Description

Kardan Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (KJSSH)), is an academic, peer-reviewed journal publishing original and impactful articles in the fields of social sciences, and humanities. Published bi-annually (June and December) and open access by the Department of Research and Development (DRD) on behalf of Kardan University.

Kardan Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (KJSSH) is an open access, peer-reviewed and refereed journal published by Kardan University, Kabul, Afghanistan. The main objective of KJSSH is to provide an intellectual platform for the researchers from the national and the international horizons to present their intellectual depth before the world. KJSSH aims to promote interdisciplinary studies in humanities and social science and become the leading journal in humanities and social science in the world.

The journal publishes research papers in the fields of humanities and social science such as anthropology, corporate governance, criminology, cross-cultural studies, demography, development studies, economics, education, ethics, geography, history, industrial relations, information science, international relations, law, international relations, philosophy, political science, population studies, psychology, public administration, sociology, social welfare, religious studies, women studies and so on.

KJSSH publishes original papers, review papers, conceptual framework, analytical and simulation models, case studies, empirical research, technical notes, and book reviews. Special Issues devoted to important topics in humanities and social science will occasionally be published.

All research articles published in the Kardan Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities are fully open access: immediately freely available to read, download and share. Articles are published under the terms of a Creative Commons license which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

KJSSH is published by DRD on behalf of Kardan University. KJSSH is published under an open access arrangement. All charges for publishing open access articles in KJSSH are sponsored by the Kardan University, whose address is at Parwane Du Square, Kabul Afghanistan. There is no charge to the author.

  • Chief Editor

    • Dr. Ahmad Khalid Hatam
      k.hatam@kardan.edu.af
      Kardan University - Kabul, Afghanistan

  • Managing Editor

    • Dr. Tufail Ahmad Peerzada
      t.ahmad@kardan.edu.af
      Kardan University - Kabul, Afghanistan

  • Advisory Editorial Board

    • Dr. Nafay Choudary
      nc585@cam.ac.uk
      British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (CSLS), University of Oxford - UK - United Kingdom
    • Dr. Nabi Fouly
      n1fouly@gmail.com
      HoD, Department of Philosophy, International Islamic University - Islamabad, Pakistan
    • Dr. Mohammad Mushtaq Ahmad
      mushtaqahmad@iiu.edu.pk
      HoD, Faculty of Law, International Islamic University - Islamabad, Pakistan
    • Dr. Susic Sejo
      sejo@iiu.edu.pk
      Asst. Prof, Faculty of Social Sciences, International Islamic University - Islamabad, Pakistan
    • Dr. Tushinder Preet Kaur
      tushinder.16446@lpu.com.in
      Associate. Prof, Faculty of Business and Arts, Lovely Professional University - India
    • Dr. Tufail Ahmad Peerzada
      t.ahmad@kardan.edu.af
      Asst. Prof, Faculty of Social Sciences, Kardan University - Kabul, Afghanistan
    • Dr. Iqbal Sonaullah
      i.sonaullah@kardan.edu.af
      Asst. Prof, Faculty of Social Sciences, Kardan University - Kabul, Afghanistan
    • Dr. Lyla Abdul Latif
      khanla2@cardiff.ac.uk
      Research Fellow, Cardiff University - United Kingdom
    • Dr. Showkat Ahmad Wani
      showkatamu001@gmail.com
      Assistant professor, Alliance University (School of Law) - India
    • Dr. Mubashir Gull
      mgull@gitam.edu
      Assistant professor, Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management, Visakhapatnam - India

Before you start

Please contact the Editor or the Journal Editorial Office with any questions about the status of your manuscript (pre-decision or post-acceptance). These details can be found in the Editorial Team section.

Author responsibilities

Our goal is to provide you with a professional and courteous experience at each stage of the review and publication process. There are also some responsibilities that sit with you as the author. Our expectation is that you will:

  • By submitting a manuscript to KJSSH, author(s) warrant that the manuscript is an original work and that it has neither been published previously nor is currently being considered for publication elsewhere.
  • Authors should acknowledge all sources of data used in the research and cite publications that have been influential in the research work.
  • Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
  • Authors should promptly notify the editors for corrections when authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their published works.
  • Authors should ensure that any studies involving human or animal subjects conform to national, local and institutional laws and requirements.
  • Respond swiftly to any queries during the publication process.
  • Be accountable for all aspects of your work.
  • Treat communications between you and the journal editor as confidential until an editorial decision has been made.
  • Read about our research ethics for authorship. These state that you must:
    • Include anyone who has made a substantial and meaningful contribution to the submission (anyone else involved in the paper should be listed in the acknowledgements).
    • Excludeanyone who hasn’t contributed to the paper, or who has chosen not to be associated with the research.
  • If your article involves human participants, you must ensure you have considered whether or not you require ethical approval for your research, and include this information as part of your submission. Find out more about informed consent.

