La valutazione della produzione sociologica

The paper is a contribution to the debate on the evaluation of the scientific production in the Italian sociology. Starting from an analytical section devoted to the problematic application of he concept of paradigm in sociology as a scientific discipline, the author discusses some negative consequences of its constant pre-paradigmatic status, together with a lack of selection criteria based on quality at national level: no shared consent on evaluation criteria, parochialism, scanty application of standard peer review procedures, no application at all of ISI. These negative consequences have weakened the relative position of sociology against other competing social sciences, especially economics and political science, and have worsened its average scientific level because of a too quick increase of domestic academic positions in recent years. Some proposals are put forward in order to foster international publications and to increase the quality of sociological production.