The community of educational researchers has become increasingly receptive to qualitative research in the last decade. While researchers now increasingly appreciate the importance of adopting qualitative methodological approaches to gain in-depth contextualized and often cultural understanding of key issues in educational research, for many researchers, presenting and publishing qualitative studies in major publication outlets continues to be a challenge. In this talk, I shall focus on experiences of dealing with the challenges in publishing qualitative studies in international journals. Drawing on his encounters with reviewers, I discuss how qualitative researchers can respond to these challenges posed by anonymous reviewers as well as other researchers. When a qualitative study is under review for publication, critical reviewers also likely identify many half-hearted measures undertaken by researchers striving to “show its workings” before recommending publication. Issues to do with methodological rigor and conceptual contributions are the most common ones. Therefore, it is necessary to reflect on the proclaimed strengths of qualitative research and take up challenges of addressing them when conducting research and delivering them when writing research papers for publication.
