Fitzgerald y Gunter JEAH - 08 Educ Admon and History Part 2

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Journal of Educational Administration and History

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Educational administration and history Part 2: academic journals and the

contribution of JEAH
Tanya Fitzgerald a;Helen M. Gunter b
a
School of Education, Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand b School of Education,
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
To cite this Article Fitzgerald, Tanya andGunter, Helen M.(2008) 'Educational administration and history Part 2: academic
journals and the contribution of JEAH', Journal of Educational Administration and History, 40: 1, 23 — 40
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Journal of Educational Administration and History
Vol. 40, No. 1, April 2008, 23–40
Educational administration and history Part 2: academic journals and the

contribution of JEAH
Tanya Fitzgeralda* and Helen M. Gunterb
aSchool of Education, Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand; bSchool of Education,
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
(Received December 2007; final version January 2008)

Taylor and Francis
CJEH_A_292928.sgm
In this article, we examine the role of academic journals in the development of the field. In
Journal
10.1080/00220620801927624
0022-0620
Original
Taylor
102008
40
Helen.gunter@manchester.ac.uk
HelenGunter
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ofArticle
Francis
Educational
(print)/1478-7431
2008 Administration
(online) and History
Downloaded By: [Universidad de Sevilla] At: 08:38 22 April 2010
particular we focus on JEAH as an illustrative example of an academic journal that has, from
the outset, reflected and portrayed intellectual developments in educational administration
and history. We argue that academic journals, in effect, are one of the most visible and
ostensibly powerful forms of knowledge production that can be a highly political and
contested process. Moreover, attempts over the past few decades to utilise qualitative or
quantitative measures to weigh and measure the (apparent) status and impact of academic
journals serve to invoke ratings wars that can only rebound to the disadvantage of scholarship
in discipline of education and the field of educational administration and history.
Keywords: academic journals; editorial process; publishing; politics
Introduction
As the new editors of the Journal of Educational Administration and History (JEAH), we have
begun our tenure by stating our own editorial direction that appears in the first article of this
40th issue. We would now like to examine and critique the role of an ‘academic journal’ in the
evolution of a field and take this opportunity to examine the role that JEAH has played in
developing, contesting and confirming the construction of knowledge for/about educational
administration and history across the last 40 years. We acknowledge from the outset that this
article cannot fully traverse notions such as ‘authorship’, ‘editorship’, and ‘readership’1 and,
while it may appear that we use these terms in unproblematic ways, we argue that authors,
editors, editorial board members, reviewers, publishers and readers share a deeply complex
and at times contested relationship that is interlinked with a number of academic and literary
practices.
In this article we begin by examining the ‘academic journal’ and its position and positioning
in terms of the field, field membership and field development.2 We then examine ways in which
scholarship is increasingly subjected to audit practices that seek to determine the ‘quality’ of an
academic journal based on impact and esteem factors. These factors, we argue, contribute to a
form of treadmill of esteem for authors, editors, the editorial board and publishers. In addition,
we offer a critique of the relatively powerful role of editors and peer reviewers in the process of
knowledge production and their potential to act as gatekeepers to either confirm what and whose
*Corresponding author. Email: tfitzgerald@unitec.ac.nz

1We intend to conduct an empirical research project that will examine these links.
2For a fuller discussion of discipline and field, see Gunter and Fitzgerald, the opening article in this issue.
ISSN 0022-0620 print/ISSN 1478-7431 online

© 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/00220620801927624
http://www.informaworld.com
24 T. Fitzgerald and H.M. Gunter
knowledge ‘counts’,3 or to sanction (that is, reject) those whose work does not conform to
practices (academic or literary) that are considered acceptable. In the latter section of this article
we are concerned with new managerialist policies and practices about research, scholarship and
academic journals that have erupted in higher education in the past decade. Lastly, we turn our
attention to the historical development of JEAH and its role in field development over the past
40 years, and offer an analysis of the ebb and flow of papers that have contributed to the longev-
ity and vibrancy of the journal.
Our analysis is therefore underpinned by the following questions:
(1) What is the role of the ‘academic journal’ in terms of scholarship and field development?
(2) What is the role and contribution of an editor(s) and the editorial process to scholarship
and the development of the field?
(3) To what extent has JEAH as an academic journal contributed to field development over
the past 40 years?
(4) In what ways do the standards of scholarship and the development of a field converge in
a journal such as JEAH?
As the incoming editors, we see these as critical questions to surface, particularly as an

‘academic journal’ provides a window to view how a field has developed and been developed
through the knowledge presented between its covers. And while the function of most academic
journals is widely understood, not least by those involved in the process, what is less debated is
the extent to which the ‘academic journal’ both authors and authorises disciplinary practices and
knowledge.
The ‘academic journal’

As fields of knowledge, educational administration and history are irreducible; that is, they are
related to each other and defined by knowledge boundaries that are established, perpetuated and
maintained by field members. Field members as knowledge producers,4 professional researchers
or researching professionals,5 are inextricably connected with determining what knowledge and
practices are deemed legitimate and therefore adopted by the field.6 This body of knowledge
therefore represents the intellectual boundaries of the field; and its most visible manifestation is
the ‘academic journal’ that further provides a way to map knowledge production in the field. And
while educational administration in particular may not have an underpinning ‘ology’ as Fitz has
commented, to determine how knowledge of and for the field is produced, the forms and practices
of this knowledge and the contribution to knowledge production by academics and practitioners
therefore becomes more critical.7 The opening paper in this issue by Gunter and Fitzgerald
explores notions of ‘field’ and ‘discipline’ and their interconnection that cumulatively contribute
3M.W. Apple, ‘What Counts as Legitimate Knowledge? The Social Production and Use of Reviews’,
Review of Educational Research 69, no. 4 (1999): 343–6.
4The work of Peter Ribbins and Helen Gunter, ‘Mapping Leadership Studies in Education: Towards a
Typology of Knowledge Domains’, Educational Management Administration and Leadership 30, no. 4
(2002): 359–85 is particularly instructive here.
5See issue 39, no. 2 of the Journal of Educational Administration and History for a fuller account of these
debates and the contribution of researching professionals to the field.
6The connection between field, occupants, positions and the production of knowledge is well argued in J.
Fitz, ‘Reflections on the Field of Educational Management Studies’, Educational Management
Administration and Leadership 27, no. 3 (1999): 313–21.
7Fitz, ‘Reflections’.
Journal of Educational Administration and History 25
to the ‘ology’ that the field draws upon. John Fitz’s suggestion that a field should be underpinned
by an ‘ology’ is, in our opinion, a somewhat limited view of the potentiality of the field. Thus,
field membership and knowledge of/for/in the field cannot be viewed in isolation, nor can the
journal that simultaneously produces and defines the field.
The term ‘academic journal’ cannot be easily defined, although we would like to take as our
starting-point John Fitz’s view that an academic journal conterminously defines the field and the
field defines the journal.8 In addition, a journal provides field members with a link with the field
and associated prestige connected with the journal. In other words, a journal of the field and
about the field produces, defines and defends the intellectual and discursive boundaries of the
field. Arguably, then, it behoves field members not only to publish their work in their journal but
also to invest in the development of the field via the production of knowledge that is embodied
in the journal. Mapping a journal and its development, as the latter section of this article high-
lights, not only provides evidence of the (theoretical and methodological) boundary disputes, but
also historically constitutes a mapping of the field, its members and its knowledge.
In terms of this article, we would like to propose a number of broad principles that are
reflected in the majority of academic journals in education, educational administration, leader-

