Aims and Scope
Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning (CriSTaL) is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes critical scholarly articles and essays that make interesting and distinctive contributions to the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher (university) education. Contributions that address challenging problems and issues from theoretical, ethical, practice-based, empirical, strategic or analytical angles are welcomed, as well as contributions that focus on innovative and creative approaches to teaching and learning.
The journal aims to provide a stimulating and challenging forum for contributors to theorise, trouble, reconfigure and re-imagine higher education teaching and learning practice. We promote an understanding of knowledge creation that is situated, which challenges hegemonic thought, and is sensitive to intersecting positionalities, histories and inequalities. We encourage work that moves beyond boundaries, such as methodology, discipline or location. We invite authors to be creative, take risks, think "otherwise". Contributions should be framed by a sensibility towards social justice.
Areas in which critical contributions are invited include:
- academic literacy development in university-level courses or modules (including writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines, as well as writing centres)
- innovative and critical methodologies and methods in researching teaching and learning at university, such as multimodal and postqualitative inquiry
- theory-development in higher education studies. This can include creative uses of theory or theory at the intersection of different disciplines
- affect in teaching and learning
- views from the global South, Afro/Indigenous and other marginalities
- post-anthropocentric, posthuman, and feminist new materialist approaches
- creative approaches to teaching and learning with technology
- trans-disciplinary teaching and learning
- socially just, socially inclusive educational praxis
- innovative assessment and evaluation practice in higher education
- multilingual teaching and learning resources and development
- innovative materials development for teaching, learning, curriculum, assessment and evaluation
- reconfiguring academic staff development and professional education in higher education as a subset of post-school education. Please note: this excludes studies in the context of K12, adult, technical and vocational education and training, and in-service teacher education, which should be redirected to more suitable journals. You may consult databases such as the African Journals Online for alternatives.
- disruptive and reparative work in the context of teaching and learning
- moving beyond introspection and reflection in interpersonal spaces, including structural issues and historicities of ourselves, our institutions and the broader context.
Submissions may be in written format (6000 - 8000 words). We also encourage media-rich content and creative presentation formats.
All submissions must have a clear issue or problem that is addressed and must make reference to the relevant literature. While the structure of articles may vary: empirical studies should include a clear discussion of methodology, findings, and all should discuss theory, implications, relevance and significance for the wider field. Submissions relating to local studies should make clear the applicability to a wider context and international readership. Please look carefully at the resources in the 'Authors' tab, and also under the 'Reviewers' tab, and consult recent issues under 'Archives' to get a sense of the work we tend to publish, and our guidelines.
Indexing
The journal is indexed (full text) with Sabinet and African Journals Online (AJOL). It is also included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), WorldCat, Sherpa-Romeo, the Norwegian List (Level 1), SCOPUS and the DHET's list of accredited journals.
Open Access Policy
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Article Processing Charges
The journal will charge an article processing fee, per peer-reviewed paper, from June 2019 onwards. This fee is R3200.00 per article, and may be applicable to authors whose universities and/or research grants have allowances for these fees. Please contact the managing editor if you have any questions or concerns about this. These fees enable us to keep the research we publish openly accessible to scholars and researchers around the world. Our annual running costs include technical support for our online submission system, copyediting of papers and book reviews, a professional email account, and an annual Zoom license for editorial meetings.
Copyright Policy
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Licencing Policy
All journal content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license 4.0. CC BY ND 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)