scholarly articles in education

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Harvard educational review.

Edited by Hannah Castner, Jane Choi, Moisés G. Contreras, Jen Ha, Woohee Kim, Melina Melgoza, Brien Y. Mosely, Catherine E. Pitcher, Anakaren Quintero Davalos, Elizabeth Salinas, Jesse Y. Tang

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Journal Information

• ISSN: 0017-8055
• eISSN: 1943-5045
• Keywords: scholarly journal, education research
• First Issue: 1930
• Frequency: Quarterly

Description

The Harvard Educational Review (HER) is a scholarly journal of opinion and research in education. The Editorial Board aims to publish pieces from interdisciplinary and wide-ranging fields that advance our understanding of educational theory, equity, and practice. HER encourages submissions from established and emerging scholars, as well as from practitioners working in the field of education. Since its founding in 1930, HER has been central to elevating pieces and debates that tackle various dimensions of educational justice, with circulation to researchers, policymakers, teachers, and administrators.

Our Editorial Board is composed entirely of doctoral students from the Harvard Graduate School of Education who review all manuscripts considered for publication. For more information on the current Editorial Board, please see here.

A subscription to the Review includes access to the full-text electronic archives at our Subscribers-Only-Website .

Editorial Board

2024-2025 Harvard Educational Review Editorial Board Members  

  Hannah Castner  

Editor, 2024-2026  

Hannah Castner is a second year PhD student in the Sociology Department at Harvard University. She studies how culture shapes and reproduces inequality within education organizations. In particular, she is interested in how parents, teachers, politicians, and administrators lay claim to education curricula and systems and the consequences of these assertions. One of her ongoing areas of research investigates how teachers respond to state laws restricting discussion of race, gender, and sexuality in U.S. schools. Prior to starting her doctoral studies, Hannah taught English to middle and high school students in France. Hannah holds BAs in sociology and data science from Mount Holyoke College.  

Jane Choi  

Content Editor 2024-2025 Editor 2023-2025 [email protected] [email protected]  

Jane Choi is a third-year PhD student in Sociology with broad interests in culture, race, education, and inequality. Her research examines intra-racial and interracial boundaries in US educational contexts. She has researched legacy and first-generation students at Ivy League colleges, families served by Head Start and Early Head Start programs, and parents of pre-K and kindergarten-age children in the New York City School District. Previously, Jane worked as a Research Assistant in the Family Well-Being and Children’s Development policy area at MDRC and received a BA in Sociology from Columbia University.  

Moisés G. Contreras  

Moisés G. Contreras is a third-year PhD student in the Culture, Institutions, and Society concentration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is interested in the promise and potential of liberatory and humanizing education occurring within community-based educational spaces. Moisés’s work is informed by diverse youth work experiences both locally and transnationally, having been an English teaching assistant with the Fulbright Program in Italy and a tutor and mentor in a predominantly-Latine Chicago public high school with the AmeriCorps program, City Year. Moisés holds an MA in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BS in Psychology and Italian, with a minor in Latina/Latino Studies, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.   

Content Editor 2024-2025 Editor 2023-2025 [email protected] [email protected]  

Jen Ha is a third-year PhD student in the Culture, Institutions, and Society concentration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research explores how high school and undergraduate students produce personal narratives for school applications, scholarships, and professional opportunities. Prior to doctoral studies, Jen served as the Coordinator of Public Humanities at Bard Graduate Center and worked in several roles organizing academic enrichment opportunities and supporting postsecondary planning for students in New Haven and New York City. Jen holds a BA in Humanities from Yale University, where she was an Education Studies Scholar.  

Woohee Kim  

Co-Chair 2024-2025 Editor 2023-2025 [email protected]  

Woohee Kim is a PhD student studying youth activists’ civic and pedagogical practices. Shaped by her activism and research across South Korea, the US, and the UK, Woohee seeks to interrogate how educational spaces are shaped as cultural and political sites and reshaped by activists as sites of struggle. Grounded in her scholar-activist commitments to creating spaces for pedagogies of resistance and transformative possibilities, Woohee hopes to continue exploring the intersections of education, knowledge, power, and resistance.  

Melina Melgoza  

Melina Melgoza (she/her/ella) is a third-year doctoral student in the Culture, Institutions, and Society concentration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and taught Ethnic Studies and Social Studies in Los Angeles public schools. She is enthusiastic and hopeful about advocating for and participating in liberatory Ethnic Studies practices, both within an educational setting and as an integral aspect of life. Through her research, she hopes to collaborate with various communities in Los Angeles to shed light on the power, message, and potential of Ethnic Studies praxis in educational environments. She sees Ethnic Studies as a social, political, and educational pathway for self-exploration, healing, community building, and solidarity. Prior to starting the doctoral program, she received her B.A. in History and Chicana/o Studies, and her M.Ed. and teaching credential from UCLA, specializing in Social Studies and Ethnic Studies. She also has a Master of Arts in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.   