ship, policy (LAMPS)9 and history.10 In the first instance, an academic journal may be linked
with a learned or professional society that has as one of its central objectives the advancement
of theory and practice in the field. One of the benefits of membership of a learned or professional
society is that a print copy of the journal is supplied as part of the subscription. It is standard
practice for the professional or learned society to oversee the journal in terms of its production
and scholarly development and as a device for attracting income through copyright payments
and institutional subscriptions. Those journals that are published directly by the learned or
professional society (for example History of Education Review, the journal of the Australia and
New Zealand History of Education Society, or Leading and Managing, the journal of the Austra-
lian Council for Educational Leaders) can be vulnerable in terms of fluctuations in membership
and the dominance of large academic publishers in the ‘market’. Responsibility by a learned or
professional society for the actual publication and distribution of its journal is not now common,
although this was true for journals such as Educational Administration and Leadership (in its
original form – initially Educational Administration Bulletin) and also for Pastoral Care in
Education.11
Secondly, what is more common is for educational administration journals such as Educa-
tional Management Administration and Leadership, International Studies in Educational
Administration and Educational Administration Quarterly and history journals such as History
of Education, Paedagogica Historica, and History of Education Quarterly to be under the aegis
of one of the major academic publishers. While these journals might be produced by a publisher,
they are clearly owned by a Society such as the British Educational Leadership, Management
and Administration Society, Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and
Management, History of Education Society (UK), International Standing Conference for the
History of Education, and History of Education Society (US), respectively.
A third principle that assists with the definition of an ‘academic journal’ is that it may be
produced directly by an academic publisher (such as Blackwell, Routledge Taylor & Francis, or
Sage Publications, which publish the core journals in educational administration, leadership,
8Ibid.
9See Ribbins, in this issue, for an explanation of this acronym.
10We are not proposing a uniform or universal list of criteria, but rather a broad conceptualisation of what
might constitute an ‘academic’ journal.
11I am indebted to Peter Ribbins for this information.
policy studies and history) or a university press (such as the University of Chicago Press, which
publishes the American Journal of Education) and that the journal(s) may have no links
with a professional or learned society (for example, School Leadership and Management). It is
therefore the publisher’s responsibility to archive the journal, promote the journal, manage
subscriptions, and ensure the widest possible dissemination of the scholarly work that is
published in the journal. In addition, it is in the publisher’s own (economic) interest to monitor
the quality of the journal, interest of the readership,12 and collect data regarding numbers of
submissions, acceptance and rejection rates, while ensuring that editorial and production dates
are met.
Fourthly, academic journals adhere to standardised conventions that govern every aspect of
their presentation, from style and structure to format, cover design and the use of scholarly
devices such as footnotes and references.13 That is, an academic journal has a recognised appear-
ance and is published at regular intervals, although increasingly there have been wide-ranging
debates on the potential advantages of electronic publishing, particularly during crises of reduced
funding for institutions of higher education and their libraries.14
Fifthly, academic journals are abstracted and indexed in major reference services such as
Modern Language Association International Bibliography (MLA) or Social Science Citation
Abstracts, and may also be available through electronic databases such as EBSCO, Emerald or
JSTOR (The Scholarly Journal Archive), to name a few. Sixthly, an academic journal makes
explicit its aims, objectives and its theoretical and methodological approaches. Seventhly,
an editorial board that reflects the national and international expertise in the field supports an
academic journal. As highlighted below, members of an editorial board lend esteem to an academic
journal through their own standing in the field. In most instances, an editorial board will assist
with reviewing manuscripts, determine whether submitted manuscripts merit publication, advise
the editor(s) on special issues, and develop appropriate policies.
Finally, journal editors are leading academics who are primarily responsible for appointing
the editorial board, establishing the direction of the journal, receiving manuscripts from potential
authors, appointing referees to critique manuscripts and making decisions with regards all matters
associated with the quality assurance process such as the acceptance for publication or rejection
of manuscripts. Accordingly, we would like to suggest that the way in which editors understand
their role and intellectual work, as well as their scholarly practices, is an integral part of the
professionalisation of academic work.15 In addition, and in collaboration with the publishers,
editors are further responsible for marketing the journal, increasing subscriptions, and assisting
with bids to include the journal in processes such as Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) ratings
that determine the relative worth of a journal in its field.
The publication process, as outlined above, is complex, and at each stage there are compet-
ing and varying demands for authors, editors, reviewers and publishers. As such, there are
multiple relationships embedded within this system of creation and exchange of academic
knowledge. One of the participants is the learned society that owns the journal and has as its
12Downloading of academic journals from databases or from the publisher’s web page provides these
statistics for the publisher. Other measures such as subscription renewals could also be taken into account.
13P. McDermott, Politics and Scholarship: Feminist Academic Journals and the Production of Knowledge
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
14See, for example, F. Rowland, ‘Scholarly Journal Publishing in New Zealand’, Learned Publishing 18,
no. 4 (2005): 300–10, which highlights these numerous debates.
15The professionalisation of education and teacher professionalism is outlined by J. Nixon and S. Ranson,
‘Theorising “Agreement”: The Moral Bases of the Emergent Professionalism Within the “New”
Management of Education’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 18, no. 2 (1997):
197–214.
remit a concern with advancing scholarship within the field, appoints its editor(s) and requires a
level of accountability from the editorial board and publishers (for example, the journal of the
British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society is Educational
Management Administration and Leadership, published by Sage; similarly, the journal of the
UK’s History of Education Society is History of Education). A second participant is the publish-
ing houses that have responsibility for the production, sales, marketing and overall profitability
of the journal. Thirdly, editors and the editorial board, as outlined above, are involved in the
development of a journal and its content. The fourth relationship is with reviewers who offer
expert advice as to whether a manuscript is worthy of publication; and, fifthly, readers (individ-
ual and institutional subscribers) are part of this relationship in terms of their readership and as
consumers of knowledge, a vital role in the overall profitability of the journal. Readers too can
themselves submit manuscripts for consideration or act as reviewers; so the labels assigned can
vary according to their own position in the production process. And finally, the contributions of
highly reputed authors can enhance the perceived quality of the journal’s content.16 In numer-
ous ways, therefore, these six relationships are symbiotic. That is, they each contribute to the
quality, esteem, success and longevity of an academic journal and are, in as a result, part of a
discursive community. At various times and in various ways, an individual might act as editorial
