History Education Research Journal is pleased to announce a CiteScore of 1.3 in 2025 following indexing in Scopus. Researchers publishing in the journal will be indexed automatically in Scopus, in addition to the list of other indexers.

Scopus, a leading abstract and citation database by Elsevier, serves as a key indicator of a journal’s quality and impact within the academic community. In 2025 127 new journals were added to the Scopus index, including History Education Research Journal (HERJ). This achievement marks a significant milestone for HERJ and the global community of scholars working at the intersection of history education and pedagogy. Scopus indexing ensures that research published in HERJ is now more visible, accessible and citable by academics, educators and institutions worldwide.

"HERJ’s inclusion in Scopus is a recognition of the journal’s contribution to the field of history education. It will help ensure that high-quality research in history teaching, learning and pedagogy reaches an even wider international audience."
Dr Caitríona Ní Cassaithe, Deputy Editor

Highly cited articles in the journal indicate research trends in the scholarly community and the 2026 CiteScoreTracker for HERJ demonstrates key research areas for the year ahead. Read our top cited articles here.

"It's great to see this site score - a reflection of the quality of what we publish and an indicator for our authors that they can be confident that they are making contributions to wider debates."
Prof Arthur Chapman, Editor-in-Chief

Scopus applies a rigorous selection process, evaluating journals on editorial quality, peer review standards, scholarly relevance and ethical publishing. HERJ’s inclusion reflects its reputation as a trusted, high-quality platform for advancing understanding in history education.

We'd like to thank our editorial board, led by Prof Arthur Chapman, for working to bring you high-quality articles from leading researchers worldwide. We also thank authors, reviewers and readers for their continued support.

It is our hope that more contributors throughout the world will take up this opportunity to publish their research in HERJ.

Highly cited articles

• Designing historical empathy learning experiences: a pedagogical tool for history teachers

  View article
  Research article
  Author: Sara Karn
  2024
  Abstract: This article explores the pedagogies that history teachers use to foster historical empathy, drawing from interviews with secondary school history teachers in Canada. The findings highlight that historical empathy is nurtured by teachers over time using a variety of different teaching approaches and activities, tasks and projects. The article begins by examining the pedagogical choices that teachers make when designing and implementing historical empathy lessons, categorised as implicit, thematic, student-centred, scaffolded and comparative approaches. Next, consideration is given to the types of learning experiences that teachers use to develop historical empathy, and some of the opportunities and challenges involved. These learning experiences include role plays and simulations, first- and third-person writing tasks, experiential learning and virtual reality, and collaborative and project-based learning. The perspectives shared by the teachers in this study contributed towards the development of a research-informed pedagogical tool to guide the future design of learning experiences that foster historical empathy, which may be applied by teachers across educational jurisdictions, and adapted for various grade levels.

  
  

• Unthinking historical thinking: lessons from the Arctic

  View article
  Research article
  Author: Silke Reeploeg
  2023
  Abstract: In a 2017 book chapter on the continuing erasure of Indigenous epistemes in academia, the Sami scholar Rauna Kuokkanen posed an important question: is it acceptable for a site of learning to be so ignorant? Foregrounding Indigenous scholarship from the Arctic, this article examines the potential of history education to address this question. Based on previous research on Arctic gender history and the coloniality of knowledge, I suggest a paradigm shift, in view of the new UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development framework (May 2021). The research investigates the challenges and opportunities that history education offers in terms of epistemic and cognitive justice within the context of Arctic memory cultures. The article concludes that much can be learned from (not about) Indigenous scholarship, which has long demonstrated a range of critical and sustainable methodologies that offer opportunities to seek epistemic justice and the restitution of cultural memory.

  
  

• The role of school history in helping young people to navigate their future at a time of climate crisis

  View article
  Review article
  Authors: Amanda Power and Alison Kitson
  2024
  Abstract: The need to prepare school students to respond to the climate and environmental crises is rapidly rising up educational agendas nationally and internationally, but the role of the humanities, and particularly history, is often marginalised. In England, the main context of this article, the climate crisis does not appear on any official history curriculum documentation, reinforcing a separation of nature and culture. This is not surprising, given that the climate crisis in general has been engaged with so little in the humanities, but teaching climate change as a ‘science’ problem rather than a societal one risks exacerbating students’ anxieties and sense of powerlessness. By contrast, humanities subjects, including history, can furnish students with the knowledge and skills to respond in more constructive and critical ways to a crisis that they will experience more acutely than us. We acknowledge and welcome the work that is already underway in school history, but we also call for a greater urgency to reform history curricula and provide better support for teachers. Meanwhile, mindful of how painfully slow these processes can be, we also call on history educators and academics to take matters into their own hands and make changes within existing curriculum structures where possible.

  
  

• Navigating the complexities of learning history in English in two South African schools

  View article
  Research article
  Authors: Pfuurai Chimbunde, Thapelo Kagiso Lekhethe and Boitumelo Benjamin Moreeng
  2024
  Abstract: Despite extensive research into the intersection between English aptitude and academic achievement, the challenges that learners for whom English is not their first language face when taught history in English are still underexplored. Underpinned by Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, this study investigates the linguistic challenges that South African learners face when taught history using the English language, and then explores how learners would want to be taught. Using semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, this phenomenological study adopting a qualitative approach generated data from 12 purposively sampled participants drawn from two rural schools. Themed findings explicate that learners had poor command of the English language used for teaching and learning, and hence misunderstood command words, lacked confidence, mispronounced words and did not read for comprehension. The learners proposed that history teachers must employ scaffolding and translanguaging approaches to enhance mastery of history concepts. These findings suggest the need for schools through the Department of Education in South Africa, and in any other countries in similar contexts, to embrace scaffolding and translanguaging as pedagogical approaches in teaching history for understanding, rather than for uniformity. These insights could inform policies and practice for the language of teaching for the history curriculum in countries that are multilingual societies.

  
  

• Rethinking assessment: the potential of ‘innovative’ or ‘creative’ assessments in history

  View article
  Research article
  Author: Sarah Holland
  2024
  Abstract: Assessment forms an integral part of history education at all levels, throughout school, college and university. The process of assessing and being assessed occupies much time and attention of staff and students alike. Research demonstrates that diversifying assessment methods has the potential to enhance student engagement. However, assessment remains relatively traditional compared to innovation in other areas of history curricula. Opportunities to rethink assessment can feel limited, constrained by sector or institutional frameworks. This article uses practitioner research to advocate rethinking assessment in history, and asks how ‘creative’ or ‘innovative’ approaches to assessment can make this a more effective and meaningful process within a subject-specific context. The focus is history assessment in higher education in the UK, but the context, discussion and recommendations have wider reach, extending beyond disciplinary, educational sector and geographical boundaries. It demonstrates the potential, practicalities and possible pitfalls of alternative forms of assessment, using a case study of creative approaches to assessing history.

  
  

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