Journal profile · EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Journal of Childhood Studies
ISSN 2371-4107 · eISSN 2371-4115 · Canadian Association of Young Children · Canada
Journal of Childhood Studies: CAS Zone 4 · Education (2025 upgraded edition); fully open access; no APC; review about 42 weeks (community reports); 14 articles in 2025; indexed in ESCI.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Journal of Childhood Studies is published by Canadian Association of Young Children and is in Zone 4 of Education in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Early Childhood Education and Development, Children's Rights and Participation and Indigenous and Place-Based Education, together about 40.6% of its articles. Its main subfields are Education. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Content Guidelines Journal of Childhood Studies is a peer reviewed, open access digital journal that sustains and advances urgent conversations about the ethical, political, systemic, conceptual, material, and relational conditions that shape - and refigure - the complex and ever-changing terrain of childhood and childhood studies. Publishing contributions from researchers and practitioners, Journal of Childhood Studies advances the collective work of studying, responding to, and re-inventing neoliberal and neocolonial childhoods. Articles published in JCS resist the dominant Euro-Western logics that constrain prevailing conceptualizations of childhood and locate childhood within and against the powerful structures that govern everyday life (ex. citizenship, capitalism, oppression, climate crisis, ongoing settler colonialism). Importantly, JCS invites manuscripts that actively engage with refusal, speculation, invention, relations, and local knowledges - and other generative and transformative methods - to offer proposals and possibilities for sustaining and co-creating more just and equitable childhoods. Journal of Childhood Studies takes seriously its role as a scholarly journal in both international and Canadian childhood studies, and works to be accountable to (and interrupt) the power dynamics, discernment, and exclusions that often thread through taken-for-granted academic publishing pathways. Accordingly, JCS publishes diverse manuscripts, including pieces that purposefully stand outside the well-established theoretical, content, and methodological boundaries and conceptions of expertise (ex. career level, theorist vs. practitioner) that have long influenced conventional scholarly publishing. Acknowledging the lived knowledge that children hold and the histories of extractive research on children, JCS requires that all submissions that directly engage with children (ex. children as participants, research with educators in a classroom of children) clearly address the ethics and politics of integrating children’s perspectives and realities into scholarly research. In Canada, this is consistent with an emerging push to center young people’s role in research processes (please see the Canadian Journal of Public Health’s statement). JCS works at opening space for alternative, critical, or contradictory engagements with children and childhoods by encouraging submissions from practitioners, students, early career academics, and established scholars worldwid
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Early Childhood Education and DevelopmentSocial Sciences17.6%
- Children's Rights and ParticipationSocial Sciences16.3%
- Indigenous and Place-Based EducationSocial Sciences6.7%
- Posthumanist Ethics and ActivismSocial Sciences5%
- Child Development and Digital TechnologySocial Sciences4.7%
- Teacher Education and Leadership StudiesSocial Sciences4%
- Art Education and DevelopmentArts and Humanities4%
- Literacy, Media, and EducationArts and Humanities3.8%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Education Zone 4
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Education | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Education & Educational Research | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Education Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Education | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Education & Educational Research | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
Database indexing
ESCIDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
Web of SciencePublisher website
Other: Erudit, EBSCOhost, Canadian Business and Current Affairs (Proquest)
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- h-index
- 20OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 62OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 0.45OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 0%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 3.57%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 12LetPub ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 464 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 33 | 33 | 2 |
| 2025 | 14 | 14 | 9 |
| 2024 | 24 | 24 | 21 |
| 2023 | 26 | 26 | 75 |
| 2022 | 20 | 20 | 50 |
| 2021 | 27 | 27 | 154 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 42 weeksLetPub ·
- Peer review
- Double anonymous peer reviewLetPub
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessOpenAlex
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LetPub | No APC | No | — | |
| Publisher website | No APC | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare4 items from the author guidelines
- Abstract
- ≤ 100 words
- Keywords
- ≥ 4
- Manuscript length
- ≤ 8,000 words
- Reference style
- APA
Article types accepted4, with length limits
- articles from researchJournal of Childhood Studies contains three sections: (1) Articles from Research, (2) Ideas from Practice, and (3) Reviews of Books and Resources.Length not stated
- ideas from practiceJournal of Childhood Studies contains three sections: (1) Articles from Research, (2) Ideas from Practice, and (3) Reviews of Books and Resources.Length not stated
- reviewisher at a time. Content Guidelines for Reviews of Books and Resources Reviews of books and resources should be between 1500-3500 words. Submissions to "Reviews…main text ≤ 3,500 words
- reviews of books and resourcesJournal of Childhood Studies contains three sections: (1) Articles from Research, (2) Ideas from Practice, and (3) Reviews of Books and Resources.Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteData availability, License & copyright, Open access
- Data availability
Privacy statement: personal data used only for stated journal purposes. Model summary
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Copyright Notice
CC BY-NC 4.0 license; authors retain copyright and grant journal right of first publication. Model summary
Authors contributing to the Journal of Childhood Studies agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of th…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access
Diamond Open Access journal. Model summary
Journal of Childhood Studies is a Diamond Open Access journal, following best practices in open access publishing.
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Canadian Association of Young Children
- Country or region
- Canada
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2371-4107
- Electronic ISSN
- 2371-4115
- Latest issue on the website
- Volume 51, Issue 4 (2026)
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗OpenAlex
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Peer review process ↗LetPub
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Journal of Childhood Studies
What CAS zone is Journal of Childhood Studies in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Journal of Childhood Studies is in Zone 4 of Education, and in Zone 4 of the minor category Education & Educational Research. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 3 of Education. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
How long does peer review take at Journal of Childhood Studies?
Authors report an average review time of about 42 weeks. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of Journal of Childhood Studies?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Abstract: ≤ 100 words; Keywords: ≥ 4; Manuscript length: ≤ 8,000 words; Reference style: APA. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Which databases index Journal of Childhood Studies?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Journal of Childhood Studies is indexed in ESCI and DOAJ. The journal's website also lists Web of Science; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is Journal of Childhood Studies open access, and what is the APC?
Journal of Childhood Studies is a fully open-access journal. It charges no article processing charge.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .