EFS

EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS & STUDIES (EFS) is an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, fully open-access academic journal. The journal is dedicated to building bridges between foundational theory and applied research in education, publishing high-quality original work that examines educational phenomena through the lenses of philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, and other disciplines.

The core conviction of EFS is that “we return to foundations in order to move forward better.” In an era of incessant waves of educational reform and rapid technological change, we believe that sustained and deep questioning of education’s fundamental problems—What is education? For whom? Towards what end?—is more necessary than ever. At the same time, the journal is firmly committed to the principle of open access, removing all economic barriers to knowledge so that any reader, anywhere, with any level of institutional resources, may access all published content freely, permanently, and unconditionally, making educational research truly serve practitioners, policy-makers, and all those who care about education.

2. Open Access Statement

EFS operates as a Diamond (Platinum) Open Access journal. This means:

  • Free for all readers: All articles are immediately, permanently, and unconditionally available online. No subscription, no registration, no paywalls. We believe that the fruits of educational research should not be locked behind the high walls of commercial databases.

  • Free for all authors: EFS charges no Article Processing Charges (APCs), submission fees, or page charges. We believe that the opportunity to publish should never depend on an author’s personal or institutional funding—a commitment of particular importance for educational researchers from under-resourced regions and the Global South.

  • Open licensing: All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) . Authors retain copyright of their work and grant anyone the right to share, adapt, and reuse the material—including for teaching materials, curriculum development, and policy briefs—provided appropriate credit is given. This maximises both scholarly dialogue and the social benefits of academic work.

  • Open science practices: Where ethically and legally permissible, EFS encourages authors to share data, research instruments, interview protocols, questionnaires, and pre-registrations to promote transparency, reproducibility, and cumulative progress in educational research.

3. Aims, Scope, and Core Areas

EFS is rooted in the rich traditions of educational foundations while actively responding to the new questions that globalisation, technological transformation, and social change pose for education. The journal’s fundamental position is that sound educational practice requires deep theoretical grounding, and that the vitality of educational theory lies in its responsiveness to real problems of practice. EFS therefore rejects the artificial separation of theory from practice and seeks to build a scholarly space in which foundational and applied research nourish one another.

We encourage authors to examine education from multiple disciplinary perspectives, and especially welcome high-quality submissions in the following areas:

Philosophy of Education and Educational Thought

  • Philosophical inquiries into the aims, values, and meanings of education

  • Comparative and dialogical studies of Eastern and Western traditions of educational thought

  • Epistemology of education: the philosophical foundations of knowledge, curriculum, and pedagogy

  • Ethics and moral education

  • Critical pedagogy, emancipatory education, and the Freirean tradition

  • Democratic education, citizenship education, and the public sphere

  • Justice, equality, and the politics of recognition in education

History of Education and Educational Traditions

  • Histories of educational systems across civilisations and nations

  • Intellectual history of education: thinkers, schools, and canonical texts

  • Colonialism, postcolonialism, and the global history of education

  • Historical sociology of curriculum and school subjects

  • Comparative-historical analyses of educational reform

  • Memory, trauma, and history education

Sociology of Education and Social Foundations

  • Education and social stratification: class, race, gender, and educational reproduction

  • Equality of educational opportunity and social mobility

  • School as social organisation: culture, power, and everyday practice

  • Family background, cultural capital, and educational attainment

  • Sociological analysis of education policy

  • Globalisation and cross-national comparisons in education

Educational Psychology and Human Development

  • Theories of learning: behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism, and beyond