board member, referee, editor or author for one or more journals within the field or discursive
community. What, then, are the shared characteristics of these positions and positioning, and
how does this contribute to the development of the field? These are important questions to
surface and debate in any discursive or epistemic community.
One of the ways in which these questions might be addressed is through an examination of
an academic journal such as JEAH. Not only can an academic journal serve as a focus for a field;
in addition, it can shape the field and/or the construction of knowledge. It is precisely this
dynamic, powerful and reciprocal role by journals in disciplinary practices and the disciplining
of knowledge that renders it an important artefact for the field and as an area of study. Moreover,
editorial policies and practices both reflect and serve to foster the work of a field.17 What we
would like to make explicit is that we see the ‘academic journal’, editors and the editorial
practices, as one component of the (complex and contested) evolution of a field. It is, we should
suggest, a complex, albeit dynamic, web of relationships in which authors, editors, peer review-
ers and publishers play specific yet complementary roles. As we pointed out in our opening
article, writing, reading, reviewing and editing an academic journal is not a neutral process.
Clark and Ivanic have identified the social and regulatory frameworks embedded within the
act of researching, writing and publishing academic work.18 The authors use the term ‘literary
practices’ to describe the social conventions and academic practices that surround the production
of academic journals. Literary practices are a social game, the rules of which individuals need to
know, understand and adhere to in order to be successful. This may help to explain why there is
a commonly understood framework about how academic journals operate and why there has
been little disagreement about what constitutes the academic journal. As outlined above, these
common features include a broadly articulated set of aims and purpose, the use of familiar modes
of communication (letter and electronic), the use of specific experts and expertise to shape and
define the nature of critique and feedback, the adoption of unambiguous language (such as
‘accept’, ‘revise’, ‘reject’) and the circulation of information and standardisation of form and
16This is further explored by L. Lange, ‘The Impact Factor as a Phantom: Is there a Self-fulfilling
Prophecy Effect of Impact?’, Journal of Documentation 58, no. 2 (2002): 175–84.
17Jerry Wellington and Jon Nixon, ‘Shaping the Field: The Role of Academic Journal Editors in the
Construction of Education as a Field of Study’, British Journal of Sociology of Education 26, no. 5
(2005): 643–55.
18R. Clark, and R. Ivanic, The Politics of Writing (London: Routledge, 1997).
process of publication. What is less clear is how individuals learn what these literary and
academic practices are and how these ‘practices’ have become legitimated.
One of the invisible elements of these literary and academic practices is that authorship,
editorship, editorial board processes and the review process depend on the goodwill of all those
involved. That is, each individual in this process may be affiliated with an institution but their
academic labour for and on behalf of a journal is at the cost of their institution, not the publisher.
As well as providing salaries and the infrastructure for academics, institutions subscribe (at a
high rate) to electronic databases and/or hard copies. Paying for the literary and academic
practices of a journal as well as the actual electronic and print copies for other researchers to
read and consult could therefore be viewed as an act of double payment. However, one of the
advantages that an institution derives is that their esteem is enhanced through these practices.19
Institutional esteem can therefore be related to either authorship in or editorship of an academic
journal.
Academic journals are visible and physical sites that publicly create, disseminate, and
distribute knowledge for/about a field and legitimate that knowledge based on decisions about
what is produced and sanctioned through the publication process. We make no claim as to the
neutrality of this process, particularly as the editors of academic journals find that their interac-
tions with authors, peer reviewers and, to a lesser extent, publishers, are inevitably subject to
social and political pressures. Indeed, at every stage of the process each actor can influence the
selection, production and legitimation of knowledge, as Agger has outlined.20 Primarily, the
academic journal functions to develop, communicate, and disseminate knowledge. Hence, it
plays a pivotal role in determining the nature and focus of a field or fields of study. As Steig has
suggested, academic journals are central to the professionalism of a discipline and act as a
principal means of communicating knowledge and prompting debates among scholars.21
Although this purpose has remained, arguably audit exercises such as the Performance Based
Research Fund (PBRF) in New Zealand and the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in England
have introduced two additional purposes: to rank research and scholarly output, and to assist with
the dissemination of research funds. Furthermore, this new managerialism that has erupted around
research, scholarship, and academic work provides a means by which university administrators
can make decisions about appointment, tenure and promotion. More recently, discourses have
emerged concerning ‘knowledge transfer’; that is, how academic work, including research, might
be applied to practice. As Nixon emphasises, this has created a new form of author – one located
in higher education who can speak to and make judgements about the professional practice of
teachers. Although the esteem of the author might be related to his/her location within a particular
field or institution, his/her authority might be derived from his/her ability to meet the demands
of the professional educator (either as a teacher education student, teacher educator or as a
practising teacher).22 In such ways, therefore, authors, publishers, readers and the market are
inextricably linked.
Bronwyn Davies has sagely pointed out that the professional work of scholars that is subject
to management, surveillance and control has the potential to erode the very nature of the academy
19C.T. Miller and J.C. Harris, ‘Scholarly Journal Publication: Conflicting Agendas for Scholars,
Publishers, and Institutions’, Journal of Scholarly Publishing (2004): 70–91.
20B. Agger, A Critical Theory of Public Life: Knowledge, Discourse and Politics in the Age of Decline
(London: Falmer Press, 1991).
21M. Steig, Origins and Development of Scholarly Historical Periodicals (Alabama: University of
Alabama Press, 1986).
22Jon Nixon, ‘Teachers, Writers, Professionals: Is There Anybody Out There?’, British Journal of
Sociology of Education 20, no. 2 (1999): 207–21.
and academic work.23 Thus, the editorial practices of journals as well as academic journals
themselves are increasingly situated at the apex of what ‘counts’ in terms of scholarship and
academic activity and what ‘counts’ as a scholarly output. In particular, this has meant that jour-
nals, editorship and authorship have become more acutely important, as publication is an arbitrary
measure of the institution, its academic staff, and the ‘quality’ of their scholarship and activity
that then leads on to the securing of research income.24 In addition, there is pressure on journals
and authors to be ‘international’, and this has the potential to create some reluctance among
authors to submit their (best) work for publication, particularly if it is immediately apparent that
the journal might be localised (such as the New Zealand Journal of Educational Leadership). The
new managerialism that has emerged around research, researchers and research productivity has
contributed to the intensification of decisions with regard to achieving maximum efficiency of
output to meet accountability measures. This is, in effect, an academic treadmill.
Inevitably, publishing has been repositioned as a performance indicator and used to assess
scholarship. Although a highly contested process, there have been attempts to evaluate scholar-
ship and publications.25 This has included the number of times authors’ work is cited,26 number
of publications,27 reputation of academic journals and publishers, individual esteem or prestige