Brein Y. Mosely  

Brein Y. Mosely is a third-year doctoral student in the Education Policy and Program Evaluation concentration at HGSE. She is interested in how quantitative educational researchers use race-based deficit narratives and perpetuate injustice in academic language. She is both a PIER and Stone Inequality fellow. She is also a research assistant for Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research Institute on Policing, Incarceration & Public Safety. Prior to their doctoral studies, Brein pursued both a MS and BS in Statistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.   

Catherine E. Pitcher  

Development Editor 2024-2025 Editor 2023-2025 [email protected]  

Catherine E. Pitcher is a third-year doctoral student at Harvard Graduate School of Education in the Culture, Institutions, and Society program. She has over 10 years of experience in US education in roles that range from special education teacher to instructional coach to department head to educational game designer. She started working in Palestine in 2017, first teaching and then designing and implementing educational programming. Currently, she is working on research to understand how Palestinian youth think about and build their futures. She holds an Ed.M. from Harvard in International Education Policy.  

Anakaren Quintero Davalos  

Anakaren Quintero Davalos is a 3rd year PhD student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the Culture, Institutions, and Society concentration. Her research interests include exploring the manner in which undocumented and immigrant origin students create counterspaces in response and in spite of oppressive institutions, and their advocacy for institutional supports in higher education contexts. Advocating for immigrant rights and working toward collective liberation is the forefront of all the work that she does. She has dedicated many years to serving undocumented students in higher education institutions. She holds a BA from UC Santa Cruz and is a product of the wealth of the community college system.  

Elizabeth Salinas  

Elizabeth Salinas is a doctoral student in the Education Policy and Program Evaluation concentration at HGSE. She is interested in the intersection of higher education and the social safety net and hopes to examine policies that address basic needs insecurity among college students. Before her doctoral studies, Liz was a research director at a public policy consulting firm. There, she supported government, education, and philanthropy leaders by conducting and translating research into clear and actionable information. Previously, Liz served as a high school physics teacher in her hometown in Texas and as a STEM outreach program director at her alma mater. She currently sits on the Board of Directors at Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America, a nonprofit organization working to diversify the leadership pipeline in the United States. Liz holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in higher education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  

Jesse Y. Tang  

Editor, 2024-2025  

Jesse Y. Tang is a second-year student in the Doctor of Education Leadership (EdLD) program at Harvard Graduate School of Education. A son of immigrants from Thailand and Hong Kong, Jesse was drawn to education for the powerful potential of schools to transform opportunities in each student’s life. He has two decades of experience working in PreK-8th Grade urban schools in Chicago, Boston, New York City, and Denver. Prior to his doctoral studies, Jesse served as Founding Principal for two schools, Central Queens Academy and Denver Online Elementary, as well as Turnaround Principal at Schmitt Elementary in Denver, CO. Jesse is passionate about increasing diversity within school leadership pipelines, as well as supporting, mentoring and sustaining new principals in their early years. Jesse holds a BS in Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University, an MAT in Teaching from Dominican University, and an EdM in School Leadership from Harvard Graduate School of Education.   

Submission Information

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Contact Information

Click here to view contact information for the editorial board and customer service .

Subscriber Support

Individual subscriptions must have an individual name in the given address for shipment. Individual copies are not for multiple readers or libraries. Individual accounts come with a personal username and password for access to online archives. Online access instructions will be attached to your order confirmation e-mail.

Institutional rates apply to libraries and organizations with multiple readers. Institutions receive digital access to content on Meridian from IP addresses via theIPregistry.org (by sending HER your PSI Org ID).

Online access instructions will be attached to your order confirmation e-mail. If you have questions about using theIPregistry.org you may find the answers in their FAQs. Otherwise please let us know at [email protected] .

How to Subscribe

To order online via credit card, please use the subscribe button at the top of this page.

To order by phone, please call 888-437-1437.

Checks can be mailed to Harvard Educational Review C/O Fulco, 30 Broad Street, Suite 6, Denville, NJ 07834. (Please include reference to your subscriber number if you are renewing. Institutions must include their PSI Org ID or follow up with this information via email to [email protected] .)

Permissions

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Article Submission FAQ

Submissions, question: “what manuscripts are a good fit for her ”.

Answer: As a generalist scholarly journal, HER publishes on a wide range of topics within the field of education and related disciplines. We receive many articles that deserve publication, but due to the restrictions of print publication, we are only able to publish very few in the journal. The originality and import of the findings, as well as the accessibility of a piece to HER’s interdisciplinary, international audience which includes education practitioners, are key criteria in determining if an article will be selected for publication.

