How to list affiliation in a non-university job?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

First, for some context, I recently accepted a job teaching philosophy (along with a few other subjects in the humanities) in a private high school.

Lately I've been considering submitting a few papers I've been working on to journals and conferences. In the process, however, I've been confronted with the question of what to list as my affiliation. Since finishing grad school, I've mostly been using "no affiliation" or "independent philosopher" for this kind of thing. Continuing to use that wouldn't exactly seem accurate now, since I'm now employed at a school. The only apparent alternative, I suppose, is using my new high school as an affiliation--but something about that makes me uneasy, too. Perhaps it's simply the fact that I've never seen anyone do this; to the extent that I can remember philosophers' listed affiliations, they've always been a college or university. Part of me wonders whether the very meaning that most people give to "affiliation" in this context restricts the word to institutions of higher education, such that listing a high school as one's affiliation would be considered a bit like listing, say, Costco (assuming one worked there), or a given elementary school, etc.

If I'm to be honest with myself, I suppose I also sense that there might be a certain stigma to listing a high school as one's affiliation--that others might sense that one isn't a "real" philosopher, that one's work isn't to be taken as seriously, etc. Perhaps that's what's ultimately making me feel uneasy (though arguably I shouldn't be bothered by others' thoughts in this way).

What I wanted to ask, then, was whether anyone has any thoughts on what I should list as my affiliation going forward.

This is an interesting question. My general sense (though it could be wrong) is that the prevailing convention is to list oneself as an 'independent scholar' in cases like this. But, even assuming this is right, whether this is a good convention is another story entirely--as the convention seems to presuppose that an affiliation is only worth listing in a journal if it is a university. Personally, I'd prefer to see 'non-traditional' affiliations (such as high schools, etc.) actually listed in cases like these--as I think it would be very interesting to know where such scholars work! But, on the other hand, I wonder whether (as the OP notes) it might work to the author's disadvantage. First, might journal editors discriminate against authors like the OP? Second, would journal readers? For example, would Einstein's 1905 paper on special relativity have gotten the attention it did if Einstein listed 'Swiss Patent Office' as his affiliation? Or would many readers have written it off as a work of an amateur? 

What do readers think? It might be great to hear, in particular, from journal editors and independent scholars. What is the prevailing convention here? Would it hurt a scholar like the OP to list their actual (e.g. high school) affiliation rather than merely listing themselves as an independent scholar? 

Comments

[Postdoc]

I guess that depends on your field's culture. It seems clear to me that, in some fields, non-university affiliations are perfectly fine. In applied ethics, for instance, people list affiliations with public agencies, non-profit organizations, private companies, etc. But in other fields, people tend to only engage with the work of famous people from big universities.

On a personal note: I rarely check the author's affiliation. I might check this if I am reading a paper from a journal I never heard of.

[Trystan Goetze]

I agree with Postdoc, above: other academic fields are perfectly happy to list employers that aren't post-secondary institutions as affiliations. Education studies papers often have practising teachers as authors who use their school as their affiliation, medical journals will list hospitals, and computer science journals will list Microsoft, Google, or whatever smaller tech company one works for. I think the reason we don't see this in philosophy is an artefact of how professionally isolated much of academic philosophy is from non-academic work -- to the detriment of both philosophy and the "outside world," in my opinion. Would that act to the author's detriment? I would hope editors and readers wouldn't be closed-minded enough to count it against an "extramural" author, but it probably happens.

[Karl]

Why would the author not list the school they teach in? If a paper is getting published there is no reason to think less of an author or ignore their paper because they chose (or were compelled) not to be in a university. Only snobbishness and prejudice would suggest otherwise.