Scaling early childhood development: What are scientific journals contributing?

• –Bet Caeyers

As the importance of early childhood development continues to gain recognition worldwide, the research community has been increasingly focused on understanding how programmes and interventions can be effectively scaled. In February 2024, we started to review and summarise this emerging literature through our monthly ‘What to read this month’ newsletter . Having recently taken stock of all 100 studies published in 2024 and discussed trends in research focus, research methods and geographic spread, in today’s brief blog post, we review the type and impact of journals featuring content on scaling early childhood development.

Of the 100 studies we reviewed in 2024, 72 were journal articles and 28 were working papers. Significantly, 82% (59) of the journal articles were open access, making research findings more readily available to practitioners and policymakers as well as the general public – an important development in academic publishing. Open access not only enhances the reach of early childhood development research but also facilitates greater collaboration across the different sectors involved in child development.

Publication quality and impact

There is an increasingly robust volume of research on scaling early childhood development – but just how much of it is positioned in journals that hold weight in academic discourse? The Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator ranks journals based on citation data, thus reflecting their influence and prestige within the scientific community. By this measure, just over 58% of the 72 articles we reviewed during the course of 2024 were published in ‘high-impact’ journals (with SJR score >=1). Just over 33% were published in journals where impact is considered relatively low (with SJR score < 1) and 6 studies (just over 8%) were published in journals that are either not listed on the Scimago Journal & Country Rank platform or for which the SJR indicator is unknown.

Table 1: Impact (according to the Scimago Journal & Country Rank)

Discipline distribution

Delving further into the analysis, Table 2 provides a breakdown of academic journal publications by discipline, as designated by the SJR platform. Science, health policy/public health and education/developmental and educational psychology each accounted for about 25–29% of the total number of publications reviewed on scaling early childhood development in 2024. Each discipline produced a decent number of new studies, indicating a strong alignment of early childhood development with established fields of inquiry.

In stark contrast, the representation from other critical disciplines was alarmingly low. The ‘development’ discipline accounted for only 6%, with 4 published papers, and economics and econometrics produced merely 4%, with 3 papers. The limited output from these fields raises concerns regarding the breadth of perspectives contributing to the discussions on scaling early childhood development.

Table 2: Publications by discipline

Finally, for those of you in need of inspiration regarding what journals to submit papers to (assuming that 2024 publication behaviour is indicative of future publication chances), see Table 3 for a complete list of journals that published research on scaling early childhood development this year, sorted by decreasing SJR indicator value.

To sum up, the findings from the 2024 review of studies on scaling early childhood development highlight a growing commitment within the research community to understanding effective strategies for intervention. With 82% of journal articles published as open access, there lies an opportunity for enhanced dissemination of knowledge among practitioners and policymakers, fostering collaborative efforts across sectors. However, the analysis also reveals a concerning gap in representation from critical disciplines such as development and economics, which could limit the holistic approach needed for scaling these vital early childhood development initiatives. Therefore, it is recommended that future research actively engages these underrepresented fields, creating interdisciplinary collaborations that can enrich the discourse and outcomes in early childhood development research. Moreover, scholars should consider targeting high-impact journals to increase the visibility and influence of their findings.

Table 3: Complete list of journals that published papers on scaling early childhood development in 2024