Relevant Journals
Journal of Progressive Human Services
This journal covers a variety of problems, from political to social issues, from a progressive perspective. The mission of the journal is to enhance discussions on major social issues in order to build analytical tools in order to build a society that is based on equality and justice. As a whole, the journal examines the experiences of oppressed groups, common problems and dilemmas experienced by social service workers, and strategies for ending various -isms, such as racism. All articles in this journal have undergone extensive peer review. In addition, the journal publishes three issues per year.
Equity and Excellence in Education
Equity & Excellence in Education is the official journal of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, College of Education. It considers marginalized populations and the relationship between systemic oppression when publishing work. Specific types of work that the journal publishes includes, peer reviewed research articles, analytical essays, and creative artistic pieces. The editorial review board has a particular interest in publishing papers that apply a critical lense in order to examine the role of systematic racism in various settings. Furthermore, the journal welcomes submissions that expand the definition of what could be considered material eligible to be submitted to an academic journal. In addition, the journal seeks to rise above and subvert the traditional boundaries of academic journals, which say they say they seek equity, but actually promote exclusion again and again. In addition, the journal will actively reject submissions that are overly esoteric and whose language will not be accessible to the communities in which they are written for.
Journal of Community Practice
The Journal of Community Practice is a multidisciplinary journal that is grounded in the principles of social welfare, and it contains studies that are related to disciplines such as social work, urban planning, and community development, among others. The journal promotes the sharing of both emerging and contemporary ideas. It regularly publishes a range of studies that use participatory methods and action research. The journal serves as both a sounding board for authors and a resource for readers. It also serves as an invaluable voice in community settings because of how it publishes work that ranges from the conceptualization of ideas stage to the evaluation stage of a project. Furthermore, the journal publishes articles that are based on the following broad topics, “From the field,” “From the classroom,” and “Innovations to Community Practice.”
Qualitative Health Research
Qualitative Health Research (QHR) is a peer-reviewed journal that aims to create an international, transdisciplinary discussion to enhance health care. It expands on the development and understanding of qualitative research in clinical settings. It serves as a resource for researchers and academics, administrators and others in the health and social service professions. It publishes articles that focus on conceptual, theoretical, methodological and ethical issues on qualitative research. It also publishes qualitative research on patient description and analysis of the illness experience, caregivers experiences, and the sociocultural organization of health care. It is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Qualitative Sociology
Qualitative Sociology presents qualitative analysis and interpretations of social life. It focuses on sociological research that relies on participatory methods, as well as theoretical and analytical methods. The journal places an emphasis on qualitative interviewing, ethnography, and historical analysis. It is abstracted and indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index.
Journal of Participatory Research Methods
The Journal of Participatory Methods is interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, and focuses on participatory research methods, techniques and processes. It includes articles about research methodology to share concepts and techniques specific to research that involves communities in the research process. The journal focuses primarily on the methods, techniques and processes involved in conducting participatory research rather than research findings. The journal is a collaboration with the Office for Innovations & Community Partnerships at the University of Cincinnati College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services.
Research for All
Research for All is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal focusing on research that involves universities and communities working together. It publishes two issues per year. The journal showcases public engagement that features rigorous research, community development, and community benefit. The journal is co-sponsored by the UCL Institute of Education and the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement. A focus of the journal is participatory action research.
Progress in Community Health Partnerships
Progress in Community Health Partnerships is a single-blinded, peer-reviewed quarterly journal, focusing on the role of collaboration between communities, community-based organizations, universities, medical centers, and health departments. The journal is the first scholarly journal dedicated to Community-Based Participatory Research. It is strongly recommended that community stakeholders are included as authors for this journal.
Research Involvement and Engagement
Research Involvement and Engagement is an interdisciplinary journal focusing on patient involvement and engagement in research. The journal is co-created by patients, academics, and policy makers. The journal has the patients included within the accreditation process, meaning at least two patients sit on the editorial board, patients regularly contribute scholarship, patients serve as peer reviewers, and all content in the journal is open access. The journal invites research articles, methodologies, protocols and commentaries, especially those involving patient authors. All submissions are reviewed by patients and academics.
