Journal of Critical Inquiry into Curriculum and Instruction

Founded in 1997, the Journal of Critical Inquiry Into Curriculum and Instruction, a refereed journal, was committed to publishing educational scholarship and research of professionals in graduate study. The journal was distinguished by its requirement that the scholarship be the result of the first author's graduate research—according to [Page 505]Cabell's Directory, the first journal to do so. In addition, the third issue of each volume targeted wide representation of cultures and world regions, often including text in the author's first or national language (e.g., vol. 1). The journal published three issues per volume, a total of 15 issues between 1998 and 2004, when funding, international distribution, and relocation of the editor dictated discontinuation.

Initially sponsored and published by the Wichita State University, Kansas, by volume 2, Caddo Gap Press, San Francisco, published the journal. Later, Georgia Southern University also sponsored the journal.

Features of the publication included a conceptual frame “From the Desk of the Editor” introducing the focus of the journal, “Foreword” introducing the focus of the issue, and “Afterthought” making interpretations and suggesting implications of the content taken as a whole. The latter two were written by members of the editorial advisory board. “Current thinking on …”—also written by members of the board—highlighted state-of-the-art topics related to the issue's themes. Other aspects of the journal included the following:

• illustrations, photography, collage, student-generated art or artifacts, full-color art;
• cutting-edge methodologies extending educational research through aboriginal and native oral traditions (e.g., autobiographical work in vol. 2, issue 2 by Kuloin), arts-based analysis, found poetry (e.g., Cherice Montgomery's critical review in vol. 4, issue 2, of Barone's Touching Eternity); and
• foci on liberatory pedagogy and social justice action research.

The journal was also the first publication to feature G. Pritchy Smith's expanded knowledge bases for diversity in teacher education in volume 2, issue 3.

The synergy arrow on the cover of the journal translated into the journal's acronym, JCI~>CI, representing the belief of those working on the journal that their combined efforts with those of scholars in the field would far exceed the sum of individual efforts. The concept also appeared in the regular feature “On the Shoulders of Giants”—Bernard of Chartres' metaphor of dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, seeing more because of being lifted high.