  • Motivation, emotion, and the psychosocial foundations of learning

  • Cultural contexts of child and adolescent development

  • Special educational needs and inclusive education

  • Social-emotional learning and mental health

  • Identity, self-concept, and educational experience

Curriculum Studies

  • Curriculum theory: from Tylerian principles to postmodern perspectives

  • The hidden curriculum, the null curriculum, and the politics of curriculum

  • Interdisciplinary curricula and STEAM education

  • Multicultural curricula and decolonising the curriculum

  • Curriculum reform and the teacher as curriculum maker

  • Critical analysis of assessment, testing, and curriculum standardisation

Teacher Education and Professional Development

  • Teacher knowledge and teacher beliefs

  • Models and pathways of teacher education

  • Reflective practice and action research

  • Teacher identity, burnout, and professional well-being

  • Teacher preparation in multicultural contexts

  • Educational leadership and school improvement

Education Policy and Comparative Education

  • Education policy analysis: formulation, implementation, and evaluation

  • Globalisation, neoliberalism, and educational reform

  • Critical examination of international large-scale educational assessments

  • Methodological questions in comparative education research

  • Educational governance: the state, the market, and civil society

  • The right to education, education law, and international education agendas

Educational Technology and Digital Education

  • Philosophical and ethical reflections on educational technology

  • Artificial intelligence, algorithms, and the future of education

  • Online learning, blended learning, and digital equity

  • Social media, digital literacy, and youth development

  • Datafication of education and the ethics of privacy

Informal Education and Lifelong Learning

  • Family education, community education, and social pedagogy

  • Lifelong learning and the learning society

  • Museums, libraries, and the educational functions of public spaces

  • Intergenerational learning and ageing societies

  • Workplace learning and continuing professional education

Interdisciplinary Dialogue
EFS consistently welcomes boundary-crossing scholarship from philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, economics, linguistics, communication studies, cultural studies, gender studies, science and technology studies, and related fields, provided it carries a clear educational concern.

Editorial Policies and Peer Review

Editorial Structure

EFS is led by an Editor-in-Chief, supported by Regional Editors, Associate Editors, and an international Editorial Board whose members represent the full breadth of relevant specialisms, including philosophy of education, history of education, sociology of education, educational psychology, curriculum studies, comparative education, and teacher education. The editorial team is committed to:

  • Upholding the journal’s scholarly integrity and intellectual quality;

  • Ensuring a fair, transparent, and efficient review process;

  • Advancing the journal’s role as an open international forum for foundational educational research.

The composition of the Editorial Board reflects genuine diversity in geography, gender, intellectual tradition, disciplinary background, and career stage, to ensure that the journal broadly represents the plurality of voices in global educational research.

Peer Review Process

EFS operates a double-anonymous review system: reviewers do not know authors’ identities, and authors do not know reviewers’ identities. This policy is designed to minimise biases related to prestige, institutional affiliation, gender, or nationality.

The standard process is as follows:

  1. Initial Editorial Screening: All submissions are first assessed by the Editor-in-Chief or an Associate Editor for scholarly quality, originality, and fit. Manuscripts that are clearly unsuitable or have significant scholarly deficiencies are desk-rejected, usually within 1–2 weeks, with an explanatory note.

  2. External Review: Manuscripts that pass initial screening are sent to 2–3 external reviewers with relevant expertise for double-anonymous evaluation.

  3. Editorial Decision: Based on the reviewers’ reports and the journal’s overall standards, the editor makes a decision of “Accept,” “Minor Revision,” “Major Revision,” or “Reject,” and provides integrated constructive feedback.

  4. Revision and Re-review: Revised manuscripts may be assessed directly by the editor or sent back to reviewers. EFS aims to notify authors of the final decision within 8–12 weeks of initial submission.

EFS does not accept simultaneous submissions. Allegations of research misconduct—including plagiarism, data fabrication, and unethical authorship practices—are taken seriously and handled in accordance with the best-practice guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Author Rights and Responsibilities

As a Diamond OA journal, EFS respects and upholds the following author rights:

  • Authors retain full copyright of their published work; no exclusive copyright transfer is required.

  • Authors grant the journal the right to publish the work under the CC BY 4.0 licence, securing the widest possible attribution and reuse rights globally.

  • Published works are assigned permanent Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) and disseminated across multiple indexing platforms to ensure visibility and longevity.

Authors are expected to ensure that: the submission is original and previously unpublished; all named authors have made substantive contributions and approved the submission; all sources are accurately cited; research involving human subjects, school-based studies, or the participation of children and young people complies with relevant ethical standards and provides information on ethical review approval where applicable; and no undisclosed conflicts of interest exist.

