Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education - Guidelines for Inclusive Reviewing

Our commitment is to cultivate mathematics education research that embraces diversity, ensures equity, and fosters inclusivity. As a cornerstone of our mission, we firmly believe that editors and reviewers should adopt a staunch anti-discriminatory approach, providing supportive and constructive guidance for authors to enhance their work while maintaining the rigorous academic standards of our published manuscripts.

We acknowledge that, often unconsciously, biases may seep into reviews, precipitating unfair judgments rooted in factors such as disability, socio-economic status, cultural heritage, gender identity, race, religious beliefs, sex, language proficiency, and nationality. Such biases can be directed towards authors or their research contexts. They not only affect the authors who experience them firsthand but also inadvertently curtail the breadth and quality of research produced within our field worldwide.

Therefore, we encourage an awareness of these potential biases, urging our editorial team and reviewers to exercise impartiality and fairness, thereby fostering an environment that is conducive to the growth of all researchers and the advancement of our collective body of knowledge.

Guidelines

These guidelines are addressed to the editorial team and reviewers to ensure a fair and inclusive reviewing process.

For the Editorial Team

1. Diversify the reviewer pool to encompass a broad spectrum of perspectives, including different geographical locations, intellectual traditions, underrepresented groups, and critical viewpoints.
2. As far as possible, reviewers for a paper should be from different regions of the world.
3. Where appropriate and possible, at least one reviewer should be from a similar context to the authors.
4. As far as possible, all papers should have at least one reviewer, with the appropriate expertise, from part of the world they are not from. Papers from the global North should have at least one reviewer from the global South and vice versa.
5. Make use of the advisory process for authors from underrepresented backgrounds. This can happen either before a paper is sent out for review, or if the decision is major revisions.

For Reviewers

1. Reviewers should actively embrace papers presented from diverse paradigms.
2. Reviews should be encouraging and respectful of diverse ideas, giving constructive feedback that acknowledges and builds on the positive aspects of the research to promote a supportive and balanced review process.
3. Reviewers should aim to promote citational justice, to stimulate authors to cite from a wide range of regions or traditions, including those often overlooked. 
4. While reviewers should suggest literature that would benefit the authors, they should consider the potential inaccessibility of some resources for authors outside well-funded institutional contexts. 
5. If the language clarity of papers can be improved, provide sensitive guidance, particularly considering authors for whom English is an additional language. All papers are edited for language once accepted but there may be a need for more clarity during the reviewing process.
6. Reviewers and editors should always seek to respect the voice of authors.
7. Reviewers and editors should ensure the use of inclusive and bias-free language in submitted manuscripts, adhering to the principles of APA bias-free language and APA inclusive language guidelines (this opens in a new tab).