Author Guidelines

Publication Cycle

The Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education (jCRAE) is published once yearly. Some issues of jCRAE are organized around a mini-theme. Submissions outside the mini-theme are welcome.


Focus and Scope

The Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education (jCRAE) is an annual publication of the United States Society for Education through Art. 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.


Submission Checklist

The Journal encourages authors worldwide to submit manuscripts. All manuscripts and communications must be written in English and use the American Psychological Association (APA), 7th edition style and guidelines.

Authors of accepted manuscripts will be asked to closely format their article according to the following formatting guidelines.

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

  1. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  2. Written papers should be in APA style 7th edition.
  3. Where available, URLs and DOIs for the references have been provided.
  4. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references and quotations. Authors should make sure they are correct, in substance and style.
  5. The text is double-spaced; uses Times New Roman 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  6. If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review (below) have been followed.

Submissions should include the following:
Files should be in Word (.docx) format; include a title page containing the author's name(s) and affiliation(s); all manuscripts, with the exception of book reviews, must be accompanied by a short abstract; (approx. 100-150 words) and keywords (5-7); and figures, graphs, and images appropriately at the end of the manuscript. The word count for the complete manuscript, not including references and footnotes, should not exceed 5,000 words.

A variety of formats are welcome—including traditional academic essays, visual essays, or alternative formats—that fit the purposes of the journal to address issues of art, education, and cultural research. Image-based submissions should be accompanied by explanatory text (approximately 1000-1500 words). For submission of alternative/digital formats, please consult with the Senior Editor for submission preference.

Images should be sent separately as .jpg or .pdf documents. High quality images are a requirement for publication.

The author or authors are responsible for securing human subjects review of studies involving human participants. They must also secure releases for the use of all copyrighted information and images not their own—including but not limited to drawings, photographs, graphs, charts, tables, and illustrations.

The editors will acknowledge receipt of each manuscript. The review process generally takes several months after the editors receive the manuscript.


Ensuring a Blind Review

To ensure the integrity of the blind peer-review for submission to this press, every effort should be made to prevent the identities of the authors and reviewers from being known to each other. This involves the authors, editors, and reviewers (who upload documents as part of their review) checking to see if the following steps have been taken with regard to the text and the file properties:

  • The authors of the document have deleted their names from the text, with "Author" and year used in the references and footnotes, instead of the authors' name, article title, etc.
  • With Microsoft Office documents, author identification should also be removed from the properties for the file (see under File in Word), by clicking on the following, beginning with File on the main menu of the Microsoft application: File > Save As > Tools (or Options with a Mac) > Security > Remove personal information from file properties on save > Save.
  • With PDFs, the authors' names should also be removed from Document Properties found under File on Adobe Acrobat's main menu.

Peer Review

All manuscripts will undergo a blind review by 2 reviewers from the Review Board of jCRAE. Upon review, authors will receive a recommendation from the Senior Editor and Guest Co-editor for either Acceptance; Minor Revisions; Major Revisions; or Rejection. Revisions are common and expected upon primary review of a manuscript submission.


Publication Fees

Journals published or hosted by the University of Arizona Libraries' Publishing Program do not charge author publishing fees. All journals hosted by the University of Arizona Libraries are fully open access, with no charges to access or to publish.


Copyright Assignment and Notice

As further described in the Copyright Release Agreement, in consideration for publication of the article, the authors assign to USSEA all copyright in the article, subject to the personal-use exceptions described below.

USSEA grants authors of works published in the Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education the right:

  • To reprint the work in any book chapter, article, or any book of which they are the author or editor, subject to giving proper credit in the book to the original publication of the work in the Journal.
  • To post only the official reprint of this article in the format provided by the Journal on a personal website and/or on one website with which they are academically affiliated. The document must be clearly identified as having been originally published by the Journal.

To protect the copyright in the Work, the original copyright notice as it appears in the Journal should be included when the Work is reprinted, published, or posted according to this agreement.