Why Choose EFS?

  • Returning to education’s fundamental questions: In an era when educational research is increasingly fragmented and technicised, EFS offers a home for research that asks “why” and “for whom,” not merely “how.” Your theoretical reflections will find an attentive audience here.

  • Global reach, permanent free access: As a Diamond OA journal, your research is immediately available to readers worldwide with no economic barriers. From university libraries in developed countries to village teachers in developing regions, anyone can freely access and use your findings.

  • No financial burden: Regardless of institutional resources, all authors may submit and publish free of charge. We are particularly mindful of educational researchers from under-resourced regions and the Global South, and are committed to providing them with equal opportunities for international publication.

  • Rigorous and efficient review: A mature double-anonymous review system with professional, constructive feedback helps strengthen your scholarly work. Our reviewers attend not only to methodological rigour but also to a study’s educational significance and social value.

  • Inclusive of multiple disciplines and diverse methods: EFS welcomes philosophical inquiry, historical research, ethnography, statistical analysis, action research, discourse analysis, and many other research paradigms, as long as the work is rigorous and insightful.

  • Connecting research and practice: We believe that good theory is a practitioner’s best tool, and that genuine problems of practice are the best starting points for research. EFS seeks to be an intellectual home shared by educational researchers and practitioners alike.

  • Open copyright and teaching-friendly: The CC BY 4.0 licence ensures that your research can be freely used in classroom teaching, teacher training, and curriculum development, maximising the real-world social value of your academic work.

EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS & STUDIES warmly invites educational researchers across the globe, scholars in philosophy, social sciences, and all related disciplines, as well as thinkers and practitioners concerned with education’s fundamental questions, to join us in building an academic commons that pursues depth, respects plurality, connects theory and practice, and keeps its borders open. Whether as author, reviewer, or reader, your participation is an essential part of this community.

 

Hengbai Academic Bookseller & Publishing LLC

Always Open for Submissions
We accept submissions year-round with no deadline restrictions. Work at your own pace and submit when your research is ready—no cutoff date applies.

Peer‑Review
All manuscripts undergo a robust peer‑review process to ensure they meet rigorous standards of scientific validity, methodological soundness, and significance to the research community.

Online First
Accepted articles are published online immediately upon acceptance, without waiting for issue compilation. This ensures your findings reach the scientific community as rapidly as possible.

Publishing Models

Open Access
Your work will be permanently available online, free to download, share, and read, maximizing academic impact and global visibility.

Non‑Open Access (Subscription)
We offer a traditional subscription‑based pathway that protects copyright and accommodates commercial reuse, suitable for authors with specific publication policy requirements.

Our Mission: Preserving and Disseminating Scholarly Knowledge

We provide a comprehensive digital platform dedicated to the preservation and open dissemination of academic research. Our services include:

  • Repository for Diverse Scholarly Materials – We accept and host a wide range of academic content, including research papers, manuscripts, printed publications, and electronic versions of journals. This includes materials from discontinued journals, lost or rare print editions, sole surviving copies, and publications from defunct presses—ensuring that valuable scholarly heritage is not lost to time.

  • Preprint Repository Across All Disciplines – Researchers are welcome to submit and publish preprints covering all fields of study, including natural sciences, humanities, social sciences, and interdisciplinary research. Submissions are accepted in multiple languages: English, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Japanese, and other languages.

  • Free and Open Access – Submission, publication, and viewing of preprints are completely free of charge. All content is made publicly available online at no cost to readers.

  • Reusable Under Author‑Defined Terms – To maximize the reach and impact of scholarly work, users may reuse, reproduce, or redistribute content for public purposes, subject to the terms specified by the author. This flexible framework encourages broader dissemination and collaboration across the global research community.

Our Community

We partner with like-minded individuals and organizations to develop open infrastructure that enables the publication of open-access works, the sharing of our academic journals through open platforms and services, and the global promotion of our vision and core values. Below is a selection of our partner organizations.