Invitation letter to the Science Education community for submissions on the theme "Differences, multiculturalism and interculturality in Science Education"

Dear authors of our community,

In 2020, the editorial board of Ensaio put up an effort of reviewing its own published papers from 2017 to 2019 and found out a small number of publications in specific strands (considering the 12 research strands of Encontro Nacional de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciências - ENPEC ). As a result, the Editorial Board of Ensaio have elaborated a new editorial plan for 2021, aiming at enriching these strands, specifically the Differences, multiculturalism and interculturality in Science Education, which has had a small number of contributions over the past years.

This strand deals with the following topics - difference, multiculturalism, interculturality, and its relations to Science education - and includes discussions about inclusion, gender, religion and class; Education for ethnic-racial relations; rural, indigenous, quilombola and other specific ethinies' education; and affirmative actions. Such topics fall in a category used by the international community as Culture, Social and Gender (e.g. Tsai & Wen, 2005; Lee, Wu & Tsai, 2009; Lin, Lin & Tsai, 2014). Systematic reviews developed by this group of researchers each five years show an increase in papers regarding this topic from 2008 to 2012. However, this increasing interest was not sufficient to surpass the first two reviews, in which the topic summed 14,3% and 6,8% of the research in proeminent journals (2019). The group of authors do not analyse deeply the tendency of publications of this topic, but they do indicate that there may be an important role of the editorial board in selecting papers from certain topics (Tsai & Wen, 2005). Still, the numbers indicate that the topic is yet to be investigated internationally.

Regarding the 2021 editorial, Ensaio has recently published the editorial of the volume 23 (Mendonça & Franco, 2021), indicating consonance with the Open Science movement. The tenets of Open Science are: transparency, reusing research data, reproducibility of results and methodologies, cooperation, and responsibility in publication and revision processes. Thus, the Editorial Board intends to gradually implement the open peer review (OPR), as the first step toward Open Science. Practices such as OPR may contribute to a more effective dialog between authors and reviewers, to deepening the relevant discussions for the field, and also acknowledging the reviewers' work once the reviews will be published as a forum. The OPR not only enhances the evaluation processes, but also works as an educational action for novice members of the community.

In this direction, the Ensaio’s Editorial Board invites all our scientific community to submit their contributions to the strand Differences, multiculturalism and interculturality in Science Education, reinforcing OPR practices. This call is also an invitation to all of those who feel inclined to join Ensaio’s OPR movement as reviewers and help Ensaio to achieve one of its most precious goals: making the journal more diverse, therefore, more representative of science education community; and promoting a dialogue in our community with the discursive interactions between authors and reviewers.

The manuscripts submitted to the strand will undergo the same revision processes that all manuscripts submitted to the journal. By the submission, the authors will be able to choose whether they wish to participate in the OPR and, if the editorial board sees potential, the paper will be sent to revision, when the reviewers will produce a response/critique also in the format of a paper, forming a specialists' report about the topic discussed. Our wish is to build/straighten a community that shares the Open Science ideals, and also move towards a research in Science education that is accessible and transparent. See below the guidelines to the OPR.

We kindly ask you to spread this message with other people in our community so we can increase the reach of this message and enhance the diversity in our discussions.

Kind regards,

Editorial Board

Ensaio Research in Science Education

Renata OrofinoGlauco dos Santos Ferreira da Silva

Referências Bibliográficas

• Lee, M. H.; Wu, Y. T.; Tsai, C. C. (2009). Research trends in science education from 2003 to 2007: A content analysis of publications in selected journals. International Journal of Science Education, 31(15), 1999-2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500690802314876
  » https://doi.org/10.1080/09500690802314876
• Lin, T. C.; Lin, T. J.; Tsai, C. C. (2014). Research Trends in Science Education from 2008 to 2012: A systematic content analysis of publications in selected journals. International Journal of Science Education, 36(8), 1346-1372. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2013.864428
  » https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2013.864428
• Lin, T. J.; Lin, T. C.; Potvin, P.; Tsai, C. C. (2019). Research trends in science education from 2013 to 2017: a systematic content analysis of publications in selected journals. International Journal of Science Education, 41(3), 367-387. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2018.1550274
  » https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2018.1550274
• Mendonça, Paula Cristina Cardoso; Franco, Luiz Gustavo. (2021). A ciência aberta e a área de educação em ciências: perspectivas e diálogos.Ensaio Pesquisa em Educação em Ciências (Belo Horizonte),23, e29175. Epub 08 de feveiro de 2021. https://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1983-21172021230102
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-21172021230102
• Tsai, C. C.; Wen, M. L. (2005). Research and trends in science education from 1998 to 2002: A content analysis of publication in selected journals. International Journal of Science Education, 27(1), 3-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950069042000243727
  » https://doi.org/10.1080/0950069042000243727

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  04 June 2021
• Date of issue
  2021