Call for Expertise

Social Studies and the Young Learner Editor Selection Committee 

The Editor of Social Studies and the Young Learner (SSYL) is a five-year position held by an NCSS member who is a leading NCSS elementary educator. The SSYL Editor plans issues, solicits articles, organizes the manuscript review process, and cooperates with NCSS publications staff to produce a high-quality journal. The principal NCSS staff support is provided by (1) a part-time NCSS editorial staff member, who is the Senior Editor responsible for the content editing, copy editing, and production editing of the journal, and (2) the NCSS Art Director, who is responsible for the design and layout of each issue.

Scott Waring is the current Editor of Social Studies and the Young Learner, and his term expires at the end of June 2021. The next Editor will start on July 1, 2021. The process for selecting the next Editor begins more than a year before that date.

Since 2005, the appointment of a new Editor has been made by a selection committee appointed and chaired by the NCSS President-Elect, who will be President in the year when the selection of a new Editor is made (and will continue to chair the selection committee as NCSS President). The selection process is coordinated by the NCSS staff editor of Social Studies and the Young Learner. The staff editor is not a member of the committee, but keeps records of rosters, score sheets, and correspondence. The staff editor also participates in conference calls and attends the interviews.

Composition of the Selection Committee 

The NCSS President-Elect appoints the selection committee, which should be reasonably representative of NCSS elementary members and their different levels (e.g., classroom teachers and university faculty). The number of members of this committee is determined by the NCSS President-Elect and has varied between five and seven members. Some characteristics of the three selection committees that met in 2005, 2010, and 2015 have been:

1. The majority of the members of the three selection committees have been either current or past Board members with a special interest in elementary education.
2. Between 40% (2 out of 5) and 56% (4 out of 7) of the members of the committee have been classroom teachers. The Board has viewed this representation as important for the purpose of selecting a new Editor who is teacher-friendly and who will align the journal with the NCSS objective of expanding the number of elementary teachers who are NCSS members.
3. At least one member of each selection committee has been a member of the SSYL Editorial Board. (The SSYL Editorial Board, which consists mainly of university professors, is a voluntary advisory body appointed by the SSYL Editor. It is not an official NCSS committee or community, and its members are listed in the journal’s masthead and at www.socialstudies.org/publications/ssyl.)
4. At least one member of the selection committee should be a member or leader of the NCSS Early Childhood Elementary Education Community.
5. When the list of applicants is complete, members of the selection committee are shown the list and asked to recuse themselves if they cannot be impartial (e.g., if they are colleagues of or close collaborators with a candidate).

Selection Process 

The Selection Committee reviews the list of candidates and selects a short list of two candidates. Each of the two finalists is assigned the task of putting together a special issue of Social Studies and the Young Learner, which involves selecting a theme, soliciting articles, and editing them. The Selection Committee reviews these special issues, interviews the candidates, and selects one of them.  This task has been considered useful both because it is a practical test of the ability of the candidates to perform the role of Editor, and because the special issues that are submitted as part of the application process, including those put together by the unsuccessful candidates, have all been good enough in the past to eventually be published as issues of SSYL.

Proposed Schedule

The selection process will include online meetings, with a final appointment made by April 1, 2021, to provide transition time before starting work on July 1, 2021.

May 31, 2020. Deadline for Editor-candidate applications with resumes. 

By July 31, 2020. Committee members read the applications and submit score sheets, which rank the applicants.

By August 31, 2020. The top two applicants are notified and asked to plan a future special issue of SSYL, for which they will solicit and edit manuscripts. Due date is February 1, 2021.

By February 1, 2021. The manuscripts submitted by the top two applicants are forwarded to all members of the committee, along with a scoring sheet. Members review and score the manuscripts.

By March 1, 2021. The committee conducts online interviews the final two candidates, reviews scores, and votes for the new Editor.

By April 1, 2021. The new Editor works with the outgoing editor to become familiar with the role, and the new editor becomes Editor on July 1, 2021.

Fall 2021. We anticipate that the manuscripts solicited by the new Editor as part of the application process will become one of the two Fall 2021 issues of SSYL, and that the manuscripts solicited by the runner-up could become one of the first two issues of SSYL in 2022. In the past both sets of manuscripts have been good enough to be used for future issues of SSYL.

Additional Information 

Please contact Steve Lapham, SSYL Senior Editor, at slapham@ncss.org.

If you are interested in applying to serve on the SSYL Editor Selection Committee, please submit a letter and resume, listing any publications and including any leadership and/or editing positions you have held, to slapham@ncss.org, by April 30, 2020. Please place “SSYL Editor Selection Committee” on the subject line.