of authors, as well as factors including the institutional affiliation of the author. It would not be
an overstatement to suggest that the dichotomous relationship between journal esteem, author
profile and scholarship can contribute to an academic treadmill of what and who ‘count’. What
is therefore important to consider is the role of academic journals (and this includes editor,
editorial board, author, reviewers and publishers) in the construction and dissemination of
knowledge with/in a field. This is not to suggest that there is, or should be, a level of uniformity
about either the process of publishing or the relative status and positioning of journal, editor(s)
and author(s). Academic work, academic publishing and academic journals, we contend, is
neither unproblematic nor is it a straightforward process, particularly as it is a powerful means
by which decisions are increasingly made about subject, content, status and authorship.
Editors and the editorial process

As we have outlined in the first article in this issue, there are a number of aims and objectives
that JEAH wishes to promote. These aims and objectives, developed in conjunction with the
editorial board and publisher, will underpin our policies and practices. We anticipate that
potential authors will shape their work to meet these core aims and objectives. Similarly, review-
ers will be asked to assess a manuscript for its ‘fit’ with the journal.28 Indirectly then, editorial
policies and guidelines will shape what knowledge is produced. That is, we simultaneously
authorise what is produced by the journal, and author the field.
23Davies, ‘A Critique’.
24This argument is also traversed by S. Gorard, ‘Current Contexts for Research in Educational Leadership
and Management’, Educational Management Administration and Leadership 33, no. 2 (2005): 155–64.
25See for example the work of S. Harley, ‘The Impact of Research Selectivity on Academic Work and
Identity in UK Universities’, Studies in Higher Education 27, no. 2 (2002): 187–205.
26Commonly referred to as citation counts. This modernising practice is outlined by M. Henkel, ‘The
Modernisation of Research Evaluation: The Case of the UK’, Higher Education 38 (1999): 105–22.
27A rank order is used whereby sole-authored books ‘count’ more than co-edited books, journal articles or
conference papers. This is a complicated system that also gives weight to the publisher, place of
publication and whether publication was by invitation. That is, the prestige of author, scholarly work and
academic publisher are intertwined.
28M. Eisenhart, ‘The Paradox of Peer Review: Admitting too Much or Allowing too Little?’, Research in
Science Education 32 (2002): 241–55.
In much the same way as authors and their institutions derive specific benefits from an
academic journal, so too do its editors. Appointed either by the learned society or by an academic
publisher, an editor or editors gain esteem for their work in terms of their own scholarly reputa-
tion in the field of knowledge, academic community and their academic career(s). Academic
journals are led and managed by an editor in conjunction with an editorial board, and his/her
primary role is to represent and promote the journal and its scholarship. This is achieved through
attracting high-quality submissions, appointing suitable reviewers and making final decisions as
to whether a manuscript meets the stated aims and objectives. Each party in the literary relation-
ship (author, editor, reviewer, publisher and reader) and underpinning academic practices are
seeking to ensure that the journal is well recognised in the field and that leading scholars are
attracted to submit their work.29
Editors receive manuscripts electronically (by e-mail), in hard copy (by post) or, increas-
ingly, through web-based approaches such as Manuscript Central. The manuscript is then read
by the editor(s), who make a decision as to whether it is of a standard to be sent to reviewers.
On the basis of their theoretical, professional or methodological expertise, at least two review-
ers are approached and asked to make a recommendation within a specified period of time and
according to a predetermined set of guidelines. Both author(s) and reviewers remain anony-
mous to one another; that is, a ‘double-blind’ process. Based on sets of comments from both
reviewers, the editor(s) then make a decision to (1) accept the manuscript; (2) ask for further
revisions to be undertaken30 and the manuscript resubmitted; or (3) reject the manuscript. This
decision, along with the two reports, is sent to the corresponding author, who may then decide
to undertake the required changes or withdraw the manuscript. A revised manuscript that is
resubmitted may be subject to further peer review and, at the very least, scrutiny by the
editor(s) to ensure that the revisions have occurred. Editors will usually ask for the author to
explain how the revisions have been incorporated into the text. At this point the manuscript is
either accepted or the editor(s) may ask for further minor changes to ensure that the text meets
the stated academic conventions.
Once a manuscript is accepted, the editor then transmits the manuscript to the publisher who
then corresponds directly with the author during the production process. Any errors are the
responsibility of the author to correct when s/he is provided with a pre-publication proof. It is
also the responsibility of the author to ensure copyright clearance for items such as photographs
and other material that is used within the body of the text. Prior to the journal going to print, it
is usual for the author to assign copyright to the academic publisher. Though this may appear to
be a set of reasonably explicit procedures, what is less known is how new entrants learn the
‘rules’ and logic of this powerful game.31 Authorship, editorship and the publishing process is
not a democratic process; decisions are made, as Nixon suggests, behind closed doors.32
While readers might be cognisant of these processes, we have detailed each of these stages
of this editorial practice to make visible how our actions and activities as editors establish and
confirm the boundaries of the field and the powerful role any editor or reviewer occupies due to
their respective roles and the decisions they are called on to make. What is less clear from accounts
of scholarly practices is how these boundaries are extended and challenged. These questions
resonate with the work of Bourdieu,33 who uses notions such as ‘field of power’, ‘dispositions’,
‘illusio’, and ‘right of entry’ to describe and examine how published work is shaped and
29Nixon, ‘Teachers, Writers, Professionals’.
30Revisions can range from minor editing to extensive changes that require substantial work.
31Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genius and the Structure of the Literary Field (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 1996).
33Bourdieu, The Rules of Art.
constructed and the editorial role in this process. In essence, what he argues is that each individual
(author, editor and publisher) has a role to play; it is this momentum that maintains the illusio
(the shared belief in the process), contributing to the ‘system of dispositions’ and the ‘field of
power’. Thus, authorship, editorship and publishing is not a neutral process: what is critical, argues
Bourdieu, is that the powerful ‘rules of the game’ are recognised and not interpreted as benign.
Ultimately, at various points in various ways, editors, reviewers and publishers can act as
‘gatekeepers’ of the field and its knowledge. Furthermore, it is potentially possible for the
editorial process, from the point of submission of a manuscript to a journal to the published
outcome, to become a disciplinary mechanism; that is, scholarship is determined by the audit of
work and resultant decisions about what is published and what is rejected. We have termed this
‘disciplining scholarship’, which has significant implications, we believe, for how academics
define their own work, professional identities and activities within the academy.
Regulating and evaluating scholarship

There can be little doubt that universities and researchers derive a number of significant organ-
isational, strategic and individual benefits from research and publication. This can include, but
is not limited to, such factors as enhancing the reputation of a department or individual, increas-
ing potential for a favourable RAE or PBRF rating, securing external funding and attracting a
higher number of (international) postgraduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Conversely,
an institution may derive specific benefits from its own history and location as well as from the
individuals that are employed and their own academic reputations. Thus, there is an intercon-
nection between institutional, geographical, and departmental status and an individual (as an
author, reviewer or editor). Needless to say, the way this interconnection is played out is subject
to exigencies of race, class and gender.34
Using Bourdieu35 at this point, we would suggest that research activities are a process of
accumulating symbolic capital (publications), social capital (international esteem) and material
capital (research findings). These forms of capital are evident in most, if not all, readings of an
academic CV or a university/department website, and furthermore are critical elements in the
production of either a PBRF or RAE portfolio. These forms of capital can equally be applied to
the academic journal and academic publishing and help to determine what ‘counts’ in terms of
quality, rank, and esteem factors. It could also be argued that these forms of capital collide over
exercises such as the RAE and PBRF, and can interrupt scholarship, as the imperative to be
published underpins editorial processes and decision-making.36
New managerialist practices such as the RAE and PBRF have added a further level of
legitimation to research activities, scholarly articles and academic journals. That is, these exer-
cises have consolidated the role of journal editors as well as reviewers in determining what
counts as quality; an essential component not only in determining what is published but also link-
ing the quality of what is published and the esteem or ranking of the journal itself. In play, there-
fore, are two ways in which both researchers/author and journal are subject to judgement. In the
first instance, researchers/authors can be judged according to:
34McDermott, Politics and Scholarship.

