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Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft now published by VS Verlag!

Since 2004, the Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft (ZfE) has been published by the new Wiesbaden publishing house VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, the outcome of a merger between Westdeutscher Verlag and Leske + Budrich. This new publishing house seeks to internationally disseminate specialist knowledge through publications of the highest scientific standards, thus furthering the objectives of ZfE, the flagship of German research on educational science.

Through its leading forum for scientific exchange in the field of educational science, ZfE is published quarterly. It publishes highly rated, peer-reviewed articles on current developments in educational science, making the findings of interdisciplinary research accessible to all those with a professional interest in the field.

ZfE is distinguished by its editorial staff, its scientific advisory board, and most importantly the topics selected for detailed consideration. These topics reflect the broad, interdisciplinary character of educational science and its relevance for people of all ages. Furthermore, through the selective publication of English-language contributions, the journal keeps pace with scientific developments beyond Germany.

The periodical aims are to present international and interdisciplinary developments in broad areas of educational science in a reliable, reasoned, and lucid manner.

Why was ZfE founded?

Educational science has undergone radical change since the end of the 20th century. It is now the second most popular subject taken at German Universities. Since the mid-20th century, educational science has become an established and professionalized discipline covering a broad spectrum of research fields; it comprises around 25 subspecialities, creating a considerable need for overarching research findings relevant to all areas. In terms of personnel, educational science has undergone – and continues to undergo – a generation shift in the institutes of higher education, partly as a result of German reunification and partly due to the retirement of 60% of faculty members.

Educational science no longer separates itself from the findings of others, preferring to develop a provincial identity of its own. It has become a prime example of an interdisciplinary science, benefiting from having opened up to the humanities of social sciences, and currently to the natural sciences.

The process of European integration has produced macrostructures such as the European Educational Research Association; numerous collaborative projects are in progress within Europe; and there is a great interest in German educational science in Eastern Europe and Asia.

In view of these changes, there is a growing need for the findings of international research to be integrated into educational science in Germany. Moreover, the discipline no longer focuses exclusively on the education and instruction of children and adolescents. In recent decades, learning and instruction have become lifelong processes. In turn, educational science now covers an entire lifespan.

These and other significant developments in systems of education and in the corresponding disciplines created a need for a journal that could assemble the different strands of research. It is thanks to the initiative of a committed team of editors and the enterprising support of the publisher Edmund Budrich that this research-based educational science journal was founded at the end of the 20th century, itself a century of education, with the first issue appearing in spring 1998. It is the first educational science journal in Germany to apply a rigorous peer review procedure. ZfE has already established a sound and growing reputation within the scientific community. Since 2007 the journal is listet in the Social Sciences Citation Index. In July 2009 it reached a journal impact factor of 0.545, which is currently the highest ranking of German educational journals.

Profile of the ZfE

The conditions outlined above were central to the foundation of ZfE at the end of the 20th century, which led to the development of the following guiding principles:

Creation of top-quality research accessible to a broad audience.
Commitment to the interdisciplinary nature of educational science; to reject pedagogical provincialism.
Openness to international developments in the discipline.
Establishing a forum for different approaches to processes of education and socialization across the modern lifespan.

Structure

Each issue is dedicated to a specific topic, but also contains general sections and review articles.

The thematic section of each issue is opened by an encyclopedic article covering the history, semantics, and current state of research on the topic under consideration. It aims at providing readers who are unfamiliar with the topic with a sound introduction to the issue. The thematic section continues with a number of articles on recent findings and developments in German and international interdisciplinary research.

The general section contains articles from all fields and areas of educational science, spanning from general education, social education, adult education, comparative educational science, teacher training, psychology of education, to sociology of education, etc.

Periodically there is a discussion section intended to facilitate scientific exchange on controversial topics. It contains reactions to articles, highlighted areas of debate, and occasional interviews.

The review section of the journal contains two reviews of groups of books; one focusing on the main topic of the issue, the other on recent publications, which are also documented in a selected bibliography. To ensure that reviews are not favorably biased from the outset, all reviews are commissioned by ZfE and no unsolicited reviews are accepted.