The Journal of Integrated Civic and Citizenship Education, published by the Bentala Institute, is committed to upholding the highest standards of ethical behavior in the publication of academic research. We adhere to the principles outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and expect all authors, reviewers, and editors to comply with these guidelines.

The journal operates under a double-blind review process, where the identities of both authors and reviewers are concealed to ensure unbiased and objective evaluations of submitted manuscripts. This process is designed to promote fairness, integrity, and transparency in the peer-review process.

Author Responsibilities:

• Authors must ensure that their work is original and does not infringe on the intellectual property rights of others.
• Authors must not engage in plagiarism, falsification, or fabrication of data.
• Authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest and disclose all sources of funding for their research.
• Authors must comply with all applicable laws and regulations regarding the use of human subjects, animals, and other materials in their research.

Reviewer Responsibilities:

• Reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts and not disclose any information to third parties.
• Reviewers must provide objective, unbiased, and respectful feedback to authors.
• Reviewers must declare any potential conflicts of interest and decline to review manuscripts if a conflict exists.

Editor Responsibilities:

• Editors must maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts and not disclose any information to third parties.
• Editors must ensure that all manuscripts are reviewed fairly and objectively, and that the review process is free from bias and conflict of interest.
• Editors must make decisions regarding manuscript acceptance or rejection based on the quality and relevance of the research, and not on personal or commercial interests.

All articles published in the Journal of Integrated Civic and Citizenship Education are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY), which allows for the free use, sharing, and adaptation of articles, as long as the original author and source are credited.

By submitting a manuscript to the Journal of Integrated Civic and Citizenship Education, authors agree to abide by these ethics guidelines and to cooperate with any investigations into alleged misconduct.