc; low quality; contents already published elsewhere, etc.). Use of a non-discriminatory language will also be relevant;
• Promote the publication of adjustments if the contents or the conclusion of a manuscript are not right;
• Refuse manuscripts containing data, comments, interpretations and conclusions influenced by the research commissioner;
• Ensure that all the essays evaluated as publishable have been submitted to a double-blind peer review (including the essays written by members of CuSSoc);
• Verify that the referees haven't any kinship or professional ties with the authors of the manuscript;
• Enable the authors, whose contribution has been plagiarized by other scholars, to publish a note on the next issue of CuSSoc;
• Allow or invite an author to make the necessary modifications, in case of wrong information voluntarily or involuntarily published in CuSSoc and not detected by the Editor-in-Chiefr, the Editorial Board, or the referees;
• Ensure that all communications will remain confidential among members of CuSSoc - Editorial Board, referees, authors and any other person involved;
• Ensure that no member of the Editorial Board and/or other users may use data, theories or interpretations of CuSSoc manuscripts until their publication, unless the author gives the permission to do so.

Authors' Responsibilities

• Send manuscripts containing original material, new results, elaboration of data, ideas and/or interpretations not published or submitted for review elsewhere (including databases);
• Identify and signal subjects, references, methodology, hypothesis, interpretations and evaluations of the research;
• Specify who has the responsibility for the research and who is the director of the working team;
• Communicate the main sources of funding (for example, governmental agencies, foundations, private companies, universities) for the research proposed in the manuscript;
• If the manuscript is written by several authors, draw up a list of all co-authors, with name, surname and affiliation. The intellectual property of the essay is limited to people who have played a significant role in the research, with only an acknowledgment for other contributions (layout, graphics, etc.);
• Ensure that all the authors have read the final version of the manuscript before sending it to CuSSoc;
• Inform about changes of property or changes in the list of the co-authors, before the publication, with a letter signed by all concerned parties;
• Correctly cite works of other authors, mostly the publications related to the hypothesis, the ideas and/or the original data on which the manuscript is founded;
• Avoid any kind of plagiarism. Plagiarize other authors, without informing about the intellectual property of ideas, data, interpretations and evaluations, is an ethically unfair behaviour and is punishable by law. The insertion of portions of author's already published works (self-plagiarism), without mentioning the source, impoverishes the originality of the essay.
• Notify the Editors-in-Chief of any potential conflict of interest with societies or other entities (for example, consulting firms or financial interest in a company) which could benefit by the publication of the results contained in the manuscript;
• Guarantee the absence of contractual or property rights, which could influence the publication of data and information contained in the manuscript;
• Require, with valid reasons, that the manuscript won't be submitted to referees not considered neutral towards the author, the co-authors, the research and/or the commissioner;
• Observe the authors' guidelines of CuSSoc, using a language and a style which simultaneously guarantee the reliability and the quality of the scientific work and its usability by a non-specialist public;
• Use a non-discriminatory language.

Responsibilities of the referees

Review of manuscripts sent to scientific journals is an essential part of the scientific research. The whole scientific community is called to join in the process. The journal Culture e Studi del Sociale uses the double-blind method: each article is sent to two referees. The reviews will remain anonymous and the author has to take the feedback into account for the final version of the manuscript, if accepted. In  case of two mutually-contradictory reviews, the essay is sent to a third referee: the main evaluation (acceptance or refusal) will be determined by the majority. The "Editorial" section is excluded from the double-blind review, and in some cases for articles by scholars of the highest level, as well as for the "Notes and comments" section for which an evaluation is carried out by the Editorial Board and, if necessary in case of conflicting assessments, an external double-blind review is sent.

The referees' responsibilities are the following:

• Evaluate objectively the quality of the manuscript and respect the intellectual independence of the authors; criticism on a personal level isn't accepted;
• Refuse to review manuscripts dealing with subjects outside of his/her own specific expertise;
• Inform the Editors-in-Chief about any conflict of interest, due to direct competition or cooperation with one of the authors, and to refuse to review a manuscript if an objective evaluation is not possible;
• Ask the Editors-in-Chief to discuss the text with other scholars for a specific consultation, providing names and reasons of the consultation;
• Abstain from submitting the manuscript to other scholars without the permission of the Editors-in-Chief;
• Explain and support the reasons of the reviews, in order to enable editors and authors to understand them;
• Inform about methodological errors or wrong data included in the manuscript;
• Highlight the existence of relevant scientific works, not mentioned by the authors without appropriate reasons;
• Highlight the lack of explicit references to authors and works used in the manuscript and not mentioned without valid reasons;
• Draw the attention of the Editors-in-Chief to any similarity between the manuscript and other articles or manuscripts simultaneously sent to other journals;
• Treat the manuscript as a confidential document and abstain from discussing it with others, except for particular and motivated cases. In the latter case, the name of the consulted people should be communicated to the Editors-in-Chief;
• Abstain from using non-published information, subjects or interpretations, contained in a manuscript, unless there is explicit consent from the author.

EDITORIAL POLICY

Peer Review Process

Culture e Studi del Sociale - CuSSoc uses the double-blind peer review process: both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. The two anonymous review sheets are sent to the Author for the final adjustments. In case of conflicting evaluations, the article is sent to a third reviewer for the definitive decision: the prevailing choice (acceptance or rejection) is the majority. An exception is scheduled for the "Editorial" section and in some cases of article by highest repute scholars, as well as for the "Notes and comments" section for which an evaluation by the Editorial board is made and subsequently if necessary in the case of presence of conflicting evaluations, an external double blind review is sent.

Open Access

The journal provides for immediate open access to its content, on the principle that making a research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

The journal is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).

This licence allows anyone to download, reuse, re-print, distribute and /or copy the final version of the papers. The works must be properly attributed to its author(s) and it is necessary to indicate the initial publication in this journal. Any commercial use is prohibited.

Authors who publish on this journal retain the copyrights.

(APC) Article and submissions processing

Culture e Studi del Sociale - CuSSoc does not require article processing charges APC

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish in this journal agree with the following points:

1. The author(s) guarantee(s) that the article is original and it has not previously published and it has not been sent to other journals for consideration.
2. The author(s) declare(s) that the work does not violate the copyright of third parties and assume the full personal and financial responsibility for any legal action which may be brought by third parties against the publisher
3. The author(s) retain(s) the rights of the work and grant to the publisher the right to publish the work in digital edition with the licence Creative Commons Attribution Licence 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) or in any other form that the publisher considers opportune for the maximum dissemination. This attribution allows others to share the work, indicating the authorship and the initial publication in this journal.
4. The authors can establish other arrangements with non-exclusive license to distribute the published version of the work (eg. deposit it in an institutional archive or publish it in a monograph), indicating that it was first published in the Culture e Studi del Sociale - CuSSoc.
5. The author(s) can distribute the work online (eg. on their website) only after that it is published by Culture e Studi del Sociale - CuSSoc (see The Effect of Open Access).