Aims & Scope

The Journal of The Society for Human Ecologists (JSHE) is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the Society for Human Ecologists in Nigeria (SHEN). It appears twice a year and carries the print ISSN 3026-9083.

The journal exists to advance rigorous, evidence-based knowledge of human ecology: the relationships between individuals, families, households and communities on the one hand, and their physical, social, economic and cultural environments on the other. It is international in outlook and welcomes work from any country, while giving particular attention to scholarship that engages the realities of families, households and communities in Nigeria and the wider African continent. JSHE values research that is analytically serious and, at the same time, useful to the educators, extension workers, practitioners and policy makers who must act on it.

JSHE publishes empirical, theoretical and applied work across the fields that make up human ecology. Subjects of particular interest include home economics, home science and family and consumer sciences; food and nutrition science, dietetics, food processing and product development, food security and household food consumption; clothing, textiles, fashion design and apparel technology; family and child development, marriage and family relations, parenting, adolescence and ageing; housing, interior design, household equipment and the domestic environment; home and resource management, consumer studies and household economics; vocational, technical and home economics education, curriculum and pedagogy; entrepreneurship, enterprise development and skill acquisition in the human ecology disciplines; hospitality, catering and hotel management; health, wellbeing and health-related behaviour within the household; gender studies and the position of women in the family and the economy; environment, climate change adaptation, sustainable living and waste management at household level; and community development, agricultural extension and rural livelihoods.

The journal welcomes original research articles, theoretical and conceptual papers, critical review essays, methodological papers, case studies of programmes, households, institutions and policy interventions, research notes and short communications, and book reviews. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods designs are equally welcome, provided that the design, sampling, data collection and analysis are reported in enough detail for the findings to be independently assessed.

Manuscripts submitted to JSHE must be original, must not have been published elsewhere, and must not be under consideration by any other journal. All submissions are screened for plagiarism and subjected to double-blind peer review. Papers whose subject matter falls outside the fields listed above, and papers that offer description or opinion without an identifiable analytical contribution, may be declined without external review.

Articles are published in English and are freely accessible online at no charge to readers.