History Education Research Journal

Journal aims and scope

The History Education Research Journal (HERJ) is an international, open-access, peer-reviewed journal that focuses on the global significance and impact of history education. It covers all aspects of history education theory, practice, scholarship, and pure and applied research. Articles address contemporary issues, concerns, policies and practice, drawing upon the full range of research methodologies relating to history education research.

The journal particularly welcomes papers that include attention to the implications for policy and practice that arise from theoretical and empirical work. Themes of interest include (but are not limited to) curriculum, teaching and teachers, academic progression, didactics, historical consciousness, the intersection between education and public history, community history, national and international perspectives, historical literacy, disciplinary history and the history of history education. 

The journal aims to be the leading forum for dissemination of research related to all aspects of history education. It will be of primary interest to anyone involved in history education research and will offer many insights to history educators.

Please note that while the journal accepts historical research on history education, it does not accept papers that are solely focused on the history of education in general or on history itself.

Journal owner information

The History Education Research Journal is supported by the History Educators International Research Network (HEIRNET) an organisation that brings together colleagues from around the world interested in History’s civilising, cultural, educational, moral, social, political and citizenship roles.

The journal is also supported by the Historical Association.

Editor-in-Chief

Dr Arthur Chapman, IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society   

 

Editorial board 

Prof Roland Bernhard, University of Vienna, Austria     
Dr Gideon Boadu, RMIT University, Australia
Dr Katharine Burn, University of Oxford, UK 
Prof Carla van Boxtel, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Dr Arthur Chapman, IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society
Prof Hilary Cooper, University of Cumbria, UK
Asst Prof Lindsay Gibson, The University of British Columbia, Canada
Prof Terry Haydn, University of East Anglia, UK
Alison Kitson, IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society
Prof Andreas Körber, University of Hamburg, Germany
Prof Jon Nichol, History Education International Research Network, UK
Dr Andy Pearce, IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society
Assoc Prof Heather Sharp, The University of Newcastle, Australia
Assoc Prof Tyson Retz, University of Stavanger, Norway
Prof Arie Wilschut, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands

Journal information

ISSN: 1472-9474
Homepage: https://www.uclpress.co.uk/pages/history-education-research-journal

Published by:
UCL Press
University College London (UCL)
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT

UCL Press website: https://www.uclpress.co.uk
UCL Press email: uclpresspublishing@ucl.ac.uk
UCL Press twitter: @uclpress
UCL Press Journals Editorial Policy: https://www.uclpress.co.uk/pages/journals-editorial-policy

Publication frequency: History Education Research Journal publishes articles continuously (as and when articles are ready for publication).

Contact the journal

All general enquiries should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief at herj@ucl.ac.uk.

History of the journal 

HERJ was previously published under the title International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research. All editions published under this title - from 1(1) to 15(1) - are available through the Historical Association. HERJ on ScienceOpen begins at number 15(2).

Open access policy

All articles published in the History Education Research Journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) 4.0 international license agreement and published open access, making them immediately and freely available to read and download. The CC-BY license agreement allows authors to retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of the work.

Further information regarding this can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and licensing terms and conditions can be found in our Journals Editorial Policy. 

Abstracting & indexing

UCL Press works with subject specific indexers to deposit published articles in relevant repositories and search databases. Articles published in the History Education Research Journal are indexed in: 

• Dimensions
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• EBSCO
• Google Scholar
• OCLC
• UCL Discovery   

Peer review

Articles submitted to HERJ for general content are subject to double-blind peer review, where both the reviewers and authors are anonymised during review. Authors should submit an anonymous version of the manuscript, stripped of all identifying references to the author(s) for peer review, as well as a Word document containing all details of authorship (see under ‘Formatting your submission’ in the ‘Submissions’ tab).

Further information regarding peer review can be found in our Peer Review Policy. There is also specific guidance for HERJ peer reviewers. 

Article processing charges (APCs)

UCL Press journals do not levy an Article-Processing Charge (APC) for submission or publication in this journal. Contributors to HERJ will not be required to make an APC payment for submission or publication of their article.

How to submit

The History Education Research Journal considers all manuscripts in scope on condition that they have not been published already and are not under consideration for publication or in press elsewhere. Contributions to HERJ must report original research and will be subjected to review by referees at the discretion of the editors. Manuscripts should be 6,000-7,000 words in length.

You are welcome to contact the journal with pre-submission queries: herj@ucl.ac.uk

Before submitting to the journal, all authors must read and agree to the UCL Press Journals Editorial Policy and the Journal Contributor Agreement. Please also read the following notes in full. Manuscripts that are not formatted appropriately for the journal will be returned for reformatting before peer review.

