Perspectives in Education
Journal / Perspectives in Education / Submissions

 

Full author guidelines.

Editorial policy

Perspectives in Education (PiE) is a professional, peer-reviewed journal that encourages the submission of previously unpublished articles on contemporary educational issues. It represents a variety of cross-disciplinary interests, both theoretical and practical and seeks to stimulate debate on a wide range of topics. PiE is published biannually (June and December) and invites manuscripts employing innovative qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods and approaches including (but not limited to), ethnographic observation and interviewing, grounded theory, life history, case study, curriculum analysis and critique, policy studies, ethno-methodology, social and educational critique, phenomenology, deconstruction and genealogy. 

Debates on epistemology, methodology or ethics, from a range of perspectives including post-positivism, interpretivism, constructivism, critical theory, feminism and post-modernism are also invited. PiE seeks to stimulate important dialogue and intellectual exchange on education and democratic transition with respect to schools, colleges, non-governmental organisations, universities and universities of technology in South Africa and beyond. 

As the journal aims to make itself accessible to a wider reading community, it encourages authors to make their content accessible to a broad readership, including those who may not be familiar with the subject matter addressed. PiE challenges contributors to use innovative, provocative and creative ways of presenting and reporting their research. 

Contributions must be in English, as the journal caters to an international audience.

Submission of articles

 Articles are considered for publication provided that: 

• The work is original. 
• The work has not been published previously and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. 
• The author has secured the permission of all named co-authors, who have agreed on the order of the names for publication. 
• An approved ethics board (a copy of the ethical clearance certificate/letter should accompany an article submission) has ethically cleared the research on which the article is based. 

• The article has been language edited by a certified language practitioner (a copy of the letter from such a language practitioner should accompany an article submission).

  • The editor reserves the right to make editorial changes in any manuscript accepted for publication to enhance clarity or conformity with journal style. 

The review process takes between 3 to 6 months to complete. Authors will be informed of the editor’s decision on receipt of all of the reviewers’ reports. (Please note that it usually requires more time to review manuscripts submitted in the November–January period.) 

PiE invites submissions in the following categories: 

Research articles 

Contributors must submit typewritten manuscripts in MS Word format of between 5800–6400 words. 

The following are considered when evaluating the suitability of a manuscript for publication in this section of PiE: 

• The manuscript offers new, original insights or interpretations and the research is not merely a restatement of existing ideas and views. 
• The manuscript makes a significant contribution to the field and extends the borders of educational debate. 
• The manuscript is likely to arouse readers’ interest and stimulate debate. 
• The manuscript reflects sound scholarship and research design with appropriate, correctly interpreted references to other authors and works. 
• The content of the manuscript is accessible to the broad readership of the education community and is not just addressed to specialists in the area. 

Contributions in this section of the journal are subjected to our double-blind peer review process. The process is as follows: 

• When articles are first received, they are scanned for compliance. 
• If the article complies, it moves on to external double-blind peer review.
• When the article returns from external blind peer review, depending on the comments from the reviewers, it is sent to the author(s) with the option of reworking and resubmitting the article or it is accepted subject to minor changes.
• Authors will be informed if an article is rejected outright with reason(s) why it is not accepted.
• A reworked article is then re-evaluated to determine if it will be published. This is the editor-in-chief’s decision and the decision is final. 

The latter part of the journal, which is generally not subject to the peer review process, allows for the submission of the following: 

Review articles 

PiE invites succinct, critical, evaluative reviews of current literature on key topics in education. Reviews should provide a descriptive and evaluative summary and a brief discussion of the significance of the work in the context of current theory and practice. In addition to the conventional literature review format, reviewers are encouraged to use alternative methods of representation such as critically engaging the author(s) in a dialogue on published books or articles. 

General submission guidelines 

• Please submit your article via our OJS platform that you can access at http://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/pie/index
• If you have any technical difficulties, please email us on dsc@ufs.ac.za
• Name(s) of the author(s), title(s), and affiliation(s) should not be disclosed in the text.
• A separate document containing the author(s) details should accompany the article submission (a simple MS Word document will suffice).
• Please direct all enquiries to: perspectives@ufs.ac.za
• Tables and figures must be placed within their appropriate position in the article accompanied by the appropriate caption/heading.
• All scanned photographs/figures must be kept to a minimum quality level of 300 dpi. Diagrams should be inserted as images – preferably as jpeg or tiff files (not drawn in MS Word using lines, shapes and arrows).
• Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively and be accompanied by a brief heading for tables or caption for figures. Each table/figure must be referred to in the text.
• Tables should have text left aligned and numbers right aligned.
• Please use footnotes. Do not use endnotes.
• Articles must be typed in Arial font, 11pt, 1.5 spacing.
• Page margins should be 2.54cm.
• Headings should be bold and/or italics.
• Do not underline headings or text for emphasis. 

Procedure for manuscripts accepted for publication 

Publication fees of R3500 per article published will be charged. Authors will be invoiced on acceptance of the article. 

References 

• References are cited in the text by the author(s) surname and the year of publication in brackets (Harvard method), separated by a comma: e.g. (Brown, 2001). Page references in the text should follow a comma after the date, e.g. (Brown, 2001: 69). 
• If several articles by the same author and from the same year are cited, the letters a, b, c, etc. should be added after the year of publication e.g. (Brown, 2001a). 
• In works by three authors, the surnames of all authors should be given in the first reference to such a work. In subsequent references to this work only the name of the first author is given, followed by the abbreviation et al.: e.g. (Ziv et al., 2005).

• In works by four or more authors, the first citation is immediately truncated to the first author’s surname and the abbreviation ‘et al.’, with all the authors only being listed by their surnames in the reference list.

• For personal communications (oral or written) identify the person and indicate in brackets that it is personal communication, e.g. (M Smith, pers. comm.).

List of references 

Only sources cited in the text are listed in the reference list, in alphabetical order. These should be presented as indicated in the following examples. Special attention should be paid to the required punctuation. 

Journal articles: 

Johnson, D.W. & Johnson, R.T. 2002. Gifted students illustrate co-operative learning. Educational Leadership, 50: 60-61. 

Books: 

Van Zyl, R. & Thomas, P.P. 2004. Recent advances in classroom research. New York: McGraw-Hill. 

Chapters in books: 

Dukzec, S. 2008. Gender issues. In: D Hicks & J Brown (Eds.). Education for peace. London: Routledge. 

Unpublished theses or dissertations: 

Squelch, J. 2001. Teacher training for multicultural education in a multicultural society. MEd dissertation. Pretoria: University of South Africa. 

Anonymous newspaper references: 

Citizen. 2006. Education for all, 22 March. 

Personal communications: 

Not retrievable and not listed. 

Electronic references: 

No author: Violence and discipline problems in U.S. schools: 1999-2002. Available at http://www.nces.ed.gov/pubs98/violence/98030001.html [Accessed 3 June 2006]. 

Published under author’s name: Burbach, H. 2000. Violence and the public schools. Available at 4 http://www.people.Virginia.EDU/~rkb3b/Hal/SchoolViolence.html [Accessed 4 March 2001]. 

PiE checklist (before submitting an article) 

• Article is between 5800–6400 words 
• Article is typed in Arial, 11pt, 1.5 spacing, 2.54cm margins 
• Article is referenced according to the Harvard referencing method 
• Article is language edited (proof must be provided with article submission) 
• Article is in MS Word format 
• Article has an abstract 
• Article has 4–6 keywords 
• Article contains little to no self-referencing by the author(s) 
• A separate document containing author details must accompany an article submission 
• A clear statement regarding ethical clearance and the approval process for the research must be made