SSCI is a citation index of social science, which mainly includes periodicals and papers in the field of social science. Since SSCI is an English database, its journals and papers must also be mainly in English.

The scope of SSCI mainly focuses on the social sciences, including but not limited to sociology, psychology, economics, political science, law and other disciplines. However, Russian periodicals are mainly concentrated in Russia and other Slavic countries, and their research fields and focuses are also different from the scope of SSCI. Therefore, although some Russian periodicals have certain academic influence in some disciplines, they are not included in SSCI.