Research and publishing ethics

Our editors and employees work hard to ensure the content we publish is ethically sound. To help us achieve that goal, we closely follow the advice laid out in the guidelines and flowcharts on the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) website.

We have also developed our research and publishing ethics guidelines. If you haven’t already read these, we urge you to do so – they will help you avoid the most common publishing ethics issues.

A few key points:

  • Any manuscript you submit to this journal should be original. Exceptions to this rule are pre-print and conference papers. If any substantial element of your paper has been previously published, you need to declare this to the journal editor upon submission.
  • Please note, that the journal editor may use Turnitin to check on the originality of submissions received.
  • Your work should not have been submitted elsewhere and should not be under consideration by any other publication.
  • If you have a conflict of interest, you must declare it upon submission; this allows the editor to decide how they would like to proceed.
  • By submitting your work to KJSSH, you are guaranteeing that the work is not in infringement of any existing copyright.

Third party copyright permissions

Prior to article submission, you need to ensure you’ve applied for, and received, written permission to use any material in your manuscript that has been created by a third party. Please note, we are unable to publish any article that still has permissions pending. The rights we require are:

  • Non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material in the article or book chapter.
  • Print and electronic rights.
  • Worldwide English-language rights.
  • To use the material for the life of the work. That means there should be no time restrictions on its re-use e.g. a one-year licence.

Please take a few moments to read our guide to publishing permissions  to ensure you have met all the requirements, so that we can process your submission without delay.

Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines

We are a signatory of the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines, a framework that supports the reproducibility of research through the adoption of transparent research practices. That means we encourage you to:

  • Cite and fully reference all data, program code, and other methods in your article.
  • Include persistent identifiers, such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), in references for datasets and program codes. Persistent identifiers ensure future access to unique published digital objects, such as a piece of text or datasets.
  • Follow appropriate international and national procedures with respect to data protection, rights to privacy and other ethical considerations, whenever you cite data.

Kardan Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (KJSSH) is dedicated and committed to following best practices on ethical matters, errors and restrictions. It is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behaviours for all parties involved: authors, editors, and reviewers.

Our ethic statements are largely based on the guidelines and standards developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All authors, editors and reviewers should adhere to the standards set out below.

Responsibilities of Authors

  • By submitting a manuscript to KJSSH, author(s) warrant that the manuscript is an original work and that it has neither been published previously nor is currently being considered for publication elsewhere.
  • Authors should acknowledge all sources of data used in the research and cite publications that have been influential in the research work.
  • Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the submitted manuscript. The corresponding author should ensure that all authors have agreed to its submission for publication.
  • Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
  • Authors should promptly notify the editors for corrections when authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their published works.
  • Authors should ensure that any studies involving human or animal subjects conform to national, local and institutional laws and requirements.

Responsibilities of Chief Editor

  • Editors have ultimate responsibility for deciding if a manuscript submitted to Kardan Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (KJSSH) should be published. Chief Editors' decisions to accept or reject a manuscript should be based on the peer-review result and editorial boards' reviews and articles' importance.
  • Editors should evaluate each manuscript solely on its intellectual contents without regard to the race, color, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the author(s).
  • Editors must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers and the publisher.
  • Editors will not use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research without written consent of the author(s).

Responsibilities of Reviewers

  • Reviewers should conduct the review objectively and express their views clearly with supporting arguments. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.
  • Reviewers must ensure that the authors have acknowledged all the sources of data used in the research. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.
  • Reviewers must not disclose any information regarding submitted manuscript. All manuscripts received for review are to be treated as privileged information.
  • Reviewers should notify the editors when they could not review the manuscript within stipulated time or have a potential conflict interests in performing the review. They should also not accept manuscript review assignments for which they feel unqualified.

Respecting intellectual property rights is a foundational principle of the KJSSH’s Codes of Ethics. Plagiarism, in which one misrepresents ideas, words, computer codes or other creative expression as one's own, is a clear violation of such ethical principles. Plagiarism can also represent a violation of copyright law, punishable by statute. Plagiarism manifests itself in a variety of forms, including:

  • Verbatim copying, near-verbatim copying, or purposely paraphrasing portions of another author's paper
  • Copying elements of another author's paper, such as equations or illustrations that are not common knowledge, or copying or purposely paraphrasing sentences without citing the source
  • Verbatim copying of portions of another author's paper with citing but not clearly differentiating what text has been copied (e.g., not applying quotation marks correctly) and/or not citing the source correctly.

