Main Content
Session Information
23 SES 14 C, Educational Research at the Crossroads? What Journals of Education Can Tell Us About the Development of the Discipline
Symposium
Contribution
Publications in academic journals are in many ways the currency that regulates and drives the academic market of institutions and researchers. Dissemination of research findings and of the latest thinking in a discipline in the form of publications is a major indicator in university rankings, in the assessment of research quality and in the demonstration of productivity in the academic sector. For individual academics, publications in leading journals have an important and often direct impact on research careers, be it as part of selection processes for academic positions, as a criteria for career progression (such as tenure processes) and as evidence of success in research more generally.
Two examples illustrate the importance of publications in academic journals at the institutional and the individual level. In the United Kingdom, the Research Assessment Exercise has determined the level of state funding for research activities of university units (such as departments of education) since the 1980s. In the last Exercise in 2008, the quality of research outputs accounted for 60 percent of the quality profile upon which the formula for distributing research funding to higher education institutions by the public funding councils was based. The majority of outputs submitted (up to four per academic) in education were journal articles. At an individual level, the publication of journal articles seems to increasingly replace traditional research monographs. For instance in Germany, there is trend towards article-based doctoral theses, sometimes called ‘cumulative’ theses. The German Association of Education has recently published guidance on these types of theses.[1]
In all these contexts, publications in peer reviewed journals seem to enjoy the highest level of esteem; quantifiable indicators for the impact of articles measured in citation indices such as the SSCI (Social Science Citation Index) play a particularly important role in international university rankings. Highly cited journal articles have become an indicator of esteem in academia; a trend that is also observable in the area of education (see Schmidt & Weishaupt, 2008 and Zierer, 2010).
Against this background this symposium takes a closer look at publications in educational journals internationally. It brings together the work of a number of separate research projects which analysed publication patterns in a number of countries and contexts. The contribution by Ertl and Zierer draws on two projects investigating published articles in education in England, Germany, the USA and European journals. Keiner’s contribution draws on some earlier empirical work to outline a theoretical and methodological framework for comparing publications and to discuss the value of the framework for comparisons in European education. The contribution by Gaussel and Rey builds on a comparison of articles published in a French, a British and a Scandinavian journal and identifies several fields of research that have been particularly important in these journals. The symposium will make it possible to compare the rationales, methods, findings and implications of these different studies and will, therefore, allow drawing conclusions about the development of educational research and of education as an academic discipline.
Programm by Network
00. Central Events (Keynotes, EERA-Panel, EERJ Round Table, Invited Sessions)
Network 1. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations
Network 2. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Network 3. Curriculum Innovation
Network 4. Inclusive Education
Network 5. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education
Network 6. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures
Network 7. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Network 8. Research on Health Education
Network 9. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement
Network 10. Teacher Education Research
Network 11. Educational Effectiveness and Quality Assurance
Network 12. LISnet - Library and Information Science Network
Network 13. Philosophy of Education
Network 14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research
Network 15. Research Partnerships in Education
Network 16. ICT in Education and Training
Network 17. Histories of Education
Network 18. Research in Sport Pedagogy
Network 19. Ethnography
Network 20. Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments
Network 22. Research in Higher Education
Network 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Network 24. Mathematics Education Research
Network 25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Network 26. Educational Leadership
Network 27. Didactics – Learning and Teaching
Network 28. Sociologies of Education
Network 29. Reserach on Arts Education
Network 30. Research on Environmental und Sustainability Education
Network 31. Research on Language and Education (LEd)
Network 32. Organizational Education
The programme is updated regularly (each day in the morning)
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