The Field Educator is seven years old! Once a pipedream shared between field educators, it is now a peer-reviewed academic journal where social work field scholars come together to share ideas, research, and concerns – across the globe. And with the growth the journal has experienced, this is an opportunity to make a seven year “pitch.”
Over the period of these seven years, the journal’s list of subscribers has more than tripled. In its first year, the Field Educator had approximately 8,447 users, and in the past year, more than 30,000 users visited the journal! While there are readers across the globe, this past year had a significant presence in 10 countries: United States, Canada, UK, Philippines, India, Australia, South Africa, Hong Kong, Kenya, and New Zealand. Hard to imagine that an informal conversation become an international forum for digging into challenges and sharing triumphs in field education all over the world. There is no other place to do this – at least not in this way.
In addition to our global readership, the Field Educator has enjoyed global submissions of scholarly work. From the United States, to Hong Kong, Ireland, England, and Australia (just to name a few) more commonalities than differences are evident. Across the world, with some cultural variations, field educators are talking about the same things: student preparedness, quality of field instruction, innovative approaches to increasing field placements, and gatekeeping (Gushwa & Harriman, 2018). It has been such an honor to be a clearinghouse of sorts for ideas, research, and creative models for strengthening the signature pedagogy.
And with all this growth, we want to enlist more of you – field scholars – to join our editorial team. We are managing a growing number of scholarly submissions, and therefore need those who would be comfortable conducting peer reviews. If you have a passion for reviewing manuscripts, please write to [email protected] indicating your interests and attach a CV.
We also encourage our readers to subscribe to this free online journal – and encourage your friends to do so, too! Please click here to subscribe and get email alerts when new issues are released.
Let’s keep it growing! Subscribe, review, and read! Thanks to all of you who have made the journal what it is at seven years old!
For more analysis on consistent themes present in the Field Educator over the years, please reference:
Gushwa, M., & Harriman, K. (2018). Paddling against the tide: Contemporary challenges in field education. Clinical Social Work Journal, 47(1), 17–22. doi:10.1007/s10615-018-0668-3