Please note that HERJ has transferred to a new submission system. Authors can access this by clicking ‘SUBMIT TO JOURNAL’  below. You will need to register and log in to submit to the journal. For technical queries and support, please email the managing editor: p.gordon-smith@ucl.ac.uk

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT TO THE JOURNAL

Article types

Original research article 
Original research articles are detailed studies reporting original research classified as primary literature. 

Review article
Reviews provide critical and systematic appraisal of the current research to provide authoritative judgement to its particular context, topic, and field.

Preparing your manuscript

All authors submitting to HERJ must read and accept the UCL Press Journals Editorial Policy, and consent to the Journal Author Contributor Agreement. The notes here offer additional guidance.

Ethics approval 
HERJ ethics requirements for papers submitted to the journal.

HERJ is committed to upholding the integrity of the work published. Papers may be reporting empirical research, or practice papers reporting practice-based evidence. Authors submitting research papers are required to follow best ethical practice for research as outlined in the British Educational Research Association or similar professional body (please indicate this clearly in your submission). Authors are required to show in their papers that they have received ethical approval for their research from all relevant institutional review boards and that they have followed General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in the handling of personal data. Where such committees do not operate, authors are responsible for providing evidence of their adherence to relevant ethical guidelines (please indicate this clearly in your submission).

English language
All publications are in English (UK). In order to facilitate rigorous and high-quality peer review, all manuscripts should be written in good and coherent English. Should you require help when writing your manuscript, a native English-speaking colleague may be well suited to help edit the level of English language in the manuscript. You may also want to consider using a professional English language editing service to improve the level of English language. Please note that using professional English language editing services does not guarantee manuscript acceptance in the journal, and you may be charged for these services.

Covering letter 
Authors are welcome to submit a covering letter with the manuscript, for the Editors’ reference. Should you wish to provide one, please briefly summarise your manuscript, its findings, major themes, relevant discussion points and any disclosures including conflicts of interest the Editor(s) should be aware of.

ORCiD
ORCiD helps researchers record and report their work by providing researchers with a personal unique identifier that can be kept throughout their career. UCL Press journals now implement ORCiD in publications and authors are encouraged to register with ORCiD and enter their ORCiD details on submission. To register, follow the instructions on the ORCiD web pages at https://orcid.org/, or for UCL authors please visit the UCL Open Access pages http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-access/ORCID.

Originality of article
All submitted articles must not be under consideration for publication anywhere else, nor have been published in any form prior to submission to any UCL Press journal. By submitting, authors are agreeing that the submission is original except for material in the public domain and such excerpts of other works have written permission of the copyright owner. Where there is potential for duplication authors must correctly reference and cite the work. Co-publication of an article, as agreed with the publisher and journal, may be considered in accordance with the ICMJE guidelines on overlapping publication, at the discretion of the Editor.

Data and materials 
HERJ encourages authors to either deposit any datasets on which conclusions in their manuscript rely in publicly available repositories or to present them in the main paper or additional supporting files, in machine-readable format (such as spread sheets rather than PDFs) whenever possible. UCL Press journal authors are encouraged to follow the FAIR data principles to make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable. Further information and guidance on these principles are outlined at https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples

Formatting your submission

All manuscript text should be Times New Roman 12-point font and be double spaced.

UCL Press’s style preferences are outlined in our Author Guidelines. These are written to support book authors, but the guidance on text styles is also appropriate for journal articles. 

Versions for peer review
The journal operates double-blind peer review, in which authors and reviewers are anonymised to keep their identity hidden from each other. Authors should submit two versions of the manuscript:

1. The complete manuscript not blinded, as a Word file (.doc/.docx, etc.). Please include the following biographical information: full names of contributing authors including their institutions/affiliation and address, their institutional email address, and their ORCiDs. The corresponding author should be identified.
2. An anonymous PDF version of the manuscript, stripped of all identifying references to the author(s) for peer review (anonymisation includes biographical information, acknowledgements, self references, electronic author identification and all publication references). Manuscripts will be returned before peer review if manuscripts are not blinded.

Article content 
Please prepare your manuscript under the following headings, and in the order given.

Title  
Your title should succinctly reflect the article’s content, using key words that are most likely to draw interested readers to the content through a search engine. There are no hard rules, but titles that accurately communicate article content in a few careful words are more effective than catchy phrases that require a subtitle for explanation. Snappy quotations are best avoided. If the title takes up two full lines or more in the manuscript, it is too long.

Biographical information (Word document only): See point 1 above.

Abstract

Present an abstract of 150 to 200 words. This should reflect the entire content of the submission. It should cover the key steps in your article, probably including the genesis of your project / research / theorising, research questions / hypotheses, the research design and methods, findings and outcomes, a discussion of these including limitations, and any indications offered for future action or research.

Your abstract will ultimately be used by search engines, and it will form part of the meta-data that will be seen first by people searching your article.

Keywords
List up to 10 keyword terms that accurately reflect the article. 

