Welcome to the Publishing Navigator

Every year I work with students, colleagues, and community scholars who have powerful ideas to contribute to the world, yet feel lost when it comes to academic publishing. The process can feel opaque, gatekept, and unnecessarily intimidating. Questions like “Where do I submit?”, “How do I know if a journal is a good fit?”, or “What do terms like impact factor, indexing or hybrid access even mean?” often become barriers to sharing work that deserves to be read. ​I created the Publishing Navigator to respond to that need.

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This tool grew out of my own experience moving across fields like adult education, participatory design, critical pedagogy, community research, and qualitative inquiry. As my work expanded, I needed a way to keep track of which journals aligned with each dimension of my scholarship. Over time, that personal spreadsheet evolved into a structured, student-friendly resource that demystifies academic publishing instead of replicating the confusion around it.

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The result is a practical, transparent, and accessible suite designed to help you find your way through the publishing world with clarity and confidence. Whether you are preparing your first manuscript or looking for a new journal home for an evolving project, the Publishing Navigator gives you a map, not to limit your possibilities, but to empower your choices.​

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Why It Matters

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Publishing is not only about getting your work “out there.” It is about finding the right intellectual and political home for ideas that come from lived experience, community engagement, critical inquiry, and emancipatory thinking. My hope is that the Publishing Navigator helps you move through the process with less confusion and more agency.​

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About the Scope of the Database

The Publishing Navigator is intentionally centered on the fields where I live, work, and publish. The database reflects the disciplinary landscape that shapes my scholarship: adult education, lifelong learning, popular education, critical pedagogy, participatory and community-based research, qualitative and mixed methods, comparative and international education, social justice studies, and related interdisciplinary conversations. Rather than trying to cover every possible journal across academia, this resource focuses on the areas where I actively produce knowledge and support others in doing the same. The result is a curated, field-specific map that highlights journals aligned with emancipatory research, equity-driven inquiry, and socially engaged scholarship. It is meant to help students, early-career scholars, and community researchers navigate publishing within (and adjacent to) these intellectual traditions with clarity and confidence.