Collaborative Anthropologies
Published by the Society for Applied Anthropology, this is a useful resource that includes research that highlights the experiences of engaged scholarship, collaboration, and challenging power hierarchies.
Urban Research-Base Action Network (URBAN)
“URBAN aspires to create a community of scholars and change-makers who engage and explore big questions now emerging in cities–the future of governance and democracy, the role of markets, stewardship of nature and the environment and the role of race and identity in constructing communities, to name a few– and break through the barriers that have stymied collaborative problem solving. We aspire to learn across academic disciplines, across institutions, across geographies, and other boundaries that can limit the reach of important theoretical and policy breakthroughs, and to do so while helping legitimize an under-recognized and highly promising path of scholarship and knowledge creation. We aspire to study transformative models of local innovation in cities, both in the US and around the world. We hope to reinvigorate urban disciplines and create opportunities for creative and collaborative scholarship to be recognized and rewarded, judged on its contributions both to theory and to more vital, prosperous, and sustainable urban communities.”
Critical Public Health
Critical Public Health (CPH) is a peer-reviewed quarterly journal with a focus on public health and health promotion theory and practice, from a critical lens. Its 2014 impact factor is 1.712. The journal is especially concerned with issues of equity, power, social justice, and oppression in health. This journal accepts contributions from around the world, including empirical research articles, short reports, commentaries, and book reviews. Contributions come from several disciplines, including social sciences, history, medicine, public health, psychology, and nursing, and interdisciplinary work is especially encouraged. The audience for this journal includes researchers, practitioners, policymakers, academics, community workers, social workers, educators, clinicians, city planners, and communication experts.
Antipode
Antipode is a peer-reviewed journal of radical geography that is published five times a year. It has an impact factor of 2.104. Contributions are typically essays on place, space, landscape, scale, human-environment interactions, development, and borders with an eye towards theory and practice. Interdisciplinary, collaborative, and normative pieces are also welcome. Articles are written from a range of perspectives, including Marxist, feminist, anti-racist, and queer that explore geography and unequal social relations. Other accepted submissions include short commentaries, book reviews, and review symposia. Non-academic authors are also welcome to submit. The intended readership is social scientists, especially those working from a critical perspective.
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (JECH) is an international peer-reviewed journal publishing original research, short opinions, and materials on epidemiology. It is published monthly and has an impact factor of 3.501. In addition to original research, this journal accepts editorials, short reports, reports on evidence-based public health policy and practice, theoretical and methodological papers, reviews, and Letters to the Editor. Research should be of interest to an international public health audience.
Ecology and Society
Ecology and Society is an electronic, peer-reviewed, multi-disciplinary journal that appears three times a year. The journal presents a multidisciplinary approach to look at coupled human-natural systems. From the web site: “The journal seeks papers that are novel, integrative and written in a way that is accessible to a wide audience that includes an array of disciplines from the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities concerned with the relationship between society and the life-supporting ecosystems on which human wellbeing ultimately depends. Content of the journal ranges from the applied to the theoretical. In general, papers should cover topics relating to the ecological, political, and social foundations for sustainable social-ecological systems. Specifically, the journal publishes articles that present research findings on the following issues: (a) the management, stewardship and sustainable use of ecological systems, resources and biological diversity at all levels, (b) the role natural systems play in social and political systems and conversely, the effect of social, economic and political institutions on ecological systems and services, and (c) the means by which we can develop and sustain desired ecological, social and political states.”
Geoforum
Geoforum is a geography journal with a critical (rather than physical geography) bent that encourages innovative methods. From the web site: “Geoforum is a leading international, inter-disciplinary journal publishing innovative research and commentary in human geography and related fields. It is global in outlook and integrative in approach. The broad focus of Geoforum is the organisation of economic, political, social and environmental systems through space and over time. Areas of study range from the analysis of the global political economy, through political ecology, national systems of regulation and governance, to urban and regional development, feminist, economic and urban geographies and environmental justice and resources management. Geoforum publishes research articles that are conceptually-led and empirically-grounded, critical reviews of recent research, and editorial interventions. It also features a highly-regarded ‘themed issue’ format that enables a focused exploration of emergent and/or significant areas of inquiry.”
