Editorial: Releasing the Vol.3 No. 1&2 of Global Comparative Education: Journal of the WCCES
N’Dri T. Assié-Lumumba Cornell University 21 December 2019
Season's Greetings!
We are delighted to welcome the long-awaited volume 3 nos.1-2 of Global Comparative Education: Journal of the WCCES, our peer-reviewed academic periodical. As communicated in prior announcements and reiterated in the first issue that was published in 2017, this journal was scheduled to appear twice annually, in March and September. It was also stated earlier that, as part of our new innovations in publication the journal would publish articles in any of the six official languages of the United Nations, namely: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. The rationale for a WCCES multi-lingual publication of this journal, the World Voices Nexus: the WCCES Chronicle and the new WCCES-Brill/Sense book series was a reflection of my commitment for inclusiveness and diverse possibilities for publishing to better cater to the needs of broader comparative education community. Furthermore, it was also expected to tap into the breadth of expertise in WCCES in these languages.
In order to fulfil such a commitment, it is important to have at least two of the six languages in each issue. However, each of the articles published in any of these languages must be submitted to the same rigorous review process before they are accepted. Even invited papers must be submitted to the same strict review for quality assurance in terms of academic rigor and suitability for a comparative education journal. It is worth noting that the first two issues were successful in this regard. However, for this third issue, having to decline submissions that would have fulfilled the language diversity requirement but not the stringent quality requisite, led to delays. Thus, while my preference and commitment are to have the issues come out regularly, with at least one article in one of the other five UN languages besides English, it was necessary to wait until we finally met all our requirements, leaving us with five articles including a profile.
I am hereby appealing to the entire comparative education community, the leadership and other members of the constituent societies, and members of the different standing committees to submit and encourage members of these societies and various networks, to participate and submit articles in order to have diverse, vibrant and sustainable scholarly publication outlets offered by WCCES, including this journal.
This issue includes the following exciting articles: “Toward a Theory of Knowledge Socialism: Cognitive Capitalism and the Fourth Knowledge Revolution” by Michael A. Peters, “Cultural Effects on Teacher Agency towards National Curriculum Reform with Enhanced Autonomy in South Korea” by Mina Min, “Educating Children about Humane Values: A Case Study in Lahore, Pakistan” by Sunnya Khan and “Culture et Enseignement dans la Civilisation Arabo-musulmane” by Aïcha Maherzi. Included in the issue is the article, “Profile of a Comparative and International Education Leader: Carlos A. Torres” by Deborah Shin and Yuqing Hou.
As always, I wish to extend much gratitude to the authors of the articles who made significant contributions to this issue, with a special note of appreciation to those whose articles were accepted earlier but publication had to be delayed while waiting for other submissions to be recommended for publication. We also want to thank those whose submissions were not accepted for publication in this issue and encourage them to strengthen their papers and resubmit them. I am most grateful to the entire editorial team, especially Eve Coxon, Co-Editor & Book Review Editor; W. James Jacob, Associate Editor in charge of the Profiles and Copyediting of the submissions in English; and Aïcha Maherzi, Associate Editor responsible for Copyediting of the submission in French. I also want to thank the anonymous reviewers of the submissions in all the languages, including those who reviewed articles that are not published in this issue.
My special gratitude goes to Greg William Misiaszek, the Managing Editor Team and the dynamic Language-Specific Management Members for translating the abstracts in the UN languages. Thanks to their hard work and true dedication, even when we have only a couple of the six languages represented in the articles, we have been fulfilling our commitment to the six UN languages through the abstracts.
It is a great honor for me to continue to serve as the Editor of the Global Comparative Education: Journal of the WCCES, in my second term as President of WCCES. I appreciate any feedback and suggestions as we continue to strive to achieve and sustain the status of a top and relevant journal. Happy reading!