35Pierre Bourdieu, ‘The Forms of Capital’, in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of
Education, ed. J.G. Richardson (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 241–258.
36In an issue of Educational Management Administration and Leadership, the editor commented that the
editorial board had decided to devote an entire issue of the journal to ensure that British academics were
published in time for their work to be ‘counted’ as part of the RAE exercise. See T. Bush, ‘Autonomy and
Accountability in Higher Education’, Educational Management Administration and Leadership 35 (2007),
no. 4 : 443–7.
(1) number of citations (that is, the use other researchers make of the published work);37
(2) number of publications (this is a hierarchy of books, book chapters, journal articles and
so forth);38
(3) individual factors and esteem (based on the above two indicators plus indicators such
as institutional affiliation, keynote addresses, research funding, research prizes and
fellowships);39
And academic journals can be judged according to:
(4) citations of its authors;

(5) the esteem of its authors;
(6) rigour of the review process, including acceptance and rejection rates;
(7) the esteem of its editors and editorial board; and
(8) ratings, such as SSCI Journal Ranking.
This is, we would argue, no less than a treadmill of esteem whereby authors, editors, the editorial
board and the academic journal share a symbiotic relationship. Thus, certain individuals (editors
and reviewers) have the power to shape and confirm the knowledge that is legitimated and
produced, while those who do not adhere to the discursive ‘rules’ may have their work dismissed
(rejected) as a form of sanction. Furthermore, the ‘academic journal’ can shape, define and
confirm what knowledge and whose knowledge ‘counts’40 through the process employed and
legitimated through the editor–reviewer nexus. The stamp of the publisher that appears on the
front page of a journal article is, in effect, not only a stamp of approval for/about the actual
article but also about the process undertaken to produce that work. This is not to suggest,
however, that oppositional views are silenced; alternative viewpoints are included, partly due to
a commitment to the principle of academic freedom that encourages a diversity of opinion.
Systems designed to measure, or make judgements about, research performance have
created pressure on researchers to publish; and these performance measures have also created a
further hierarchy within institutions of higher education. Nomenclature such as ‘lecturer’,
‘senior lecturer’ and ‘professor’ are career-oriented and such positions are secured based on
factors such as research activity, research funding, teaching and supervision, and academic citi-
zenship.41 Overlaid on these terms are descriptors such as ‘emerging researcher’ and ‘research
active’, which provide further categories that denote an academic’s standing in terms of systems
such as the PBRF in New Zealand.42 Academics no longer have the option to see their principal
role as being that of either a researcher and scholar or a teacher; it is simply a case of publish or
37J. Field, T. Lovell, and P. Weller, ‘Citation Counts and Research Quality in Continuing Education:
A Cautionary Note’, Journal of Further and Higher Education 15, no. 2 (1991): 47–53.
38A.F. Furnham, ‘Quantifying Quality: An Argument in Favour of Citation Counts’, Journal of Further
and Higher Education 14, no. 2 (1990): 105–10.
39For an overview of the RAE and its implications for academics and scholarship, see Henkel,
‘Modernisation of Research Evaluation’.
40M. Apple, Cultural and Economic Reproduction in Education, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1982).
41I. Moses, ‘Promotion of Academic Staff’, Higher Education 15, nos. 1–2 (1986): 135–49. There is not
the space here to traverse arguments as to the gender- and race-based nature of academic merit and
promotion. For an overview of these debates, see L. Morley and V. Walsh, Breaking Boundaries: Women
in Higher Education (Abingdon: Taylor & Francis, 1996).
42For an overview of the New Zealand system, see C. Hall, K. Morris Matthew and T. Sawicka,
‘Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF): Policy and Practice’, Annual Review of Education 13 (2003):
79–104.
perish (for the individual, department/school and institution).43 Getting published has always
been a professional expectation placed upon academics. However, significantly, this is now a
non-negotiable expectation that has created a degree of institutional pressure. This has had
a flow-on effect to journals as numbers of submissions increase, pressure is placed on editors
and reviewers to make decisions within a shorter timeframe and publications rise in the years
immediately prior to an RAE or PBRF evaluation.44 Interestingly too, this has created a wedge
for the publication of texts to assist authors to ‘get published’.45 Furthermore, this has created
opportunities for others, namely consultants, to facilitate writing workshops.46 Thus, the RAE
and PBRF have inadvertently created their own market and industry.
The primary unintended consequence of exercises such as the RAE and PBRF is that the
publications treadmill has increased. That is, increasing numbers of submissions to journals and
the production of academic texts have served to expand the publishing industry. What seems to
be less discussed is that in the main the work of authors, reviewers, editorial boards and editors
remains largely unwaged work.47 Almost despite various measures to determine the quality,
impact or rating of the journal,48 what is read, or more importantly, what is purchased is of
economic concern to academic publishers.
Hits lists and checklists