Self-plagiarism is a related issue. In this document we define self-plagiarism as the verbatim or near-verbatim reuse of significant portions of one's own copyrighted work without citing the original source. Note that self-plagiarism does not apply to publications based on the author's own previously copyrighted work (e.g., appearing in a conference proceedings) where an explicit reference is made to the prior publication. Such reuse does not require quotation marks to delineate the reused text but does require that the source be cited.

Plagiarism can be said to have clearly occurred when large chunks of text have been cut-and-pasted. Such manuscripts would not be considered for publication in KJSSH. Plagiarism in any form, at any level, is unacceptable and is considered a serious breach of professional conduct, with potentially severe ethical and legal consequences. All authors are deemed to be individually and collectively responsible for the content of papers published by KJSSH.

Manuscript requirements

Before you submit your manuscript, it’s important you read and follow the guidelines below. You will also find some useful tips in our structure your journal submission how-to guide.

Manuscripts and all editorial correspondence should be submitted at: KJSSH@kardan.edu.af/drd@kardan.edu.af addressing the ‘Chief Editor’, Kardan Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Format

Article files should be provided in Microsoft Word format

While you are welcome to submit a PDF of the document alongside the Word file, PDFs alone are not acceptable. LaTeX files can also be used but only if an accompanying PDF document is provided. Acceptable figure file types are listed further below.

Article length / word count

Articles should be up to a maximum of 7000-9000 words in length. This includes all text, for example, the structured abstract, references, all text in tables, and figures and appendices.

Article title

A concisely worded title should be provided.

Declaration of conflicting interests

KJSSH encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines.

Publication ethics
  • KJSSH is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page.
  • Articles should be written in MS Word, Times New Roman font, and should be submitted only in soft copy.Manuscripts should normally not exceed 7,000-9000 words and should be submitted in duplicate with the cover page bearing only the title of the article, author/s’ names, designations, official addresses, phone/fax numbers, and email addresses. Author/s’ name should not appear on any other page. Commentaries on contemporary issues should not exceed 3000 words.
  • All articles must be accompanied by an abstract of 150–200 words and 4–6 keywords.
  • The JEL classification code for the articles should be included after Keywords.
  • Use British spellings in all cases rather than American spellings (hence, ‘programme’ not ‘program’, ‘labour’ not ‘labor’, and ‘centre’ and not ‘center’).
  • Use ‘z’ spellings instead of ‘s’ spellings. This means that words ending with ‘-ise’, ‘isation’, etc., will be spelt with ‘z’ (e.g., ‘recognize’, ‘organize’, ‘civilize’).
  • Use single quotes throughout. Double quotes only to be used within single quotes. Spellings of words in quotations should not be changed.
  • Quotations of 45 words or more should be separated from the text and indented with one space with a line space above and below.
  • Notes should be numbered serially and presented at the end of the article. Notes must contain more than a mere reference.
  • Use ‘twentieth century’, ‘1980s’. Spell out numbers from one to nine, 10 and above to remain in figures. However, for exact measurements, use only figures (3 km, 9 per cent, not %). Use thousands and millions, not lakhs and crores.
  • Use of italics and diacriticals should be minimised, but used consistently.
  • Tables and figures to be indicated by numbers separately (see Table 1), not by placement (see Table below). Present each table and figure on a separate sheet of paper, gathering them together at the end of the article. All Figures and Tables should be cited in the text. Sources for figures and tables should be mentioned irrespective of whether or not they require permissions.
  • A consolidated listing of all books, articles, essays, theses and documents referred to (including any referred to in the tables, graphs and maps) should be provided at the end of the article. Guidelines specified in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th edition) must be followed.

Author details

The names of all contributing authors should be added to the Scholar-Online submission; please list them in the order in which you’d like them to be published. Each contributing author will need their own Scholar-Oneline author account, from which we will extract the following details:

  • Author email address (institutional preferred).
  • Author name. We will reproduce it exactly, so any middle names and/or initials they want featured must be included.
  • Author affiliation. This should be where they were based when the research for the paper was conducted.

In multi-authored papers, it’s important that ALL authors that have made a significant contribution to the paper are listed. Those who have provided support but have not contributed to the research should be featured in an acknowledgements section. You should never include people who have not contributed to the paper or who don’t want to be associated with the research.

