Scope Statement

Education and Self-development (E&SD) is now in its 17th year of publication. It aims to be the primary source of research and East-West dialogue regarding the theory and methods, of ways of enabling individuals and communities to develop to their fullest capacity.

Our vision is that the Journal is a bridge between Russian and Eastern Europe on the one hand, and Europe and North America on the other, with articles from other continents (Africa, South America, SE Asia and Australia).  We achieve that vision by working from our Russian base, with a strong international editorial board and our unique bilingual approach.

“Education” is taken to include all forms of teaching, learning, instruction and training in schools, colleges, universities, workplaces and non-formal and informal settings for all age groups in the developed and developing world, by means of face-to-face, digital or blended learning.

“Self-development” is taken to include all means of examining learners’ needs, potential and interests and enabling them to discover, enrich and apply new knowledge, skills, attitudes and aspirations that will help them in their lifelong learning. It occurs in formal learning contexts but also involves compensating for gaps in learning and developing new competencies in people throughout their lives.

E&SD is unique in being a bilingual (English and Russian) scholarly review of research and vehicle for East-West dialogue on advancing the agenda of education for self-development. It therefore encourages:

  • Multi-site, multi-perspective studies by teams of researchers testing promising approaches;
  • Longitudinal studies that evidence the benefits of education for self-development initiatives and innovations;
  • Reports on interventions that have failed as well as succeeded and why, so that others may learn from these experiences;
  • Dialogues between researchers in different fields, institutions, cultures and contexts in order to develop international understanding and collaboration.

Papers for E&SD may include studies in:

  • Pedagogy, androgogy (adult learning) and heutogogy (self-determined learning) for individual or group learning;
  • Education for employment, access, equity and social inclusion;
  • Design, development and application of learning systems and tools;
  • Leadership and management in lifelong learning;
  • Curriculum development and course design;
  • Open, distance, blended and flipped learning;
  • Professional development for educational/organisational change;
  • Monitoring and quality assurance;
  • Formative and summative evaluation, assessment and research methods;

Reports of work undertaken are expected to be free of jargon; analytical rather than descriptive; critical rather than merely informative; and providing original perspectives and conclusions.

Key words

access and equity androgogy[1] aspirations
attributes career planning competencies
counselling creativity critical thinking
culture didactics distance education
education educational technology educational research
educational sociology employment evaluation and assessment
heutagogy[2] higher education human capital
human development informal learning Innovation in education and training
instructional and learning design latent talents leadership and management
learning lifelong learning mentoring
motivation non-formal education online learning
open learning pedagogy problem-based learning
problem-solving professional development quality assurance
self-awareness self-determination self-development
self-directed learning self-esteem self-fulfillment
self-identity self-improvement self-motivation
self-realization self-study schooling
teaching tutoring
technical education vocational education

[1] Adult learning

[2] The study of self-determined learning

E&SD is bi-lingual with articles in Russian and English.  However, the metadata for each article (the title, author list, keywords, and abstract) appears in both Russian and English.  The Editorial team will arrange translation for metadata where necessary.

Special Issues

E&SD publishes occasional Special Issues on ‘hot topics’ in particular fields of research into educational and self-development that will generating publicity and raise awareness of the topics covered in the journal. These are edited by Guest Editors and must be relevant to a wide international and multidisciplinary readership. The same criteria of quality, originality, and significance apply to the acceptance of proposals for Special Issues and all of the articles in these.

Reviewing

All manuscripts are subject to blind peer review by at least two reviewers competent in the relevant field. They are expected to meet standards of academic excellence. If a manuscript is accepted with changes then author(s) will be requested to respond with changes suggested by the reviewers. The Editor reviews the revised manuscript after these changes have been made. Once the Editor is satisfied with the final manuscript, it can be accepted and published.