Over the past two to three years, we have either jointly or individually put forward proposals for
texts to a number of academic publishers. And while we do not disagree with the need for peer
review and feedback, we are reasonably alarmed at what appears to be the emergence of a trend
on the part of publishers to reject proposals if there is a level of concern as to whether the text
will meet the insistent demands of the market (that is, at one level making an immediate impact
and at another, making a ‘top’ sellers list), or whether there is an evident ‘international’ focus
(that is, the text includes either a US focus or US authors and, in addition, will be of interest to
the US textbook market).49 What appears to be occurring is that there has been a shift in the
locus of authority and decision-making about what ‘counts’ as knowledge and scholarship in the
43P. Smith, Killing the Spirit: Higher Education in America (New York: Viking Penguin Publishing,
1990). See also K.A. Noble, ‘Publish or Perish: What 23 Journal Editors Have to Say’, Studies in Higher
Education 14, no. 1 (1989): 97–102.
44As editors, we have been very conscious of this pressure, and we are frequently asked about the
timeframes in which decisions are made. Although this might seem a reasonable question, anecdotal
evidence suggests that ‘time to market’ is one of the factors taken into account by authors when making
decisions with regards submitting a manuscript. An outline of the unintended consequences of the RAE
for authors, editors, publishers and the academy is the focus of L. Elton, ‘The UK Research Assessment
Exercise: Unintended Consequences’, Higher Education Quarterly 54, no. 3 (2000): 274–83.
45See, for example, A. Day, How to Get Published in Journals (Aldershot: Gower Press, 1996);
J. Wellington, Getting Published (London: Routledge, 2003).
46The following article explores some of the ways in which these workshops have assisted with career
development – see R. Murray, ‘Writing Development for Lecturers Moving from Further to Higher
Education: A Case Study’, Journal of Further and Higher Education 26, no. 3 (2002): 229–37.
47Some editors do receive a small honorarium ostensibly to cover their costs. However, as we have noted,
‘reward’ comes in the form of a publications record as well as a record of academic citizenship (for
editors); this ‘reward’ accumulates to the institution as it derives benefit from the esteem of its academic
staff.
48An outline of particular forms of assessment is outlined in V. Bence and C. Oppenheim, ‘The Role of
Academic Journal Publications in the UK Research Assessment Exercise’, Learned Publishing 17, no. 1
(2004): 53–68. See also V. Bence and C. Oppenheim, ‘The Evolution of the UK’s Research Assessment
Exercise: Publications, Performance and Perceptions’, Journal of Educational Administration and History
37, no. 2 (2005): 137–55.
49This is also commented on by Wellington and Nixon, ‘Shaping the Field’.
field from academics (as authors of texts) to publishers and their auditors. Thus, the field is
increasingly, and alarmingly, being defined by ‘hit lists’, ratings, and checklists50 and insistent
demands of the ‘ever ready to choose’ public consumer. What is deeply concerning is that hit
lists and checklists have a shelf-life, and this has the worrying potential to jeopardise not only
the production of knowledge (that is, what is published) but also its longevity. Work that is
produced to satisfy market imperatives is dangerous academic terrain.
It is our view that this may have had a resultant effect on decisions about what is investigated,
in which publications this work appears and how academic journals shape and define knowledge
production in the field.51 And while we acknowledge the critical role that journals and texts have
in the ascription and production of knowledge,52 we cannot ignore the potential effects that
academic audit systems such as the PBRF, Research Quality Framework (RQF) in Australia53
and RAE have on what research is funded and undertaken, where and how this research is
published, and its ‘impact’54 on the discipline of education and the field of educational admin-
istration and history. In effect, what we believe has slowly emerged is a new managerialism
focused on research productivity that determines whose work ‘counts’ in terms of a collated
impact across a department, university and the profession. Thus discourses about ‘knowledge
transfer’, ‘applied research’ and ‘evidence-based practice’55 have infiltrated ways in which
research is described, defined and, ultimately, accounted for, which has, as we will argue in this
article, the potential to contribute to the disciplining of the field and scholarship. As editors of
JEAH, we see our role as pivotal in the knowledge production and dissemination process and, as
with other academics, are fully committed to scholarship in the field as a deeply pedagogical and
academic activity. As a journal, JEAH is simultaneously a producer of scholarship and produced
by this scholarship. Consequently the journal, its editors, editorial board and peer reviewers exer-
cise a critical role in how this scholarship is constructed, debated, advanced and made publicly
available. Yet the relationship between authors, editors, reviewers, academic publishers and
scholarship is simultaneously complex and complicated and is deeply influenced by the micro-
politics of what ‘counts’ as knowledge, research and a scholarly output. And, more worryingly,
what ‘counts’ is inextricably linked with unproblematic constructions of ‘international’ contrib-
utors, ‘international’ context(s), and ‘international’ markets. Furthermore, if what ‘counts’ is
indeed linked with impact factor or citation statistics,56 then increasing (economic) pressure will
be brought to bear on authors, editors, publishers and libraries to make pragmatic decisions about
where to submit manuscripts and what subscriptions should remain.57 The marketplace will
speak.
50See Helen M. Gunter, Rethinking Education: The Consequences of Jurassic Management (London:
Cassell, 1997), for a salient discussion of what she terms ‘management by ringbinder’.
51N. Rose, Powers of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
52For a discussion on the effects of knowledge production and texts see M.W. Apple, Politics of the
Textbook (New York: Routledge, 1991).
53Although, at the time of writing, the RQF has yet to be finalised, optimistic colleagues in Australian
institutions of higher education are hopeful that a federal election at the end of 2007 may have stimulated
a policy change.
54See A. McWilliams, D. Siegel, and D. Van Fleet, ‘Scholarly Journals as Producers of Knowledge:
Theory and Empirical Evidence Based on Data Envelopment Analysis’, Organizational Research
Methods 8, no. 2 (2005): 185–201.
55A critique of new managerialism and the universities is well argued by B. Davies, ‘Death to Critique
and Dissent? The Policies and Practices of New Managerialism and of “Evidence-based Practice”’,
Gender and Education 15, no. 1 (2003): 91–103.
56A. Tahai and M. Meyer, ‘A Revealed Preference Study of Management Journals’ Direct Influences’,
Strategic Management Journal 20 (1999): 279–96.
57Miller and Harris, ‘Conflicting Agendas’.
An examination of texts produced over the past 40 years points to the suggestion that what
is purchased (that is, the ‘product’, which is a combination of the labour of author/editor and
publisher) meets the insistent demands of the market to provide solutions to contemporary issues
of scholarship and professional practice.58 What has occurred, as Jon Nixon points out, is that
the education publishing market has become somewhat contracted due in part to the increasing
call for specialisation59 within both the discipline of education and fields such as educational
leadership, management and administration. This has resulted the production of ‘good books’:
those that offer practical solutions to the problems of practice, not a theoretical understanding of
the issues.60 These too are the ‘good books’ that dominate the hit lists and checklists, and which
are intended to have a shelf-life.61
Arguably, an academic journal such as JEAH may have mirrored the shift from a general to
a specific readership and focus, accidentally or coincidentally. As we point out below, the gesta-
tion of the journal followed academic trends in teacher education from the outset, and up until
2004 appeared to treat ‘history’ and ‘educational administration’ as two discrete fields. This
focus has recently converged and, as issues of the journal show, authors have begun to address
the history and administration of education. What is not known, however, is how an ‘academic
journal’ meets the academic and professional needs of authors, editors, and readers, the
economic demands of publishers, contributes to the intellectual development of the field and
profession, and simultaneously satisfies the demands of a scholarly or learned society, particu-
larly in these modernised and managed times.62
JEAH and field development

As we have outlined, academic journals provide a window to systems of knowledge, scholarly
standards and editorial decision-making processes that govern the selection of manuscripts for
inclusion and publication. As pointed out by Peter Ribbins in this issue, academic journals might
stress their international, institutional, geographical or subfield credentials. In addition, we
would like to suggest that academic journals also indicate their links with elite institutions
(Harvard Educational Review), political origins (Feminist Studies), epistemological traditions
(School Effectiveness and School Improvement) or intellectual standpoint (Race, Ethnicity and
Education). We would further suggest that a journal such as JEAH stresses its intellectual
connection with the discipline of education and its professional connection with the field.
Accordingly, the journal has occupied a unique space over the past 40 years, and this has
provided opportunities for editors and authors to engage in dynamic and multidimensional schol-
arship that has culminated in an interconnection between ‘knowing and doing, theory and
practice’.63 How, then, and to what extent, has this interconnection been established and
confirmed by the editors, editorial board and authors of JEAH across four decades?
58Martin Thrupp and Robert Willmott have analysed what has been written in the field of educational
leadership and conclude that these texts, in the main, provide answers and do not surface or address some
of the critical policy issues. See M. Thrupp and R. Willmott, Educational Management in Managerialist
Times: Beyond the Textual Apologists (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2003).
60See Nixon, ‘Teachers, Writers, Professionals’.
61One of the striking examples of shelf-life and the continuous production of books on a particular topic is
‘Academic writing’ or, even more specifically, ‘Writing a dissertation’.
62These questions are part of a research project planned by the editors of this journal.
63J. Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (New York: Free
Press, 1966), 336.
Established in 1968, the stated intention of JEAH was to ‘facilitate reflection on and research
into the administration and history of education’.64 Originally housed at the University of Leeds,
there have been 39 volumes of the journal published; in total, 80 issues have contained 474
papers from approximately 387 authors.65 This evidence would suggest that there is a commu-
nity of scholars located in the field and that the journal itself has been a factor in the development
of educational administration and history. Although this might appear to be a naïve reading of
such evidence, what cannot be overlooked is that these data indicate that across its first 40 years,
JEAH has produced a high number of articles and published the work of a high number of
authors. What this evidence further demonstrates is that JEAH has emerged from its institutional
origins and has, in recent years, consolidated its position as one of the leading journals in the
field of educational administration and history. A 40-year history, particularly in times of fiscal
efficiency, is to be celebrated; and as incoming editors, we have every expectation that the
journal will continue to thrive. Certainly, the institutional and historical data that we present in
this article draw attention to the increasing importance of the journal for scholars.
There has been a critical mass of authors in JEAH from countries such as (but not limited to)
England, Australia, New Zealand, Nigeria, the United States, Israel, Japan, Canada, Spain,
Taiwan, South Africa, Belgium, Ireland, and India. In other words, both JEAH and its authors
have extended their gaze beyond the intellectual and geographical borders of the UK. This has
rebounded to the benefit of authors, editors, publishers and readers and reflects the diverse nature
of the disciplinary and professional community. This geographic distribution, to a lesser extent,
is reflected in both the historical and institutional data that we document below.
The following historical data charts the chronological development of the journal:
● Between 1968 and 1972, one annual issue was published;

