Submit a Manuscript to the Journal
Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma
For a Special Issue on
Institutional Courage
Abstract deadline
Manuscript deadline
Special Issue Editor(s)
Brianna C. Delker, Ph.D.,
Western Washington University
delkerb@wwu.edu
Laura K. Noll, Ph.D.,
Northern Arizona University
laura.noll@nau.edu
Institutional Courage
When institutions do not prevent violence from occurring, or respond inadequately when members are victimized, this is institutional betrayal (Smith & Freyd, 2014). Institutional betrayal is a form of injustice associated with worse trauma-related mental health outcomes for survivors, along with moral injury to witnesses. Institutional courage, proposed by Jennifer Freyd (2014) as an antidote to institutional betrayal, refers to institutional values, policies, and practices oriented toward truth-seeking, accountability, transparency, clear moral action, and care for individuals who depend on the institution. Freyd and colleagues have outlined 11 steps to promote institutional courage and developed a corresponding questionnaire (Freyd, 2018; Freyd & Smidt, 2019) and research database.
This Special Issue aims to provide a comprehensive guide to the current ‘state-of-the-science’ on institutional courage, and to propel this research area forward with theory-building, methodological innovations, interdisciplinary work, and an international scope which recognizes the socially, politically, and culturally situated nature of institutions and their responses to violence.
Given the formative stage of research on institutional courage, this Special Issue invites manuscripts addressing a wide variety of institutional contexts (including but not limited to educational settings, workplace organizations, health care systems, criminal justice systems, the military, government agencies, or religious institutions ); forms of violence (including but not limited to child maltreatment, sexual violence, physical violence, emotional or mental violence, coercive control, technology-facilitated sexual victimization, and harassment, discrimination, or hate-based violence on the basis of protected identity characteristics such as race or sexual orientation); and disciplinary perspectives from the social and behavioral sciences (e.g., psychology, women and gender studies, social work, sociology, anthropology), public policy and law (e.g., criminology and criminal justice, political science), and healthcare and medicine (e.g., public health). Of particular interest are manuscripts that demonstrate clear utility for future researchers and practitioners engaged in work on courageous institutional responses to violence.
The Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, and Trauma announces a call for abstracts describing proposed papers on institutional courage.
Submission Instructions
Topics include but are not limited to:
- Courageous responses to discrimination, harassment, abuse, neglect, or other forms of violence and harm that occur within an institutional context (e.g., educational settings, workplace organizations, health care systems, criminal justice systems, the military, government agencies, or religious institutions);
- Qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods empirical work assessing the nature and impact of institutional courage on individual, occupational, academic, interpersonal, social, institutional/organizational, or community outcomes (e.g., organizational health, institutional trust, workplace satisfaction, mental or physical wellbeing, employee engagement/turnover, leadership effectiveness, critical consciousness, advocacy);
- Innovative theoretical work exploring pathways for cultivating institutional courage and/or mechanisms that account for pathways linking institutional courage to outcomes;
- Development and/or evaluation of innovative measurement approaches for studying institutional courage and its impact on individual, institutional/organizational, or community outcomes;
- Exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory case reports about cultivating and sustaining institutional courage within a specific institutional context;
- Prevention, intervention, policy, and social justice advocacy approaches to cultivating and sustaining institutional courage;
- Scientific reviews (systematic, scoping, or concept reviews), meta-analyses, and commentaries on the state of the evidence on institutional courage with respect to specific forms of violence or institutional contexts;
- Interdisciplinary, translational, intersectional, or community-engaged perspectives that address understudied populations or contexts, or cultural considerations related to institutional courage.
To obtain well-rounded coverage of relevant issues, we ask potential contributors to submit article ideas via email to the guest editors in the form of a detailed summary (i.e., 250-500 words) that highlights the relevance of the proposed manuscript to the Special Issue theme. Submission of an abstract represents a commitment to prepare a paper if accepted. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words and should describe the topic being addressed, the basic ideas, and the proposed article type (see note below) and contribution of the paper. Abstracts should be sent for consideration via email by 1st November 2026.
Article types welcomed include: Research Articles, Data Notes, Case Reports, Brief Reports, Book Reviews, Commentary, Review Articles, and Theoretical Articles. For more information on the journal guidelines for each article type, including submission requirements related to the use of generative AI, please refer the Instructions for Authors and Taylor & Francis AI Policy pages.
Proposed Target Audience:
Researchers, practitioners, administrators, and advocates engaged in work on institutional responses to violence and other forms of harm.
Instructions
Submission Details:
Abstracts and final papers should follow Instructions for Authors (IFA) on the journal homepage, including APA 7th Edition style and formatting. All articles undergo a double-anonymous peer review. Manuscripts approved for inclusion should be submitted directly to the journal by February 25, 2027 via the Taylor & Francis Submission Portal. Be sure to select the special issue title upon submission.