The Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) is the selective Web of Science Core Collection index for the social sciences. It tracks journals in economics, business, psychology, sociology, education, political science, communication, and related fields. SSCI inclusion signals that a journal meets Clarivate’s expectations for editorial continuity, peer review, and citation visibility in that domain.
SSCI journals can receive Impact Factor and quartile values in JCR. Citation velocity and document-type mixes differ from the sciences, so raw IF comparisons across disciplines mislead; quartiles or within-category ranks are more meaningful. Many promotion rules still ask explicitly whether a venue is SSCI-indexed. If SCIE is the science top tier, SSCI is the social-science counterpart; ESCI can sit as an intermediate layer on both sides.
For literature search, SSCI supplies a high-signal social-science core. Policy documents, books, and local journals may live outside WoS, so comprehensive searches usually add Scopus, subject indexes, and grey literature. When choosing a journal, an SSCI badge is not enough by itself—check category, quartile, acceptance patterns, open-access policy, and predatory-risk signals together.
In Turkey, associate-professorship and internal promotion guidelines in the social sciences often mention SSCI. Some juries bag SCIE and SSCI together as “WoS top index”; others score them separately. The Web of Science, JCR, and quartile entries in this glossary complete an SSCI reading. In this site’s journal catalog, an SSCI WoS edition flag marks Clarivate index membership.