● Between 1973 and 2005, there were two issues per year; and
● From 2006 onwards, three issues were published each year.
In its earliest form, the journal was predominantly concerned with publishing work in the history
of education. This very much reflected the emphasis on educational foundations (history, philos-
ophy, sociology) in teacher training courses as well as postgraduate degrees.66 In these early
years, JEAH served a dual function: first, as a practical outlet for the publication of scholarship
in the history of education; and secondly, as a forum to promote research and scholarship in the
field. There appears to have been no overt editorial policy about what was selected for inclusion
and publication; the primary intention was simply to contribute to the knowledge base in the
history of education and its administration. Accordingly, most of the early articles that were
published were concerned to chart national and international epistemological developments in
the history of education and educational administration as discrete fields. This focus, we would
argue, was a necessary first step in the evolution of JEAH. These articles helped to establish the
journal in the field and provided for prospective readers an indication of the scope, aims and
objectives of JEAH. More importantly, this original emphasis on local and national concerns
provided an immediate focus for JEAH as an ‘academic journal’ that sought to establish itself as
64R. Lowe, ‘Editorial: Trends in the Administration and History of Education’, Journal of Educational
Administration and History 36, no. 1 (2004): 3.
65This count includes all issues from issue 1, no. 1 through to and including issue 39, no. 3. A number of
authors have had a number of papers published over the journal’s history. Only an individual author has
been counted, not multiple entries. In addition, review articles have not been included in this tally.
66This trend in terms of the teaching of history of education is commented on more fully in R. Aldrich
(ed.), A Century of Education (London: Routledge, 2002).
Table 1. Articles with a focus on educational administration and history outside of the UK, 1968–2007.
Country No. of articles

United States 19
Australia 17
Israel 11
Nigeria 10
New Zealand 10
Canada 8
Burma 3
South Africa 3
Palestine 3
TOTAL 84
a producer of knowledge.67 This focus expanded to include international and transnational

contributions, and importantly, a focus on administration and the history of education in
countries outside of the United Kingdom.
Other countries included Malawi (2), Belgium (1), France (1), Rhodesia (1), Mexico (1),
China (1), Uganda (1), Taiwan (1), and Tanganyika (1). Although it would appear from Table 1
that debates across national and transnational boundaries have been included in the journal, to
date it has been overwhelmingly concerned with politics, policymaking and the history of
schooling in the UK. As editors, we would therefore hope that this profile changes in the next
decade of the journal.
In terms of the broad areas that most articles traversed, we have identified 13 key trends that
we detail in Table 2. This analysis uses Janet Coles’ historical overview that appeared in volume
32, no. 1, and expands on the key trends identified by Roy Lowe in volume 36, no. 1. What these
themes highlight is the expanding attention of the journal to field developments and its stated
Table 2. Key trends in journal articles, 1968–2007.
Key trend Total no. of articles (%)

Provision of schooling 99 (21)
British politics and educational policy 59 (13)
Administrative structures and organisation of education 59 (13)
Biography 48 (10)
Teachers, teachers work and careers 38 (8)
Higher, further and technical education 37 (7)
Religion and religious education 25 (5)
Curriculum 24 (5)
Feminist and gender issues 24 (5)
Imperialism and colonialism 20 (4)
Educational reform 15 (3)
Secondary education 13 (3)
Historiography and methodology 13 (3)
TOTAL 474
67McWilliams, Siegel, and Van Fleet, ‘Scholarly Journals’.

Table 3. Key trends in journal articles, 1997–2007.
Key trend Total no. of articles (%)

Provision of schooling 18 (14)
Higher, further and technical education 17 (13)
Teachers, teachers work and careers 14 (11)
Feminist and gender issues 14 (11)
Historiography and methodology 11 (9)
British politics and educational policy 10 (8)
Administrative structures and organisation of education 10 (8)
Religion and religious education 10 (8)
Imperialism and colonialism 7 (5)
Educational reform 7 (5)
Biography 5 (4)
Curriculum 4 (4)
Secondary education 1 (0.8)

TOTAL 127
intention to ‘publish work and stimulate interest in the fields of the administration and history
of education’.68
Thus, evidence from these trends points to the eclectic nature of the journal as well as its
predisposition to restrict what constitutes the ‘administration, history, management, leadership,
and politics of education’.69 More recently, in the past decade the focus has shifted, as Table 3
indicates; and this resonates with Coles’ plea in volume 32, no. 1 for authors to attend to wider
issues. This is not an unusual or unexpected shift in the attention of authors, and reflects the
increasing emphasis on schools and schooling, social histories and interdisciplinary work that is
evident in other journals such as History of Education, History of Education Review and
International Journal of Leadership in Education.
In the period 1997–2007, in total 121 articles were published. Three trends are discernible
over this decade: firstly, the emphasis in articles on the provision of schooling has reduced (24%
to 14%) and there has been a similar downward shift in the number of articles concerned with
biography (a decrease from 10% to 3%). One significant increase has been the number of articles
published that are concerned with feminist issues and gender (an increase from 5% to 10%), as
well as those that deal with matters of history and historiography (an increase from 3% to 10%).
These trends are not unusual for this particular journal, as similar shifts to a focus on social
histories – as well as a critique of debates – has been reported by Fitz70 and Lagemann.71
In terms of institutional data, from 1968 to 2003 the journal was located at the University of
Leeds, and this helped to establish the journal both in its scholarly form and in its reputation in
the field, as well as creating a space for an ‘academic journal’ within the academy.72 Over the
68J.Cole, ‘Editorial: JEAH and the New Millennium’, Journal of Educational Administration and History
32, no. 1 (2000): 1.
69Lowe, ‘Editorial’.
70Fitz, ‘Reflections’.
71E.C. Lagemann, An Elusive Science? The Troubling History of Education Research (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2000).
72Linking with an institution is seen as a critical stage in the development of an academic journal. See
M. Groggin, Authoring a Discipline: Scholarly Journals and the Post-World War II Emergence of
Rhetoric and Composition (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000).
past 40 years, the editorship of the journal was UK-based, and this alignment can further be seen
in the numbers of articles based on UK-specific issues and/or by authors situated in the UK. In
recent years, there has been an emerging trend not only to internationalise debates and publish
articles from scholars from a range of countries, but also to internationalise the editorial board.
This meets the demands of the international market while simultaneously enhancing the standing
of the journal, as already highlighted. From 2008, as indicated below, the editorship spans two
countries and the editorial and advisory boards draw on academic and professional colleagues
from a wider range of institutional settings. We believe that, given current trends in academic
publishing, this will further strengthen the journal for its authors, readers and publisher.73
Since 2004, the journal has been under the auspices of the Routledge Taylor & Francis
Group. The incremental historical growth and institutional development of JEAH is therefore
aligned with the scholarly and professional trends in the development of the field, as has been
outlined in previous articles in this edition74 and indeed by its previous editor.
Across its 40-year history, JEAH has been under the stewardship of the following editors:
1968–1987 Peter Gosden and Bill Stephens (University of Leeds, UK)