We strongly recommend that prospective authors review the current and past issues of HER to see the types of articles we have published recently. If you are unsure whether your manuscript is a good fit, please reach out to the Content Editor at [email protected] .

Question: “What makes HER a developmental journal?”

Answer: Supporting the development of high-quality education research is a key tenet of HER’s mission. HER promotes this development through offering comprehensive feedback to authors. All manuscripts that pass the first stage of our review process (see below) receive detailed feedback. For accepted manuscripts, HER also has a unique feedback process called casting whereby two editors carefully read a manuscript and offer overarching suggestions to strengthen and clarify the argument.

Question: “What is a Voices piece and how does it differ from an essay?”

Answer: Voices pieces are first-person reflections about an education-related topic rather than empirical or theoretical essays. Our strongest pieces have often come from educators and policy makers who draw on their personal experiences in the education field. Although they may not present data or generate theory, Voices pieces should still advance a cogent argument, drawing on appropriate literature to support any claims asserted. For examples of Voices pieces, please see Alvarez et al. (2021) and Snow (2021).

Question: “Does HER accept Book Note or book review submissions?”

Answer: No, all Book Notes are written internally by members of the Editorial Board.

Question: “If I want to submit a book for review consideration, who do I contact?”

Answer: Please send details about your book to the Content Editor at [email protected].

Manuscript Formatting

Question: “the submission guidelines state that manuscripts should be a maximum of 9,000 words – including abstract, appendices, and references. is this applicable only for research articles, or should the word count limit be followed for other manuscripts, such as essays”.

Answer: The 9,000-word limit is the same for all categories of manuscripts.

Question: “We are trying to figure out the best way to mask our names in the references. Is it OK if we do not cite any of our references in the reference list? Our names have been removed in the in-text citations. We just cite Author (date).”

Answer: Any references that identify the author/s in the text must be masked or made anonymous (e.g., instead of citing “Field & Bloom, 2007,” cite “Author/s, 2007”). For the reference list, place the citations alphabetically as “Author/s. (2007)” You can also indicate that details are omitted for blind review. Articles can also be blinded effectively by use of the third person in the manuscript. For example, rather than “in an earlier article, we showed that” substitute something like “as has been shown in Field & Bloom, 2007.” In this case, there is no need to mask the reference in the list. Please do not submit a title page as part of your manuscript. We will capture the contact information and any author statement about the fit and scope of the work in the submission form. Finally, please save the uploaded manuscript as the title of the manuscript and do not include the author/s name/s.

Invitations

Question: “can i be invited to submit a manuscript how”.

Answer: If you think your manuscript is a strong fit for HER, we welcome a request for invitation. Invited manuscripts receive one round of feedback from Editors before the piece enters the formal review process. To submit information about your manuscript, please complete the Invitation Request Form . Please provide as many details as possible. The decision to invite a manuscript largely depends on the capacity of current Board members and on how closely the proposed manuscript reflects HER publication scope and criteria. Once you submit the form, We hope to update you in about 2–3 weeks, and will let you know whether there are Editors who are available to invite the manuscript.

Review Timeline

Question: “who reviews manuscripts”.

Answer: All manuscripts are reviewed by the Editorial Board composed of doctoral students at Harvard University.

Question: “What is the HER evaluation process as a student-run journal?”

Answer: HER does not utilize the traditional external peer review process and instead has an internal, two-stage review procedure.

Upon submission, every manuscript receives a preliminary assessment by the Content Editor to confirm that the formatting requirements have been carefully followed in preparation of the manuscript, and that the manuscript is in accord with the scope and aim of the journal. The manuscript then formally enters the review process.

In the first stage of review, all manuscripts are read by a minimum of two Editorial Board members. During the second stage of review, manuscripts are read by the full Editorial Board at a weekly meeting.

Question: “How long after submission can I expect a decision on my manuscript?”

Answer: It usually takes 6 to 10 weeks for a manuscript to complete the first stage of review and an additional 12 weeks for a manuscript to complete the second stage. Due to time constraints and the large volume of manuscripts received, HER only provides detailed comments on manuscripts that complete the second stage of review.

Question: “How soon are accepted pieces published?”

Answer: The date of publication depends entirely on how many manuscripts are already in the queue for an issue. Typically, however, it takes about 6 months post-acceptance for a piece to be published.

Submission Process

Question: “how do i submit a manuscript for publication in her”.

Answer: Manuscripts are submitted through HER’s Submittable platform, accessible here. All first-time submitters must create an account to access the platform. You can find details on our submission guidelines on our Submissions page.