In addition to publishing creative research, curating special issues on vital topics, organizing author-meets-critics debates, and conducting interviews with leading sociologists, Sociologica also plays a leading role in the discipline by offering reflections on important aspects of the sociological craft. Throughout their careers, social scientists must, for example, come up with compelling research topics, revise their manuscripts for publication, and decide when and where to publish. Despite their importance, these skills are left in the shadows — seldom if ever addressed during graduate training.

In our efforts to demystify this tacit knowledge, we have published 3 special features: “Heuristics of Discovery” (vol. 12, no. 1), “Publication Strategies” (vol. 13, no. 1), and “Revising” (vol. 16, no. 1). These 30 essays were brought together in a book, Practicing Sociology: Tacit Knowledge for the Social Scientific Craft (Stark, 2023) in which I also offer my own reflections on what it means to practice sociology.

For this issue of the journal, we invited leading sociologists from Latin America, the United States, Eastern and Western Europe to contribute to a special feature: On Mentoring.