EDITORIAL
In 2010, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the current structure of Education and Research, the editors Lucia Bruno and Teresa Cristina Rego drew attention to the challenges that the Editorial Committee in charge of the journal would be thenceforth facing. Among them, two challenges gained prominence at that time: increasing the international expression of the journal (through, for example, a larger number of articles translated into English), and the intensification of original and stimulating contributions both from Brazil and from abroad.
What was then at play was the effort towards an academic dialogue more proactive with respect to the readers, which would entail, as understood by the Committee, some specific measures, among which we can cite: the systematic publication of the works of foreign authors, through original articles or translations of texts of interest previously unpublished in Brazil, and, alongside the acceptance of the spontaneous demand for the publication of the results of researches, the widening of the discussion nuclei through "targeted demands" directed at the academic community. The idea was, and still is, to turn Education and Research into an effective forum for the debate of the thematic, theoretical, and also empirical vectors that permeate the current reality of educational research.
In this sense, Education and Research has been fulfilling remarkably well the commitments it took for itself. The first issue of 2011, in the shape of a compilation of eleven articles from a targeted demand, was entirely devoted to the process of implementation of the nine-year fundamental education in Brazil. The participation of foreign authors was also expressive in the two subsequent issues, both through original articles (by Portuguese, Spanish and Argentinian colleagues) and through the reediting of texts by important authors, such as Emilia Ferrero and Claudine Haroche, in issues 2 and 3 of the present volume, respectively.
The firm disposition not only to remain as one of the most influent periodicals in the educational area in Brazil, but specially of launching itself as a means for the dissemination of new theoretical and methodological ideas for research, as well as of deep reflections about the educational research in this country, has its own costs. The highest of them is perhaps the need to be continually processing the large volume of submissions received by Education and Research. Add to that the fact that the journal, being a top-ranked (A1) periodical in the Qualis/CAPES ranking system, receives growing attention from researchers. It is therefore only fair to acknowledge here the invaluable contribution of the hundreds of ad hoc referees who have promptly answered when contacted by the editors.
With the intent of increasing the demand for our journal, the Editorial Committee decided to publish, from now on, one extra issue of Education and Research per year, turning it into a trimestral publication. So this is the novelty of the present issue: the fourth issue of volume 37. A historic issue, therefore.
It is quite true that the option for an extra issue per year took some daring, considering the uncertainties of funding and, moreover, the editorial challenges involved. It is worth remembering that from its foundation in 1975 Education and Research kept a biannual periodicity until 2003, and after 2004 it started to be published three times a year. Thus, in less than a decade the journal has doubled the size of its editorial flow.
Alongside the formal aspects, which Education and Research has been following strictly, another factor that distinguishes it within the universe of Brazilian periodicals is - as pointed out by the editors Lucia Bruno and Teresa Rego in the commemorative issue mentioned above - its opening to all kinds of quality research/investigation conducted in the academic field, without being restricted by theoretical or methodological trends. Here is established another of the journal's commitments: the respect to multiplicity, to diversity, to thematic variety - in a word, to plurality. This is, once again, the main feature of the original texts that comprise the current issue of Education and Research. The themes focused by the ten selected articles span a wide range of interests, from the constitution of school knowledge to homophobia, from the teaching of nursing to the view of youngsters about the adult world, to the National Curriculum Guidelines for Early Childhood Education, to the uses of the SARESP exam and the conflicts faced by licentiateship students, to sports practices, socialization theories, and the contributions of Norbert Elias's thinking to education.
Another distinctive feature of the present issue of Education and Research concerns the fact that all articles selected originate in the academic production of the State of São Paulo. Far from stemming from any kind of regional bias, it reflects a tactic adopted by the Editorial Committee to guarantee the financing by FAPESP, since one of the conditions of that funding agency is of sponsoring only publications of researchers belonging to teaching and research institutions located in the State of São Paulo. In the case of this issue, authors acknowledge their affiliation to the following institutions: University of São Paulo (School of Education, Institute of Psychology, School of Physical Education and Sport, and "Luiz de Queiroz" Agriculture Higher Education Institute), "Júlio de Mesquita Filho" State University of São Paulo (Faculty of Sciences and Letters of Assis and Biosciences Institute of Rio Claro), State University of Campinas, and Carlos Chagas Foundation.
Lastly, and observing the forceful need of dialogue with exogenous sources, the present issue of Education and Research is proud to bring to its readers two outstanding texts translated from authors far apart from each other, both in time and in the scope of their outlook. The first: Defectology and the study of the development and education of abnormal children by Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky, written (probably) towards the end of the 1920s, and translated here by Denise Regina Sales, Marta Kohl de Oliveira and Priscila Nascimento Marques. In this work, the soviet thinker recovers the thesis of the cultural development as a path to a possible compensatory education for handicapped children. The second article, by Jean-Yves Rochex, and translated by Márcia Vinci de Moraes, appeared in 2010 and is entitled The three ages of priority education policies: a European convergence? In this text, the professor of Sciences of Education at the University of Paris VIII presents a critical-analytical assessment of the actions carried out in eight different European countries with the aim of reducing inequalities in schooling and school success.
Put together, the original articles by São Paulo researchers and the two translated texts compose a faithful picture of the fecundity of the thinking in the educational field, a fecundity whose dissemination Education and Research has taken as its mission to ensure at any cost - something that would not have been possible without the financial support made available to the journal by SIBI-USP, CNPq, and FEUSP and, above all, without the institutional support that the direction of the School of Education of the University of São Paulo has been offering throughout the years to the Editorial Committee.
Julio Groppa Aquino
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
15 Dec 2011 -
Date of issue
Dec 2011
