The Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education (jCRAE) is an independent, open-access journal. jCRAE focuses on social and cultural research relevant for art and visual culture education, including cultural foundations of art education, cross-cultural and multicultural research in art education, and cultural aspects of art in education. These areas should be interpreted in a broad sense and can include community arts organizations, schools, arts administration, art therapy, and other disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches that are relevant to art and visual culture education. Theoretical research and research in which qualitative and/or quantitative methods as well as visual and other formats and strategies are used will be considered for publication. The acceptance rate for jCRAE
averages around 30%. The online journal is accessed by about 800 readers. Prior to 2013, while the journal was still in print, it carried a circulation of about 450.
Editorial scope and approach
JCRAE treats art education as a cultural field: a place where people learn to make, interpret, question, and share visual meaning. That field includes schools and universities, but it also includes museums, libraries, community studios, digital platforms, and everyday encounters with images. The journal therefore welcomes research that takes context seriously and explains how social histories, language, place, access, and power influence what becomes visible or teachable.
Our editorial approach values clarity without narrowing the range of acceptable methods. Historical research, qualitative inquiry, quantitative studies, practice-based work, visual essays, and interdisciplinary projects can all contribute when the research question, evidence, and ethical choices are transparent. Authors are encouraged to describe participants and settings carefully, acknowledge limits, and connect interpretation to the communities and learners represented in the work.
For readers and contributors
Readers can use the blog for accessible introductions and practical discussions, then move to the journal archive for published scholarship. Contributors should review the submission guidance before preparing a manuscript. Clear structure, respectful language, and attention to cultural context help every reader engage with the argument.
The journal also supports responsible conversations across disciplines. Art educators may encounter research from anthropology, sociology, history, media studies, museum studies, design, or community arts. Such connections are valuable when the article explains what is gained through the dialogue and avoids treating a community or cultural practice as a detached object of consumption. JCRAE aims to make room for complexity, situated knowledge, and constructive disagreement.
How to read the journal’s scope
JCRAE brings together questions that are often separated by institutional boundaries. A study may begin in a classroom, continue in a museum, and reach a community arts project or a digital platform. What connects these settings is attention to how people make meaning through images, objects, performances, archives, and everyday visual habits. The journal’s scope is broad enough to welcome different methods while remaining focused on careful cultural interpretation.
Readers can use the journal as a map for developing their own questions. Start with a situation that matters in practice: a change in curriculum, a contested image, a collection that is difficult to access, or a student’s interpretation that challenges an established explanation. Then ask what evidence would make the question clearer. Depending on the project, that evidence might include interviews, observations, student work, policy documents, visual analysis, historical records, or reflective accounts of practice.
Good cultural research also makes its position visible. Authors should explain the setting, acknowledge relationships with participants, describe limitations, and consider how language shapes the account. This is especially important when research represents young people, communities, migration histories, disability, race, gender, or Indigenous and diasporic knowledge. Ethical attention is not a separate appendix to the research; it affects the questions asked, the materials collected, and the ways conclusions are shared.
The editorial pathway is designed to support clarity and constructive exchange. Contributors benefit from a precise title, a focused abstract, accessible headings, and references that allow readers to follow the conversation. Reviewers can strengthen a submission by asking whether the method fits the question, whether claims are proportionate to the evidence, and whether the writing respects the people and places represented. Readers, in turn, can treat published work as an invitation to compare, test, and extend ideas in their own contexts.
Visit the research blog for practical discussions, explore the journal archive for published records, and review the submission guidance before preparing a contribution. These routes are connected so that visitors can move from an accessible introduction to a deeper scholarly record without losing the cultural and educational question that brought them to the site.
The journal also values accessible presentation. Clear headings, descriptive image text, readable links, and transparent citations help more people enter the conversation. Accessibility is part of scholarly care because a useful argument should remain available across devices, reading preferences, languages, and levels of prior experience. This commitment shapes the site’s navigation as well as its editorial expectations.
