On behalf of the editorial board, I would like to welcome you to our final issue of Irish Educational Studies for 2020. I hope you; your family; friends and colleagues remain safe and well at this challenging time.
The papers in this volume encompass a broad array of salient contemporary developments and issues in education, both in Ireland and internationally, including in geography education; post-primary teachers’ attitudes to the promotion of wellbeing; the voice of minority faith and worldview students in Catholic ethos schools; external provision of physical education; ETB schools, ideology and inclusion; assessment and feedback in tertiary education; and school self-evaluation.
We, the editors, thank especially the authors, and also the reviewers who worked with them to produce an interesting and informative issue.
I would like also to apprise our readers of recent developments for the journal. Firstly, as we enter our 40th year, a new editorial board is in place, with two editors remaining from the previous board, Dr Delma Byrne and Dr Tony Hall, and four new members appointed: Dr Audrey Bryan, Dublin City University; Dr Karl Kitching, University of Birmingham; Dr Déirdre Ní Chróinín, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick; and Dr. Catriona O'Toole, Maynooth University.
Everyone involved with the journal would like to acknowledge sincerely the tremendous work, commitment and support over many years of the previous General Editors, Professor Paul Conway and Dr Aisling Leavy, and outgoing editorial board members, Prof Emer Smyth, and Dr Maeve O’Brien; and we also thank sincerely Claire Carroll for all her excellent work in supporting the publication of IES.
We also gratefully acknowledge the support and efforts of all editors, reviewers and contributors to the journal over the almost 40 years since it was founded. Working with the IES Editorial Board, the ESAI President and Executive, and the Irish and international educational research and teaching community, the new editorial board looks forward to further enhancing the position and profile of IES as the principal scholarly publication for educational research in Ireland.
Finally, in response to COVID-19, the editorial board have recently issued a call for a special issue of the journal on the impact of the pandemic on education, in Ireland and internationally, and what can be learned to inform future-facing recommendations for education: COVID-19 and Education: Positioning the pandemic; facing the future: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/irish-educational-studies-covid-19-pandemic-future. While there has emerged within the last year a body of rapid research on COVID-19 and its implications for education, the aim of this special issue (scheduled for publication in mid-2021) is to take a longer view of the effects of the pandemic across key aspects of education in Ireland and internationally.