1988–1997 Peter Gosden, Bill Stephens, John Dunford, Paul Sharp, Stuart Marriott (University
of Leeds, UK)
1998–2003 Paul Sharp and Janet Coles (Assistant) (University of Leeds, UK)
2004–2007 Roy Lowe (Institute of Education, London, UK)
2008–2010 Helen Gunter and Tanya Fitzgerald (University of Manchester, UK and Unitec
Institute of Technology, New Zealand)
In 1992 the journal cover was changed (from white with black lettering to a pink cover with red
lettering) and, as readers can now see, it has changed again in 2008 to reflect the change of
editorship. Although these might be considered minor changes, they do provide a visual record
of the journal’s history and development.
In 1994, Peter Gosden and Bill Stephens reflected on the first 25 years of the journal and
restated their original aim to establish a journal that would spark a ‘renaissance of interest in
educational history evident particularly in the English-speaking nation’.75 This emphasis is
certainly evident in the data presented in Tables 1 and 2 as well as in the more recent interest
shown by authors and editors in addressing a number of complex, complementary and contra-
dictory issues that have underpinned recent debates. From the outset, JEAH has endeavoured to
reflect the interests of individual field members as well as scholarly developments in the field.
It is reasonable to suggest, therefore, that as an ‘academic journal’ the field itself has been
occupied primarily with naming its own epistemological and empirical boundaries.
Sociologist Mary Douglas has observed that naming is only one part of a complex interdy-
namic process. As she described it, people create institutions (and this includes the ‘academic
journal’ as an institution), institutions make classifications, classifications necessitate actions,
actions calls for names, and people respond to these and become the names.76 In other words,
we are both written by and write the institutions in which we are situated.
73This again is linked with perceptions of the ‘quality’ of the journal. On this point see J.P. Gee and
C. Lankshear, ‘The New Work Order: Critical Language Awareness and Fast Capitalism Texts’,
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 16, no. 1 (1995): 5–19.
74See Ribbins, this issue, and also Gunter and Fitzgerald.
75Gosden, P. and Stephens, W.B. ‘Twenty-five years of the Journal of Educational Administration and
History’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 26,1, 1994, 1–3.
76Douglas, M. How Institutions Think. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986.
Conclusion
This article has presented an overview of the role of the academic journal and the relationships
embedded in the academic process and literary practices. We have examined a number of key
issues and challenges for any author, editor, reviewer, and/or publisher and have pointed to the
highly political and contested arena each participant occupies. Increasingly, the ‘academic
journal’ is subject to decisions regarding its ‘quality’ or ‘impact’, and we have suggested that
this has the potential to confine knowledge production in the field to what ‘counts’. More
concerning is the modernised environment in which we all work that not only calls for high
levels of accountability for our actions and activities (including research and publication), but
which, at the same time, contracts time and resources around this very scholarly activity. And in
much the same way that academic texts are subject to a ratings mindset, academics accumulate
hit lists and checklists of their own scholarly activities to meet the demands of their institutions
and performativity measures such as the RAE, RQF and PBRF. The task, then, for the editors of
JEAH, its editorial board, authors and readers is to resist the disciplining of scholarship.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Routledge Taylor & Francis for providing access to all copies of the journal since
its inception in 1968. This access has been invaluable in the preparation of this article. In addition, we
would like to thank both the editorial board and the international advisory board for their insightful
comments on a draft of this paper and the referees for their contribution to the development of this paper.
Notes on contributors
Tanya Fitzgerald is Professor of Education at Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland. She has written
extensively on the history of women’s education in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In addition, Tanya has conducted
a number of research projects at national and international levels on social justice and educational leadership
with a particular focus on Indigenous leadership. Tanya was awarded a Spencer Foundation Research Grant
in 2007 and is currently writing a history of women professors.
Helen Gunter is Professor of Educational Policy, Leadership and Management in the School of Education,
University of Manchester. She has produced over 70 publications, including books and papers on leadership
theory and practice. She is particularly interested in the history of the field of leadership, with a focus on
knowledge production. She is currently undertaking an ESRC-funded project into the rise of school lead-
ership under New Labour. Her most recent book, co-edited with Graham Butt, University of Birmingham,
is about workforce reform: Modernizing schools: people, learning and organizations (2007, Continuum).

Fitzgerald y Gunter JEAH - 08 Educ Admon and History Part 2

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This article was downloaded by: [Universidad de Sevilla]

On: 22 April 2010

Journal of Educational Administration and History

Educational administration and history Part 2: academic journals and the

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Educational administration and history Part 2: academic journals and the

(Received December 2007; final version January 2008)

*Corresponding author. Email: tfitzgerald@unitec.ac.nz

ISSN 0022-0620 print/ISSN 1478-7431 online

a journal such as JEAH?

As the incoming editors, we see these as critical questions to surface, particularly as an

The ‘academic journal’

reflected in the majority of academic journals in education, educational administration, leader-

of publications,27 reputation of academic journals and publishers, individual esteem or prestige

Editors and the editorial process

Regulating and evaluating scholarship

34McDermott, Politics and Scholarship.

And academic journals can be judged according to:

(4) citations of its authors;

economic concern to academic publishers.

Hits lists and checklists

JEAH and field development

● Between 1968 and 1972, one annual issue was published;

Country No. of articles

a producer of knowledge.67 This focus expanded to include international and transnational

Table 2. Key trends in journal articles, 1968–2007.

Key trend Total no. of articles (%)

67McWilliams, Siegel, and Van Fleet, ‘Scholarly Journals’.

Table 3. Key trends in journal articles, 1997–2007.

Key trend Total no. of articles (%)

Secondary education 1 (0.8)

1968–1987 Peter Gosden and Bill Stephens (University of Leeds, UK)

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