(Extended Call): Context-Based Approaches to Developing Theories of Change in Basic Education, Volume 7, No. 1, January, 2020

Call For Papers: Context-Based Approaches to Developing Theories of Change in Basic Education, Volume 7, No. 1, January, 2020

Editors: Eirini Gouleta, Ed.D., University of Macedonia, Greece and Mi-Hyun Chung, Ph.D., Mercy College, New York

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations Member States in 2015 aim to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all by the year 2030. Education is a central and underlining goal that influences the success of all other goals. But how can we ensure that efforts to improve education in the world are targeted, relevant, and effective?

With this call for papers, we are envisioning to provide an opportunity to the global community of scholars, researchers, and development experts to reexamine how carefully our education interventions have sought to understand the foundations of specific contexts (in terms of the historical, cultural, social, political, and economic forces that drive a system); as well as the epistemological underpinnings or assumptions that define the development of Theories of Change (ToC) and promise effective interventions and improved outcomes.

A ToC is the central framework that drives most education project designs in international education development. The ToC provides the basis for decisions about the chosen project activities, investments, and monitoring and evaluation protocol. It is based on a set of assumptions which explain the rationale and the process that will result in the desired outcomes within a context.  Through the proposed GER issue, we seek to explore and identify successful context-based approaches and frameworks for the development of ToC in basic education.  We hope that through this publication we can help support the efforts of development agencies, partners, and host governments in designing education projects and activities that are relevant, context specific, and go beyond incorporating western or other educational approaches and system structures that are thought to have worked in some contexts. 

To help focus the suggested ToC frameworks in education development, we propose that the scholarly papers submitted to this issue of the GER deal with basic education which involves grades preK-9 and includes teacher training and education (in-service and pre-service). Basic education may cover inclusion: teaching children with disabilities, gender, cultural, linguistic, religious, and other minorities, and children who live in poverty. Papers must be context-specific and describe the rationale for the chosen framework of the ToC. Topics of interest can include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Literacy programs, including mother tongue-based and bilingual/multilingual education
• Curriculum and instruction, including teaching methods, student assessment, student textbooks, materials, and teacher guides
• Education systems delivery (policy development, administrative procedures, coordination and communication, teacher education and training, teacher coaching, supervision and retention, etc.)
• Family and community engagement

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words in length with at least ten references along with contact information for all authors to egouleta@gmail.com and mchung@mercy.edu by June 15, 2019. Abstracts will be reviewed for fit to special issues theme. You will be informed if the manuscript is invited for review by June 30, 2019. Full manuscripts are due by September 15, 2019. 

Authors of articles invited for review are required to participate in a blind review of two articles submitted for publication in the same issue.