Journal of Ethnobiology
The Journal of Ethnobiology is the journal of the Society of Ethnobiology, which brings together ethnobotanists (and ethnozoologists) from around the world for an annual meeting, usually in the United States. The Journal of Ethnobiology is the more qualitative of the two best-known ethnobotanical journals. Economic Botany (published by the Society for Economic Botany) has a quantitative approach. Ethnobotanists have in recent years become more conscious of the role they have played historically in helping give ethnographers the reputation for performing “extractive” work on indigenous populations, and scientists associated with the Society have by and large begun reforming their practices.
Health Promotion Practice
Health Promotion Practice (HPP) is a peer-reviewed bi-monthly journal devoted to the practical application of health promotion and practice. HPP focuses on information that would be useful for professionals to develop, implement, and evaluate health promotion and disease prevention programs. Specifically, HPP explores interventions, programs, and best practice strategies in community, health care, worksite, educational, and international settings. In addition to dissemination of research, HPP examines practice-related issues, including program descriptions, teaching methods, needs assessment tools and methodologies, intervention strategies, health promotion, problem-solving issues, and evaluation presentations. Practitioners are encouraged to submit manuscripts that address “community intervention strategies”, “evaluations of community programs that will have utility for practitioners”, and “other applied practice topics”. Because of its foci on application and promoting linkages between community members and researchers, Health Promotion Practice accepts articles with a participatory foundation.
Health Education & Behavior
Health Education & Behavior (HEB) is a peer-reviewed bi-monthly journal focused on social and behavioral strategies to improve health behavior and health status social. HEB presents empirical research, case studies, program evaluations, literature reviews, and discussions of theories of health behavior and health status, as well as strategies to improve social and behavioral health. The audience includes a broad range of researchers and practitioners that are concerned with understanding factors associated with health behavior and interventions to improve health status. Typical manuscripts published in the journal include empirical research using qualitative or quantitative methods; formative, process, and outcome evaluations; and literature reviews. Processes of planning, implementing, managing, and assessing health education and social-behavioral interventions are also addressed. Because of its foci on applied research and evidence that will have relevance for practitioners, Health Education and Behavior accepts participatory articles.
Journal of Healthcare for the Poor and Underserved
Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved (JHCPU) is a peer-reviewed journal focused on contemporary health care issues of medically underserved communities. JHCPU addresses diverse areas such as health care access, quality, costs, legislation, regulations, health promotion, and disease prevention from a North American, Central American, Caribbean, and sub-Saharan African perspective. Regular features include research papers and reports, literature reviews, policy analyses, and evaluations of noteworthy health care programs, as well as a regular column written by members of the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved. Because the journal is focused on applied research with underserved communities, participatory articles are frequently accepted.
Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education and Action
Progress in Community Health Partnerships (PCHP) is a peer-reviewed national journal. The mission of this journal is “to identify and publicize model programs that use community partnerships to improve public health, promote progress in the methods of research and education involving community health partnerships, and stimulate action that will improve the health of people and communities”. This is the first scholarly journal dedicated to Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). PCHP is dedicated to supporting community health partnerships that involve ongoing collaboration of community representatives, and academic, public, or private organizations. However, the journal is not limited to just CBPR and is open to research regarding the implications of CBPR research through a wide variety of scholarly efforts. Although the majority of articles published by PCHP may feature work conducted by community health partnerships, the journal also considers publication of articles that discuss the implications of community health partnership research.
Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement
Gateways is a refereed journal that highlights issues related to “practice and processes of university-community engagement”. This journal provides representatives from academia, different practice settings and community members a space to explore issues and reflect on practices related to the full range of engaged activity. The journal publishes evaluative case studies of community engagement initiatives; analyses of the policy environment; and theoretical reflections contributing to the scholarship of engagement. One of the benefits of this journal is that its subscription is free. This journal is accredited by Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) and is published annually by University of Technology (Sydney) and Loyola University (Chicago).
