IIER Editorial 33(3): (i) IIER's first one third of a century; (ii) The Voice and voices; (iii) Peer review ... Revisited!

Roger Atkinson and Clare McBeath
IIER Co-editors

(i) The long road to IIER's first one third of a century

The first is The Voice, Australia's national constitutional referendum held on 14 October 2023, and "voices", a word and a contemporary concept often encountered in IIER articles, as illustrated below. The second is peer review in academic publishing, focusing upon workloads for editorial staff and reviewer workloads which are perceived by many journals, including IIER, as approaching unsustainable levels.

(ii) The Voice and voices

Beginning with the journal's contents pages, we found five article titles in 2022-23 that included "voices", for example "Voices of novice teachers..."; "Indonesian EFL students' voices"; and "Voices of high school students" [5]. Turning to individual articles in 2022-23, a much larger sample, 65 included "voices", for example "...their marginalised voice"; "leave them feeling powerless and voiceless"; "the voice of teacher education institutions"; "Those whose voices are suppressed..."; "...new decision-making voices"; their voice was appropriately presented"; "...their voice in this research"; and "...listen to the voices of women". Thus it became readily established that "voices" and similar have appeared frequently in IIER, used in diverse ways by IIER authors. To go further, we looked further into some of these examples that seemed most notable, in order to look for common purposes or associations between IIER authors' use of "voices", and "The Voice". Three excerpts follow.

Excerpt 1: Groenewald (2023) [7]
Students in subordinate positions may experience discrimination and marginalisation, based on their language, race, gender, or culture, when their social identities are not recognised on campus. This may leave them feeling powerless and voiceless. [7]

Excerpt 2: Tohidian et al. (2023) [8]
... we still suffer from lack of fair attention to those who are at the bottom of the pyramid of power in terms of financial and social status. Those whose voices are suppressed due to engagement with attaining very basic needs. [8]

Excerpt 3: Sims et al. (2022) [9]
We share our experiences amongst our Special Interest Group of researchers through the process of collaborative auto-ethnography, which "acknowledges the social and communal nature of academic meaning making" (Tuinamuana et al, 2019). In this way,

(w)e contribute unique and autobiographical perspective to a multi-voice text. This combination of voices can create rich, complex and layered texts as individual voices are interrogated within a community of practitioners (Tuinamuana et al., 2019). [9]

The third excerpt, though very much based on voices, cites a new topic, collaborative autoethnography, which we imagine may have at least something in common with the composing of the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017 [3]. However, post-2017 and especially in the last few months before The Voice Referendum Day, 14 October 2023, Australia's respect towards such collaboration seems to have receded markedly. At the time of finalising IIER 33(3) and this editorial, 8 October 2023, Australia's media and political pollsters are predicting a heavy defeat for The Voice's "Yes" case and thus a firm rejection for Uluru.

Uluru Statement from the Heart (2017) [3] (use web or PDF reader "zoom in" function to view)

So, does defeat for the The Voice and rejection for Uluru have specific implications for IIER as an academic research journal? No; probably at the most only minimal, though the same cannot be said concerning our Australian authors and sponsoring society members - for many there will be a long road to recovery. It's different for IIER because over the years we have sustained a good representation of topics relating to indigenous education, especially in international contexts [10]. IIER's international authors are unlikely to be deterred by political events within Australia. Or so we hope!

To illustrate, may we recommend to readers interested in multicultural and cross-cultural matters, some browsing in IIER 33, for example, Fatgehipon (2023) [11] and Dewantara et al. (2023) [12]? To illustrate further, we may see increased attention to researching links between indigenous education and the topics of identity (or self-identity or social identity), and efficacy (or self efficacy). Or, in other fields of social sciences research, even links between Uluru and Yes rejection, and the sub-fields of identity and efficacy.

(iii) Peer review in academic publishing: Challenges ... revisited!

Before submitting your article, you may need to make it anonymous if your chosen journal uses double-anonymous peer review (you can check the instructions for authors to see if this is the case). This is to ensure that reviewers won't be able to identify you, your co-authors, or the institution where the research was carried out, ensuring that the review process is as objective as possible. [14]

Appropriate? No, at least in the case of IIER and possibly many other journals, because being "subjective" may be a necessary tactic under the severe pressures arising from our current circumstances of a high submission rate, a low acceptance rate, acceptances capped at about 80 per year, and a chronic shortage of skilled, knowledgeable and empathetic volunteers for editorial duties. Economies in editorial and review staff time per submission are needed, and "remaining subjective" on the question of "significant issue" is one kind of economy. Subjective judgments, with little need to compose and record reasons for accepting or rejecting, may require much less time per article than objective judgments that incorporate good reasons, which may be time-consuming to compose and record. Can efforts to become 'as objective as possible' be appropriate if they contribute to an ever-lengthening queue of submissions?

The best directive for contemporary scholarly discourse? No, because in practice being "objective" may obstruct, or curb, or inhibit attainment of another purpose that is also highly valued, namely being "inclusive". At end 2020, IIER declared [15]:

... discussion of human resourcing for a journal that we believe is a fine contributor to Open with purpose: Taking action to build structural equity and inclusion will be held over until IIER 31 in 2021. A rather large number of authors have been promised publication of IIER 30(4) on 10 December 2020, and as usual the Editorial is the final task prior to publication, so for the time being, "Cut!". [15]

References

Please cite as: Atkinson, R. & McBeath, C. (2023). IIER Editorial 33(3): i) IIER's first one third of a century; (ii) The Voice and voices; (iii) Peer review ... Revisited! Issues in Educational Research, 33(3), ii-vii. http://www.iier.org.au/iier33/editorial33-3.html