European Educational Research Journal
Educational Research
The European Educational Research Journal (EERJ) is a peer-reviewed journal for original and rigorous scholarship on education within and beyond Europe. It provides a forum for research that examines how educational ideas, institutions, policies, practices, and forms of governance and educational enactments are shaped within European contexts and through wider regional and global dynamics.
EERJ understands Europe broadly: not only as a geographical region, but also as a historical and cultural formation, a political space, and a contested field of transnational relations, (in)equalities, and knowledge circulation. In this sense, the journal is interested both in education within Europe and in educational research that illuminates what Europe means and how it is constituted, challenged, and reworked through processes and debates.
As the flagship journal of the European Educational Research Association (EERA), EERJ offers an intellectually independent space for critical, methodological, and theoretically ambitious educational research. The journal welcomes contributions from across the full breadth of educational inquiry and seeks to foster dialogue across disciplines, traditions, and perspectives while sustaining a distinctive focus on the changing meanings and conditions of education and educational research in relation to Europe.
EERJ publishes peer-reviewed research articles and special issues that make a clear, original, and significant contribution to educational research in relation to Europe and related educational dynamics. Submissions may engage with Europe as an empirical setting, a comparative frame, a policy arena, a historical formation, or a conceptual problem space, and should foster research and scholarly dialogue of international relevance.
The journal welcomes scholarship across the full breadth of educational inquiry, including formal and informal education, lifelong learning, higher education, vocational education and training, teacher education, curriculum, pedagogy, policy, governance, and related fields. EERJ publishes empirical, historical, philosophical, conceptual, comparative, and methodological work, and welcomes contributions that illuminate questions, processes, and problem formations of significance for education within and beyond Europe.
The considerations outlined below indicate the journal’s areas of interest and the qualities it values in strong submissions. Committed to disciplinary pluralism, EERJ welcomes diverse epistemological and methodological approaches, provided they demonstrate scholarly rigour, originality, and clear relevance to educational research in relation to Europe.
EERJ particularly values submissions that combine substantive educational relevance with theoretical ambition, methodological rigour, and reflexive awareness of how educational knowledge, institutions, and problems are produced, circulated, and contested. It is especially interested in manuscripts that speak beyond a single national case by clarifying their wider significance for European educational research and for debates shaped by regional and global dynamics and interdependencies.
The journal encourages submissions that expand and challenge established understandings of Europe and education by engaging with overlooked countries and regions, underrepresented perspectives, peripheral standpoints, and emerging lines of inquiry. This includes work by early-career researchers and scholars contributing from different linguistic, geographical, and intellectual traditions.
EERJ also welcomes scholarship that critically engages with major societal and educational transformations shaping education and educational research. Such work may address a wide range of issues, including changing governance arrangements, democratic pressures, inequality, mobility and displacement, digitalisation and datafication, the growing role of non-state actors, colonial and postcolonial entanglements, climate-related challenges, and the changing conditions of educational research itself. These examples indicate important directions of inquiry, but they do not limit the journal’s remit.
What we look for
EERJ is interested in submissions that:
- offer a clear, original, and analytically grounded contribution to educational research;
- engage with Europe explicitly as an empirical setting, a comparative frame, a policy arena, a historical trajectory, or a conceptual problem space;
- demonstrate strong theoretical, conceptual, and/or methodological development;
- situate their case, data, or argument within a wider transnational, comparative, or Euro-pean context;
- connect meaningfully to broader debates in educational research and to questions of relevance for education in national, regional and global contexts.
EERJ is not interested in submissions that:
- offer limited originality or analytical contribution and remain largely descriptive;
- show weak or insufficient theoretical, conceptual, or methodological grounding;
- focus on a single case or setting without clarifying its broader relevance for education within or beyond Europe;
- are better suited to a generalist education journal than to a journal focused on educational research in relation to Europe.