Biographies and acknowledgements

If you want to include these items, save them in a separate Microsoft Word document and upload the file with your submission. Where they are included, a brief professional biography of not more than 100 words should be supplied for each named author.

Research funding

Your article must reference all sources of external research funding in the acknowledgements section. You should describe the role of the funder or financial sponsor in the entire research process, from study design to submission.

Structured abstract

All submissions must include a structured abstract, following the format outlined below.

These four dimensions accompanying explanations must always be included:

  • Purpose
  • Design/methodology/approach
  • Findings
  • Originality

The following three sub-headings are optional and can be included, if applicable: like research limitations/implications, practical implications, social implications, and originality.

The maximum length of your abstract should be 250-300 words in total, including keywords and article classification.

Keywords

Your submission should include up to 6 appropriate and short keywords that capture the principal topics of the paper. Please note, while we will always try to use the keywords you’ve suggested, the in-house editorial team may replace some of them with matching terms to ensure consistency across publications and improve your article’s visibility.

Article classification

During the submission process, you will be asked to select a type for your paper; the options are listed below. If you don’t see an exact match, please choose the best fit:

You will also be asked to select a category for your paper. The options for this are listed below. If you don’t see an exact match, please choose the best fit:

  • The construction or testing of a model or framework
  • Action research
  • Testing of data, market research or surveys
  • Empirical, scientific or clinical research
  • Papers with a practical focus

Viewpoint. Covers any paper where content is dependent on the author's opinion and interpretation. This includes journalistic and magazine-style pieces.
Technical paper. Describes and evaluates technical products, processes or services.
Conceptual paper. Focuses on developing hypotheses and is usually discursive. Covers philosophical discussions and comparative studies of other authors’ work and thinking.
Case study. Describes actual interventions or experiences within organizations. It can be subjective and doesn’t generally report on research. Also covers a description of a legal case or a hypothetical case study used as a teaching exercise.
Literature review. This category should only be used if the main purpose of the paper is to annotate and/or critique the literature in a particular field. It could be a selective bibliography providing advice on information sources, or the paper may aim to cover the main contributors to the development of a topic and explore their different views.
General review. Provides an overview or historical examination of some concept, technique or phenomenon. Papers are likely to be more descriptive or instructional (‘how to’ papers) than discursive.

Headings

Headings must be concise, with a clear indication of the required hierarchy.
The preferred format is for first level headings to be in bold, and subsequent sub-headings to be in medium italics.

Notes/endnotes

Notes or endnotes should only be used if absolutely necessary. They should be identified in the text by consecutive numbers enclosed in square brackets. These numbers should then be listed, and explained, at the end of the article.

Figures

All figures (charts, diagrams, line drawings, webpages/screenshots, and photographic images) should be submitted electronically. Both colour and black and white files are accepted.

There are a few other important points to note:

  • All figures should be supplied at the highest resolution/quality possible with numbers and text clearly legible.
  • Acceptable formats are .ai, .eps, .jpeg, .bmp, and .tif.
  • Electronic figures created in other applications should be supplied in their original formats and should also be either copied and pasted into a blank MS Word document, or submitted as a PDF file.
  • All figures should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and have clear captions.
  • All photographs should be numbered as Plate 1, 2, 3, etc. and have clear captions.

Tables

Tables should be typed and submitted in a separate file to the main body of the article. The position of each table should be clearly labelled in the main body of the article with corresponding labels clearly shown in the table file. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Roman numerals (e.g. I, II, etc.).

Give each table a brief title. Ensure that any superscripts or asterisks are shown next to the relevant items and have explanations displayed as footnotes to the table, figure or plate.

References

All references in your manuscript must be formatted using one of the recognized Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition styles. At the end of your paper, please supply a reference list in alphabetical order using the style guidelines below. Where a DOI is available, this should be included at the end of the reference.

For Books Two or three authors

Footnote: Stephen Bayley and Terence Conran, Design: Intelligence Made Visible (London: Conran Octopus, 2007), 43.
Bibliography: Bayley, Stephen, and Terence Conran. Design: Intelligence Made Visible. London: Conran Octopus, 2007.

For Books Four or more authors

Footnote: Jeri A. Sechzer et al., Women and Mental Health (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1996), 242.
Bibliography: Sechzer, Jeri A., Florence L. Denmark, Anne Griffin, and Susanne J. Beck. Women and Mental Health. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Chapter of a single-author book

Footnote: Joseph J. LaViola Jr., "Characterizing Displays by Level of Fidelity," in 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2017), 63.
Bibliography: Sanders, Elizabeth B. N. "Complete Cases from Practice." In Convivial Toolbox: Generative Research for the Front End of Design, 113-145. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers, 2012.

