Journals and Higher Education: An Introduction

Philip G. Altbach

Journals and the field of higher education

This inventory of journals in the field of higher education includes 191 publications, up from 169 in our 2004 compilation and from 122 in our inaugural iteration in 2000. Publications from all continents, over 30 countries, and in 14 languages are included.

In the past, the small number of international journals had a wide purview, publishing material on many topics. Now, the trend is toward increasingly specialized journals focusing on specific themes.

Higher education has become a huge and expanding enterprise worldwide. Academic systems and institutions have inevitably become professionalized—managed increasingly by professionals rather than scholars who take time off from their academic pursuits to provide leadership. In addition, new layers of full-time administrators have been hired to manage expanding institutions—in areas such as financial management, legal affairs, student development, facilities planning, and others. Many of these new professionals are interested in learning about the latest trends in higher education and seek ideas to improve the management and leadership of universities.

The 2006 journals list

Our goal in compiling this inventory has been to provide as complete a listing as possible of journals in the field of higher education. Our criteria for including journals is fairly broad—focusing on journals that exclusively or almost exclusively publish on issues in postsecondary education in any language. This compilation is probably most comprehensive in listing internationally circulated research-based journals in English and several other internationally used languages. These publications are readily available on databases and in libraries.

While most of the publications listed here have websites, and a small number are available electronically, there are just a few on-line only journals. No doubt the number of electronic journals will increase in the coming period, but for the present time, higher education, unlike some fields in the sciences, remains fairly traditional in terms of its publication practices.

We would like to thank several colleagues who were particularly helpful to us in this work. Hong Zhu and Dunrong Bie provided assistance concerning China, Yoshikazu Ogawa and Toru Umakoshi gave input on the Japanese listings, and Damtew Teferra supplied information on the African journals. Alma Maldonado-Maldonado assisted with Mexican and Latin American listings, while Anna Smolentseva and Natia Janashia did the same for our Russian entries.