| Kirsten Sivesind | University of Oslo, Norway |
| Christian Ydesen | University of Zürich, Switzerland |
| Mathias Decuypere | Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich, Switzerland |
| Emiliano Grimaldi | University of Naples Federico II, Italy |
| Paola Mattei | University of Milan, Italy |
| Linda Rönneberg | University of Umeå, Sweden |
| Tore Sorensen | University of Glasgow, UK |
| Wieland Wermke | Stockholm University, Sweden |
| Simona Bernotaite | University of Oslo, Norway |
| Dominik Antonowicz | Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland |
| John Benedicto Krejsler | Aarhus University, Denmark |
| Pieter Vanden Broeck | UCLouvain: Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium |
| Luís Miguel Carvalho | University of Lisbon, Portugal |
| Mari Elken | Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education, Norway |
| Clara Fontdevila | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain |
| Sharon Gewirtz | King's College London, UK |
| Anja Giudici | Cardiff University, UK |
| Francesca Gobbo | University of Turin, Italy |
| Stephen Gorard | Durham University, UK |
| Lukas Graf | Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training, Switzerland |
| Sotiria Grek | University of Glasgow, UK |
| Emiliano Grimaldi | University of Naples Federico II, Italy |
| Marit Honerød Hoveid | Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway |
| Jaakko Kauko | Tampere University, Finland |
| Janja Komljenovic | University of Edinburgh, UK |
| Marta Kowalczuk-Waledziak | University of Bialystok, Poland |
| Marek Kwiek | Poznan University, Poland |
| Paolo Landri | IRPPS, Rome, Italy |
| Martin Lawn (Founding Editor) | University of Oxford, UK |
| Berglind Rós Magnúsdóttir | University of Iceland, Iceland |
| Eric Mangez | Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium |
| Marcella Milana | University of Verona, Italy |
| Eszter Neumann | Centre for Social Sciences, Hungary |
| Andreas Nordin | Linnaeus University, Sweden |
| Romuald Normand | University of Strasbourg, France |
| Antti Saari | Tampere University, Finland |
| Antigone Sarakinioti | University of Thessaloniki, Greece |
| Maarten Simons | University of Leuven, Belgium |
| Anna Traianou | Goldsmiths, University of London, UK |
| Daniel Tröhler | University of Vienna, Austria |
| Anna Tsatsaroni | University of the Peloponnese, Greece |
| Antoni Verger | Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain |
| Sofia Viseu | University of Lisbon, Portugal |
| Heike Wendt | Graz University, Austria |
| Ben Williamson | University of Edinburgh, UK |
| Jitka Wirthova | Charles University, Czech Republic |
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/eer to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of European Educational Research Journal will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplementary material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 SAGE Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to European Educational Research Journal, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Original Research papers, including individual submissions, contributions to a special issue, ECER keynote conference papers, ECER preconference best papers. These should be 7,000 to 8,000 words (indicative) with a max of 10,000 if justified (not counting bibliography and references).
Reviews should be 3,000 to 4,000 words (indicative) with a maximum 6,000, depending on the number of books being reviewed (not counting bibliography and references).
The Essay Review section of the journal presents and discusses important books and research reports which are of interest to the European Educational Research Community (see our policy statement). Essays are not limited to simple one page reviews. They should rather be conceived as discussion papers that not only present publications but also extensively discuss and elaborate on them. An essay can deal with one or more books/reports. The indicative expected length is 3000 to 4000 words (with a maximum of 6000). The Essay Review Section has a specific interest in presenting and elaborating on non-English books and reports. Of course, essay reviews dealing with publications in English can also be submitted. Authors of the book themselves cannot submit an essay on their own work. More generally, authors of the essays should not be involved closely with the authors of the book/report they are reviewing.
Download EERJ’s special issue procedures
The SAGE Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
European Educational Research Journal adheres to a rigorous double-blind reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
European Educational Research Journal requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
European Educational Research Journal encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.
SAGE is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the SAGE Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
European Educational Research Journal and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the SAGE Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. SAGE’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants SAGE the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than SAGE. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the SAGE Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
European Educational Research Journal offers optional open access publishing via the SAGE Choice programme. For more information please visit the SAGE Choice website. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit SAGE Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit SAGE’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from SAGE after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
European Educational Research Journal adheres to the SAGE Harvard reference style. View the SAGE Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the SAGE Harvard EndNote output file
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using SAGE Language Services. Visit SAGE Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
European Educational Research Journal is hosted on SAGE Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/eer to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process SAGE is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities ensuring that their work is recognised.
We encourage all authors to add their ORCIDs to their SAGE Track accounts and include their ORCIDs as part of the submission process. If you don’t already have one you can create one here.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the SAGE Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your SAGE Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. Please note that if there are any changes to the author list at this stage all authors will be required to complete and sign a form authorising the change.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the SAGE Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
SAGE provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The SAGE Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. In addition, SAGE is partnered with Kudos, a free service that allows authors to explain, enrich, share, and measure the impact of their article. Find out how to maximise your article’s impact with Kudos.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the European Educational Research Journal editorial office as follows:
Eric Mangez (eric.mangez@uclouvain.be) and Maarten Simons (Maarten.Simons@ppw.kuleuven.be)