Educational Action Research
Educational Action Research (EAR) is a fully refereed international journal, published quarterly. It highlights issues pertaining to the dialogue between research and practice in educational settings. The journal was initiated through CARN, the Collaborative Action Research Network, and was founded in 1992. EAR publishes accounts of a range of research pertaining and related to action research studies, in education and across the professions, with the aim of making their outcomes widely available and exemplifying the variety of possible styles of reporting. It strives to establish and maintain a review of the literature of action research. It also provides a forum for dialogue on methodological and epistemological issues and enables different approaches to be subjected to critical reflection and analysis.
Action Research
Action Research is “an international, interdisciplinary, peer reviewed, quarterly published refereed journal which is a forum for the development of the theory and practice of action research. The journal publishes quality articles on accounts of action research projects, explorations in the philosophy and methodology of action research, and considerations of the nature of quality in action research practice. The journal’s online and social media presences seek to foster outreach, wide dissemination and sharing of action research practice, and mentorship of students and those new to action research.
Women’s Studies International Forum
Women’s Studies International Forum publishes peer reviewed articles on feminist research in women’s studies and other disciplines. Published bimonthly, the journal is a continuation of the Women’s Studies International Quarterly, which was established in 1978. The Forum “seeks to critique and reconceptualize existing knowledge, to examine and re-evaluate the manner in which knowledge is produced and distributed, and to assess the implications this has for women’s lives.” The journal also welcomes contributions from a range of contributors: both individual and collective, and inside or outside academia. Content of Women’s Studies International Forum includes a variety of submissions that examine women’s lived experiences, particularly “historical reassessments of the lives and works of women.” The Forum also seeks papers on action research, participatory research, and methods, and “urge[s] all contributors both to acknowledge the cultural and social specifics of their particular approach, and to draw out these issues in their articles.”
Qualitative Inquiry
Qualitative Inquiry (QIX) is a refereed journal that emphasizes work on methodology, the qualitative research processes, and issues, challenges, and concerns arising in qualitative research theory and practice in a variety of fields. The journal prioritizes questions of research method and practice over research content and results. The journal is interdisciplinary, and will publish articles on performance, participatory research, and action research. The publication also “addresses advances in specific methodological strategies or techniques” and covers a wide variety of specific methods: interviewing techniques, discourse analysis, ethnography, surveys, writing narratives, etc. Articles in the journal take up a variety of ethical questions of qualitative research, such as positionality, power, authorship, and participant safety. Qualitative Inquiry also encourages submissions that “experiment with manuscript form and content.”
Participatory Design
Participatory Design is a published collection of papers given at the Participatory Design Conference with contributors from software design, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, product design, sustainability, graphic design, planning and medicine. This journal is an interdisciplinary publication source that brings together collaborative and participatory methodologies for the production of activist or politically driven research. “Participatory Design,” they describe in their website, “is about the direct involvement of people in the co-design of the technologies they us”. Its central concern is how collaborative design processes can be driven by the participation of the people affected by the technology designed. It brings together a multidisciplinary and international group of software developers, researchers, social scientists, managers, designers, practitioners, users, cultural workers, activists, and citizens who both advocate and adopt distinctively participatory approaches in the development of information and communication artefacts, systems, services, and technology.”
Practicing Anthropology
Practicing Anthropology is published by the Society for Applied Anthropology. As a one of the preeminent societies for applied and participatory research in the U.S. this journal offers a long This journal labels itself as ‘career oriented’ and writes that its “ overall goals are: (1) to provide a vehicle of communication and source of career information for anthropologists working outside academia; (2) to encourage a bridge between practice inside and outside the university; (3) to explore the uses of anthropology in policy research and implementation; (4) to serve as a forum for inquiry into the present state and future of anthropology in general.”
Anthropology in Action
Participatory research is often linked to or motivated by political desires. This journal specifically explores methods and ethics for joining and applying research to political projects. “Anthropology in Action,” they tell us, “is a peer-reviewed journal publishing articles, commentaries, research reports, and book reviews in applied anthropology. Contributions reflect the use of anthropological training in policy- or practice-oriented work and foster the broader application of these approaches to practical problems. The journal provides a forum for debate and analysis for anthropologists working both inside and outside academia and aims to promote communication amongst practitioners, academics and students of anthropology in order to advance the cross-fertilisation of expertise and ideas.”