Horizons of Academic Education – No. 4 (2026) 

The Editorial Team of Horizons of Academic Education invites you to contribute to the fourth issue of the journal. Once again, the inspiration for this issue is the theme of the conference “Viva Didactica! – ”From communication to dialogue. Academic education in relation” – that is, thinking about academic education not as a technique for conveying content, but as a relationship in which meanings are co-created, attitudes are co-formed, and a learning community is co-built (or… broken down). 

Our starting point is Joanna Rutkowiak’s concept of “dialogue without an arbiter,” i.e., a relationship in which neither side claims the right to make the final decision, and meaning is created between the participants of the meeting. From this perspective, the question of dialogue becomes a question of the quality of the teaching relationship: does it lead to the co-creation of meaning, or rather, as Teresa Bauman (2001) wrote, does it reduce studying to the acquisition of ready-made meanings? 

In an interview conducted on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the University of Gdańsk — “Be a university for people! A conversation with Professor Joanna Rutkowiak about the future of education” — the author wishes universities to remain “of the people and for the people” rather than “above them” (Dudkowska-Kafar & Rutkowiak, 2019), and that relationships are not an addition to teaching, but a measure of the quality of an academic institution, and at the same time an area particularly susceptible to erosion in conditions of parameterization, competition, and commodification of bonds. 

We would like the volume 4 of the journal to be a place for reflection on relationships in teaching and teaching in relationships—in different types of universities, in different disciplines, in diverse institutional and cultural contexts. 

We ask together: 

• How can we protect or recover the space of relationality in which studying means creating meaning together? 

• How can we understand dialogue in higher education teaching—as a method, an attitude, a value, or perhaps as a relational structure inherent in the process of studying? 

• What are the conditions for dialogue “without an arbiter” in institutions based on assessment, selection, and formal responsibility? 

• How do teaching relationships influence whether studying becomes the creation of meaning or the acquisition of meaning? 

• How can we build intergenerational (between students and teachers) and intercultural dialogue in diverse academic environments? 

• Today, in the reality of productivity pressure and acceleration, can we still talk about a university “for people”? 

• What role can academic teaching centers and other units supporting the development of academic teachers play in creating a space for dialogue? 

• How do peer tutoring and other forms of collaborative learning transform relationships of responsibility, power, and knowledge co-creation?

We warmly welcome both texts affirming dialogue and relationality, as well as critical analyses highlighting the tensions, limitations, and paradoxes of dialogical practices in higher education. 

We wholeheartedly invite authors to submit materials for four thematic sections: 

Scientific articles and studies 

Original empirical and theoretical studies on relationality in academic teaching, dialogue (including dialogue without an arbitrator), studying as the creation and acquisition of meaning, peer tutoring in higher education, intercultural and intergenerational dialogue, and the institutional conditions for building a culture of dialogue in academic education—in various types of universities and areas of knowledge. 

(section editor: Jarosław Jendza, PhD, e-mail: jaroslaw.jendza@ug.edu.pl) 

Essays, narratives, and reports from practice 

Reflective essays and descriptions of experiences from teaching practice: attempts to build relational teaching, develop peer tutoring, create a space of shared responsibility for the learning process, and deal with the tensions and limitations of dialogue in specific institutional contexts. 

(section editor: Dorota Godlewska-Werner, PhD, e-mail: dorota.godlewska-werner@ug.edu.pl 

Visual inspirations and recommendations 

Scientific and educational posters, photo essays, comics, infographics, conceptual sketches, and short book and tool recommendations related to dialogue, relationality, tutoring, and the culture of co-creating meanings in higher education. 

(section editor: Wojciech Glac, PhD, email: wojciech.glac@ug.edu.pl) 

Events 

Reports from conferences, debates, workshops, projects, and initiatives that develop a culture of dialogue in local, national, and international universities. 

( section editor: Dr. Grzegorz Grzegorczyk, PhD,, e-mail: grzegorz.grzegorczyk@ug.edu.pl) 

We do believe that the quality of academic teaching is in the quality of relationships. It is relationships that determine whether studying becomes the creation of meaning or merely its reproduction. In a world dominated by indicators, acceleration, and the logic of efficiency, it is easy to forget that a university is not a place for producing results, but also a space for joint reflection on the world and responsibility for understanding it.  

If we want a university “of people and for people,” we need the courage to engage in dialogue—even when it does not yield immediate results and cannot be measured by simple measures of success. 

We invite you to contribute to an issue that treats relationality not as a rhetorical figure, but as research, ethical, and institutional task! 

Editorial Team 

 

Important dates 

Submission of the full text (in accordance with the editorial requirements of the journal): 

by August 31, 2026 

Texts should be sent directly to the email address of the editor of the relevant section. 

Information about the results of the review: 

by September 30, 2026. 

Return of the reviewed version (author’s correction): 

by October 20, 2026. 

Publication of the issue on the CDDiT UG website: 

by November 30, 2026. 

Starting with issue 3, the journal Horyzonty Edukacji Akademickiej (Horizons of Academic Education) is published in two languages (Polish and English). Therefore, please send full texts in two language versions: Polish and English. 

 

Review procedure: 

Articles submitted to the “Scientific articles and studies” section are subject to a double-blind review procedure. Other sections are subject to an editorial procedure in accordance with the journal’s guidlines.