Ten Years of Editorial Policy of the Journal of Studies in International Education: Overview, Challenges, and Opportunities

Abstract

The first issue of JSIE appeared in the spring of 1997 and was published by CIEE on the occasion of its 50th anniversary and in a cooperative agreement with the EAIE. The purpose of the journal was described as follows: "To attract and publish quality research and commentary to increase our knowledge and advance the field" and "to encourage greater research of the field" (Trooboff, 1997, p. vi). The editor in chief of the first volume, Karen Jenkins (1997, p. viii), mentioned four goals: stimulate and encourage scholarly research, affect the design, monitoring, and evaluation of programs, influence policy makers, and broaden the discourse within the profession. After the first volume, the emphasis has become more focused on the first and the last goal and less directly focused on the two other goals.Before becoming the editor of the journal as of Volume 2, I was chair of the first Editorial Board. In my contribution to the first issue, "Studies in International Education: A Research Perspective" (De Wit, 1997), I wrote that the start of the journal was a marking point, "both for its scholarly and global perspective, and its ability to position the study in international education in a specific place and platform within the broader field of educational research" (p. 1). At that time, as I stated, there was a lack of a strong research tradition on internationalization of (higher) education and, as such, a lack of academic recognition in the field of educational science, marginalized under confusing terms in the area of comparative and international education research. To move out of this marginal situation, the study of international education should move from its present, more descriptive phase, to a more analytical approach. In addition to description of activities, projects and programs of institutions, countries, and regions, studies on the concepts and process of internationalization of education have to be developed.

Two Decades of Research Into the Internationalization of Higher Education: Major Themes in the Journal of Studies in International Education (1997-2016)

“…While this broad picture reveals the overarching themes and concepts over a period of 20 years, the following analyses focus on time spans of 5 years each, allowing for a more detailed investigation of the research trends. The central themes and concepts depicted here also mirror in broader terms the ones that de Wit (2007) identified for the first decade of the journal.…”

“…de Wit (1997) states, “Until the 1980s, research in international education was predominantly American-driven, but in the 1990s we see a rise in studies by Europeans, Canadians and Australians” (p. 7). This also largely applies to publications in the JSIE until 2007 (de Wit, 2007). However, Table 3 indicates that by 2016, contributions in the JSIE have globally originated from a total of 40 countries.…”

“…To this end, first developments are traceable in research published in the last decade: Since de Wit’s (2007) first overview analysis on the JSIE , for example, the number of contributions from Asian countries has increased from 15 until 2007 to 49 in 2016—While this number could still be increased, it indicates that research on internationalization of higher education is now also increasingly conducted beyond Anglo-Saxon countries as well, holding the potential of further enabling diverse perspectives on and more equal experiences of internationalization.…”