Chapter of an edited book

Footnote: Georges Perec, "The Revolution of Everyday Life," in Boredom, ed. Tom McDonough (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017), 26.
Bibliography: Jucker, Lodovico. "Ten Key Steps Towards Sustainable Fashion." In The Beautiful and the Good: Reasons for Sustainable Fashion, edited by Marco Ricchetti and Maria Luisa Frisa, 119-127. Venice: Marsilio Editori, 2012.

For journals

Footnote: James Elkins and Richard Gregor, "The Homonymic Curtain," Umeni / Art 63, no. 3 (May 2015): 15.

Bibliography: Elkins, James, and Richard Gregor. "The Homonymic Curtain." Umeni / Art 63, no. 3 (May 2015): 10-17.

For journals Four or more authors

Footnote: Luca Bertolaccini et al., "An Overview of the Use of Artificial Neural Networks in Lung Cancer Research," Journal of Thoracic Disease 9, no. 4 (2017): 929.

Bibliography: Bertolaccini, Luca, Piergiorgio Solli, Alessandro Pardolesi, and Antonello Pasini. "An Overview of the Use of Artificial Neural Networks in Lung Cancer Research." Journal of Thoracic Disease 9, no. 4 (2017): 924-931.

For working papers

Footnote: Roland G. Fryer, Jr., and Steven D. Levitt, 2005. "The Black-white Test Score Gap through the Third Grade." NBER Working Paper 1049, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA

Bibliography: Fryer, Rolland G., Jr., and Steven D. Levitt. 2005. "The Black-white Test Score Gap through the Third Grade." NBER Working Paper 1049, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA

Work by one author

Footnote: Author's First Name Last Name, "Title of Article: Subtitle," Title of Journal Volume, Issue (Date of Publication): page(s), DOI or URL or Database Name.

Bibliography: Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article: Subtitle." Title of Journal Volume, Issue (Date of Publication): page range. DOI or URL or Database Name.

Work by four or more authors

Footnote: First Author's First Name Last Name et al., "Title of Article: Subtitle," Title of Journal Volume, Issue (Date of Publication): page(s), DOI or URL or Database Name.

Bibliography: First Author's Last Name, First Author's First Name, Second Author's First Name Last Name, Third Author's First Name Last Name, and Fourth Author's First Name Last Name. "Title of the work: Subtitle." Title of Journal Volume, Issue (Date of Publication): page range. DOI or URL or Database Name.

There are a number of key steps you should follow to ensure a smooth and trouble-free submission.

Double check your manuscript

Before submitting your work, it is your responsibility to check that the manuscript is complete, grammatically correct, and without spelling or typographical errors. A few other important points:

  • Give the journal aims and scope a final read. Is your manuscript definitely a good fit? If it isn’t, the editor may decline it without peer review.
  • Does your manuscript comply with our research and publishing ethics guidelines?
  • Have you cleared any necessary publishing permissions?
  • Have you followed all the formatting requirements laid out in these author guidelines?
  • Does the manuscript contain any information that might help the reviewer identify you? This could compromise the anonymous peer review process. A few tips:
    • If you need to refer to your own work, use wording such as ‘previous research has demonstrated’ not ‘our previous research has demonstrated’.
    • If you need to refer to your own, currently unpublished work, don’t include this work in the reference list.
    • Any acknowledgments or author biographies should be uploaded as separate files.
    • Carry out a final check to ensure that no author names appear anywhere in the manuscript. This includes in figures or captions.

The submission process

All manuscripts should be submitted through our editorial system by the corresponding author.

A separate author account is required for each journal you submit to. If this is your first time submitting to this journal, please choose the Create an account or Register now option in the editorial system. If you already have an KJ login, you are welcome to reuse the existing username and password here.

Please note, the next time you log into the system, you will be asked for your username. This will be the email address you entered when you set up your account.

Don't forget to add your ORCiD ID during the submission process. It will be embedded in your published article, along with a link to the ORCiD registry allowing others to easily match you with your work.

Don’t have one yet? It only takes a few moments to register for a free ORCiD identifier.Visit the Scholar-Online support centre for further help and guidance.

What you can expect next

You will receive an automated email from the journal editor, confirming your successful submission. It will provide you with a manuscript number, which will be used in all future correspondence about your submission. If you have any reason to suspect the confirmation email you receive might be fraudulent, please contact our Rights team at KJSSH@kardan.edu.af/drd@kardan.edu.af