Article text
Please refer to the ‘General notes for submission’ at the top of this page and to the article type descriptions above when preparing the main body of text. 

Abbreviations
If any abbreviations have been used, please define and list them accordingly under this heading.

Funding 
Any sources of funding for the research reported should be declared, including any project codes. 

Acknowledgements 
Mention everyone whose contribution to the work you wish to recognise in this section. Those that contributed to the paper but are not listed as authors can be acknowledged here. 

Declarations and conflict of interests
Include the following statements that are relevant for type of paper you are submitting and for your work. Where there are bulleted choices, please include the one that is appropriate to you and provide any information required:

Research ethics statement (for articles reporting on original research with human participants; choose the correct statement where approprate, and provide any additional information required)

• The author/s declare/s that research ethics approval for this article was provided by ___________________ ethics board. /
• The author/s declare/s that research ethics approval for this article was waivered by ____________________ ethics board. /
• The author/s conducted the research reported in this article in accordance with _________________ standards.

Consent for publication statement (for articles reporting on original research or any activity involving human participants)

The author declares that research participants’ informed consent to publication of findings – including photos, videos and any personal or identifiable information – was secured prior to publication.

Conflict of interest statement (for all articles; delete as appropriate)

• The author/s declare/s no conflict of interest with this work.
• The author/s declare/s the following interests: ___________________________
• The author is a current editor for this journal. All efforts to sufficiently blind the author during peer review of this article have been made. The author declares no further conflicts with this article.

References
A full reference list should contain all the sources cited in the text. Any source not cited in text should not be included. The journal uses an author, date style of referencing. Please refer to this guide.

Note on appendices
Articles in HERJ do not feature end-article appendices. All illustrative matter should be included in the body of the text or as a table/figure.

Preparing tables and figures

Authors are responsible for determining the copyright status of illustrations or other material they wish to reproduce in their article and, if necessary, obtaining permission to reproduce it. This applies both to direct reproduction and to ‘derivative reproduction’ (where authors create a new figure or table which derives substantially from a copyrighted source). By including such material in their submission, authors warrant that it may be reproduced or adapted under the terms of the CC BY licence in the same way as their own work. Please note that short extracts of copyright text (excluding poetry and song lyrics) for the purposes of criticism, discussion, or review may be reproduced without formal permission assuming that the quotation is reproduced accurately and full attribution is given.

All tables and figures should be numbered sequentially (Table 1, Table 2, etc) and have a short, clear title or caption. Each one should be tagged in the correct place in the manuscript, e.g. <Insert Table 1 near here>, even if the table or illustration has been placed in the manuscript in its final position.

All tables and figures should cite a source. Where the source is the author, please add ‘Source: Author’ at the end of the caption.

Tables and author-generated line diagrams
These should be incorporated into the text at their final position. Please supply tables formatted in Word.

Graphs
Please submit these as separate, editable documents accompanied by the original Excel spreadsheet from which they were generated.

Illustrations, photographs
Please submit images both within the article text and as separate image files (jpg, tiff, eps).

UCL Press’s style preferences are outlined in our Author Guidelines. These are written to support book authors, but the guidance on text styles is also  appropriate for journal articles.

Revisions

Should your manuscript need revision to meet the journal’s requirements, or following peer review, please attend to the following points when revising your manuscript.

• Clearly show and/or highlight the revisions you have made in the text. This can be accommodated by making use of either a different colour text, highlighting the text, or by using Microsoft Word's Track Changes function.
• In your response letter, address all points raised by the editor and reviewers, preferably sequentially and in a bullet point list.
• Outline the revisions you have made to your manuscript.
• Where applicable, perform any additional analyses or experiments the reviewers recommend (unless you feel that they would not make your paper better; if this is the case, explain why in your response letter).
• Provide a polite objective rebuttal to any points or comments you disagree with.

Formatting your submission

Should your manuscript need revision to meet the journal’s requirements, or following peer review, please attend to the following points when revising your manuscript. 

Provide your timely revisions along with a response letter to any reviewer reports, within the specified revision period to the handling editor.

• Clearly show and/or highlight the revisions you have made in the text. This can be accommodated by making use of either a different colour text, highlighting the text, or by using Microsoft Word's Track Changes function.
• In your response letter, address all points raised by the editor and reviewers, preferably sequentially and in a bullet point list.
• Outline the revisions you have made to your manuscript.
• Where applicable, perform any additional analyses or experiments the reviewers recommend (unless you feel that they would not make your paper better; if this is the case, explain why in your response letter).
• Provide a polite objective rebuttal to any points or comments you disagree with.

Referencing Style

The journal uses an author, date style of referencing. Please refer to this guide.

Open calls for papers

Below readers will find all open calls for papers to the journal.

CALL FOR PAPERS: History Education in Historical Perspective

For publication from autumn 2024. See link for information, contact and deadlines.