Special Edition: Call for papers 

Southern Africa Review of Education

SARE call for papers on Re-imagining Research and Teaching and Learning During Times of Crises 

Guest editors: 

Yusuf Sayed, Rekha Pappu, Padma Sarangapani, and Shireen Motala

Call for papers

The Southern Africa Review of Education seeks original empirically grounded or theoretical manuscripts on the theme, Re-imagining Research and Teaching and Learning During Times of Crises. 

A statement of the problem

Globally, there have been 771,549,718 confirmed cases of Covid-19, including 6,974,473 deaths reported to the WHO since the virus was first detected in 2019. As of 22 October 2023, a total of 3,533,465,652 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide (https://covid19.who.int). But the Covid-19 pandemic is not the only crisis. It sits alongside a crisis of environment involving a rise in global temperatures, extreme weather patterns, and deadly droughts. It is also accompanied by humanitarian crises such as conflicts and wars in Yemen, Sudan, Myanmar, and Palestine—and by economic crises and instability, with unrelenting impact on impoverished and marginalised people throughout the world. In education, such interlocking and intersectional crises have disrupted schooling and higher education, limited access to education and meaningful learning, and affected the well-being, safety, and security of teachers, lecturers, learners, education officials, and communities. The long-term learning and psychological and social-emotional detriments of crises affect marginalised and impoverished communities the most. Refugees and the population of internally displaced persons who live and learn in conditions of fragility are undeniably impacted by crises. As Sayed et al. (2021) noted, children from marginalised backgrounds were already locked out of education, even before the pandemic. The educational impact and widening educational inequities challenge the state's ability to deliver equitable and quality education. 

It is against such a backdrop that this special edition seeks to understand the nature and forms of crisis, responses, and implications for building a future resilient and crises-prepared education system committed to equitable and quality education. In this context, we invite submissions with a range of theoretical frameworks to examine various crises and their effects on education, focusing on issues of epistemic and social injustice (Fricker, 2007), critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970), and social justice (Fraser, 2009). Submissions should draw on a range of research approaches and methodologies including but not limited to critical policy analysis, discourse analysis, and mixed methods research. Additionally, we invite interdisciplinary submissions that extend across disciplinary boundaries, examining the definition of crisis, the role of the state, teaching and teacher education, the problem and potential of technology as an educational tool, and the use of various methodologies of research during crises.

For this special edition, we call for submissions that move beyond the politics of unbridled exuberance and the politics of despair, charting a more progressive, radical social justice agenda. We are seeking papers that reflect on the role of the state and community organisations, and a different value system founded on an ethics of care, trust, and empathy to build a progressive education future.

In particular, this special edition seeks to solicit Africa- and Global South-focused research-based articles that address elements aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 4’s (https://www.unesco.org/sdg4education2030/en/sdg4) commitment to equitable and quality education for all: 

• Policy: Exploring how the pandemic and crises, more generally, have shaped, altered, and reconfigured education policy and policymaking. The role of knowledge and science in policy formulation and its (mis)use in policy development. The influence of global education goals and architecture on education.

• Crises: Exploring conceptual and theoretical reflections of the notion of crisis and its complex intersections. How the notion of crisis is (mis)used in popular and policy discourses.

• Pedagogies: Exploring teachers and teaching and the ethics of care, empathy, and equity that foreground the sociality of learning. The use of scripted professional development, scripted pedagogy, scripted teacher standards, and a pedagogy of teaching at the right level. The idea of teacher as scholar and reflexive practitioner. The challenges and constraints on education staff and institutions in delivering quality education during crises.

• Peace: Unpacking the discourse of peace. Examining the role of education in promoting peace and the ways education relates to peace. The use and misuse of concepts of resilience, well-being, and social cohesion in conflict contexts and countries emerging from conflict. The ways in which education promotes critical resilience. The interrelationship between violence, conflict, and education provision

• Technology: Exploring the use and misuses of technology during crises. The relevance, quality, and appropriateness of technology in education. 

• Conflict: Exploring conflict and the impact on education. The impact of the Arab Spring in North Africa on education. The impact of conflict in the Sahel region on education. 

• Protest: Examining how protest leads to transformation. Unpacking how protest in different contexts in Africa and globally shapes education provision and delivery. Unpacking the call for decolonisation of education as it relates to curriculum, teaching, and assessment

• Methodologies: Employing new and innovative approaches to education research during crises. Assessing the experiences of researchers undertaking education during crises. 

• Ethical scholarship: Exploring ethics of committed scholarship during crises. Investigating the role of academia and researchers committed to social justice researching in conflict contexts and times of crises. Assessing their role if taking an academic activist role as exemplified by Freire.


We encourage contributions from scholars in the Global South, Africa in particular, and those who are underrepresented in the journal. This includes contributions from scholars working in conflict contexts in Africa or from countries and contexts underrepresented in the journal, especially from North Africa. 

For queries, please write to Professor Y. Sayed: yms24@cam.ac.uk

Journal description

The Southern African Review of Education (SARE), incorporating Education with Production (EWP), is a peer-reviewed journal serving as a forum for critical discussions of education in the Southern African region from various disciplinary perspectives, for the dissemination of contemporary research, and for reflections on education. It has a broad, cross-disciplinary audience of scholars, researchers, and practitioners in the field of education. (https://www.saches.co.za/sarejournal/)

Please consult our Guidelines for Contributors for further important information. (https://www.saches.co.za/guidelinesforcontributors/)

Please also ensure that your citations and reference listings match, and comply fully with APA7 style as explained in our Author Guidelines. (https://www.saches.co.za/sitepad-data/uploads/2023/05/Author-Guidelines_SABINET.pdf)

Timeline

Deadline for full paper submissions 28 February 2024

Articles returned from peer-reviewers 31 March 2024

Authors to submit final paper with changes                 15 April 2024

Anticipated publication date  June 2024


References

Fraser, N. (2009). Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world. Columbia University Press.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.

Fricker, M. (2007.) Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press.

Sayed, Y., Cooper, A., & Vaughn, M. J. (2021). Crises and disruptions: Educational reflections, (re)imaginings, and (re)vitalization. Journal of Education, 84, 9–30. https://doi.org/10.17159//2520-9868/i84a01