Call for Manuscripts
The editors of the Middle Grades Review are pleased to announce the calls for 2025Issue 11(1):Open Call
Submission Date: March 15, 2025, Anticipated Publication Date: June, 2025
Middle Grades Review provides a provocative forum for debate within the field of middle grades education. Inviting a critical perspective, the Review is a peer-reviewed, multi-media venue for scholars and practitioners who wish to broaden the discourse of middle grades education by challenging conventional wisdom. In this general issue, the Review seeks pieces that explore the three key themes of democratic education, innovation, and social justice, in relation to middle grades education and early adolescence
Issue 11(2): Theme Issue: Reigniting the Middle Grades Movement: The Middle Level Education Research Special Interest Group Research Agenda
Submission Date: May 15, 2025, Anticipated Publication Date: September, 2025
The Middle Level Education Research Special Interest Group (MLER SIG) recently published its 2024 research agenda and a series of accompanying literature reviews (https://tinyurl.com/mpfarh9z). In response to this agenda, The Middle Grades Review welcomes empirical research reports, practitioner perspectives, and essays focused on ways in which middle grades educators, teacher educators, and policymakers can advocate for and reignite the middle grades movement to reimagine it for the future. What policies and practices are needed to address waning support for middle grades education as a distinct schooling experience for young adolescents? How are schools responding to the changing demographics and needs of young adolescents? How are teacher educators preparing middle level educators and administrators to advocate for schooling that is developmentally and culturally responsive for young adolescents? Authors should state in their cover letter that their manuscript is for this special theme issue..
Issue 11(3):Open Call
Submission Date: September 30, 2025, Anticipated Publication Date: December, 2025
Middle Grades Review provides a provocative forum for debate within the field of middle grades education. Inviting a critical perspective, the Review is a peer-reviewed, multi-media venue for scholars and practitioners who wish to broaden the discourse of middle grades education by challenging conventional wisdom. In this general issue, the Review seeks pieces that explore the three key themes of democratic education, innovation, and social justice, in relation to middle grades education and early adolescence
Types of Submission
1. Essays pose opinion, positing or discussing theory, and/or offering critique (under 3000 words, excluding references). Using an academic tone, essays take a stance on a specific topic, issue, conceptual framework or policy to bring a new perspective. Essays call for readers to act and think anew.
2. Research and Inquiry are reports of original research that represent any paradigm or methodology (under 7500 words, excluding references). Although not required, the Review prioritizes inquiry that involves middle grades students in at least one of the following ways: as participants, consultants or co-researchers.
3. Practitioner Perspectives are accounts of teacher and/or student practice (under 3000 words, excluding references). Practitioner perspectives discuss practices grounded in relevant literature and research. They describe implementation through personal experience, share observations and/or findings, and consider the implications of such practices.
4. Responses are brief responses to previous articles in any of the above three categories. Responses should stimulate debate in the middle grades community by extending the original manuscript’s content, or by presenting an opposing interpretation or perspective (under 2000 words, excluding references).
Because the Review is an online venue, authors are encouraged to include digital media that support the manuscript. These include links to other sites, embedded audio and/or visual, and visual representations of student work or other data. Submissions must not have not been previously published, nor should they be under review elsewhere. All manuscripts are written in APA format, 7th edition. Submissions first undergo editorial review. If found suitable, manuscripts are then peer-reviewed by university faculty, middle level education researchers, and middle grades teachers.