Peer review is at the heart of maintaining journal standards and validating our status as research academics yet it is a diffuse affair with apparently no international standardised criteria or quality thresholds possible due to the differing epistemologies and methodologies represented in journals. Within education each journal constructs its own criteria for referees - or doesn't - and the range of differing responses from referees, even with guidelines available, is broad. Some argue that the range of perspectives and refereeing styles is what characterises the principle of a peer review that is free from highly centralised abuse and other more cynical observers suggest it is a lottery.We are launching a new journal in the Spring of 2006 - Ethnography and Education - and wish to discuss some of the issues of refereeing qualitative research, in particular, as well taking testimony from those experienced in the practice including editors and from those new to refereeing who wish to offer editors some advice. The session will be introduced with a short paper on some of the issues concerning refereeing and an analysis of the variety of practices from sample data collected from journal editors. We anticipate that the roundtable will: provide us with more information concerning the nature of refereeing, provide a forum for discussing further issues, identify some common criteria identify some strategies for recruiting referees, We hope to develop the roundtable event into a paper for publication, which will, of course, be peer reviewed.