The world is currently in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic and there would be very few who are not touched by it in some way whether through missing important family or religious events because of social distancing or complete lockdown, through to more devastating effects such as loss of employment or the illness of a loved one. Education is not immune from challenges whether it be debates over school closures, teachers feeling ill-prepared for online teaching, or students worrying about final exams and university entrance. There has also been a challenge for public education as everyone wants to know what this virus is, how they might avoid it, and what will happen if they catch it.
Special issue accepting submissions
Submissions open Monday November 30, 2020.
The IAFOR Journal of Education is responding in its own way to the pandemic, acknowledging that there have been some major impacts on education. We will be publishing a special issue on education during COVID-19 and we are giving this advance notice so that you can start to consider whether you can do a small research project, or gather information on government policies either nationally or internationally, or perhaps document how education delivery has changed for you with an eye to a narrative article.
Possible topics
So many changes are occurring in the field of education it is impossible to list all the issues or themes that you might choose to explore in a submission. Below is a very short list of possibilities (more have been included on the website).
- Education policy (either within or across nations/states/counties)
- Government legislation (for example school closure, public exams, social distancing in classrooms, differences based on sector of education)
- Inclusion and exclusion of access to education
- Online learning for home study
- Public health education
Expanded style possibilities
Given that the pandemic is so recent, we realise that there may not be large scale research projects yet conducted. Submissions for this issue could include opinion pieces, policy reviews (possibly comparative), case studies of COVID-19 impact, and meta-analyses of educational responses to dealing with the impact of COVID-19 globally. There is also scope for small action research reports or narrative accounts. While the style of submission has wide scope for this issue, authors will still need to abide by the usual guidelines in terms of structure, format, word length and referencing where needed (https://iafor.org/journal/iafor-journal-of-education/author-guidelines/).
We look forward to receiving many and varied submissions after November 30. We hope that we have inspired you to consider how you might seek to publish the impact of this trying time, both the challenges and the opportunities. Till then, keep safe,
Yvonne
Dr Yvonne Masters
Editor-in-Chief
IAFOR Journal of Education
