Like most university presses—especially the ones our size—the central focus is the book, and the care and attention that goes into our bringing out over twenty new titles every year is our wheelhouse. But we’re also the home to a small number of journals that connect researchers to their communities of peers when what they’re looking for is a zippier and pithier way to disseminate work and keep the conversation going.
Until now, our offerings have comprised Philosophical Topics, a semiannual invitational journal in philosophy rooted in a traditional print-based distribution model that we make available electronically through several platforms, and Artivate, a web-based, open-access journal of arts entrepreneurship that is born digital, shared for free, and supported on the backend though a partnership including our press, the Sam M. Walton College of Business, and the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
#NextUP is Childhood Art: An International Journal of Research, which aims to share its first article with the world in fall of 2023. Childhood Art will come to life thanks to the same open-journals platform as Artivate and will connect the art-education researchers at our growing Center for the Study of Childhood Art with the global academic community. Here, Christopher Schulte the center’s founding director and the journal’s managing editor, talks with us about the why, what, and hows of launching a serial publication in this space and what he hopes will come of the enterprise. His thoughts, as you’ll see, say a lot about the contemporary world of journals publishing and how presses can find alignment with the scholars who continue depend on these collaborative platforms.
What people and institutions comprise your community of study? Where does your research center fit in this constellation? Childhood art studies is a multidisciplinary community, comprised of scholar-practitioners from art education, early childhood and elementary education, and language and literacy studies, for example. While the Center for the Study of Childhood Art is situated in Art Education at the University of Arkansas, the work of the CSCA is grounded in a childhood studies approach, which means that the CSCA is committed to theorizing and historicizing the child, children, childhoods, and childhood art within contemporary social, cultural, and global contexts. It is by way of this approach that the CSCA not only challenges existing perspectives but also aims to reconceptualize how the study of childhood art comes to matter.
How do scholars in this field typically communicate? What kinds of scholarly products do they make and share? While there is indeed a range of scholarly products that exists, the study of childhood art continues to be represented foremost through scholarly publications, for example, peer-reviewed books and journal articles.
What big questions face scholars in this space? What are the barriers to knowing that they struggle with? Questions related to how and why young people make art as they do remain critical to shaping and re-shaping the study of childhood art. Of particular importance to this work is the process of questioning existing systems of knowledge and the extent to which such systems have and continue to disempower children, decontextualize their bodies and lives, and delegitimize their artistic practices. While this work may be slow and is often met with resistance, it is essential to creating a more inclusive and equitable study of childhood art.
Why a new journal? Why web-based? Why open-access? Most research related to childhood art is published in journal venues whereby the focus is not expressly committed to this line of inquiry. This is not to suggest that publishing in these journals is not still necessary or important. It certainly is. Rather, the point is that there are very few journal venues dedicated to the process of cultivating a research community that takes seriously the task of attending to childhood art as a practice and experience of great complexity and global significance. Childhood Art: An International Journal of Research aims to provide this space and to invite scholar-practitioners from around the world to contribute to and define its possibilities for impact. The decision to make the journal open-access is, as the term indicates, about access. Many journals today exist behind paywalls, a reality that excludes whole networks of people and communities from accessing the research that is published. Moreover, the use of paywalls directly complicates the potential for global dialogue and the ongoing exchange of interests, inquiries, and expertise. Our goal is to directly intervene by creating a journal that features diverse, cutting edge research and that is as accessible as possible.
What goes assembling an editorial team? What goes into managing operations The process of assembling an editorial team was time consuming. First and foremost, it was important to assemble a team of leading scholar-practitioners, whose research is nationally and internationally recognized. Second, it was important that this group of scholar-practitioners be international in scope and multidisciplinary in orientation. Meaning, those who serve on the editorial team and the editorial review board need to embody a commitment to acknowledging and caring for childhood art as a global, multidisciplinary engagement. This is especially important as it relates to the inclusion of global majority voices, histories, practices, perspectives, and stories.
What special challenges face these kinds of enterprises? What does success look like? While there are many challenges that open-access journals face, the primary obstacle is funding and support. Childhood Art: An International Journal of Research is especially fortunate because it has the support of University of Arkansas Press, which provides the journal with a management system that is reliable and effective. The journal’s partnership with University of Arkansas Press also provides the expertise and resources necessary to continue evaluating and improving the journal and the requisite supports to effectively market and share the knowledge produced by those who contribute their research to the journal. Additionally, Childhood Art: An International Journal of Research is key research initiative of the Center for the Study of Childhood Art. This relationship, in conjunction with University of Arkansas Press, positions the journal well to become a leading international site for inquiry and scholarly debate on childhood art. What does success look like? Both initially and long-term, success looks like a publication process that invites, encourages, and supports cutting edge scholarship; that provides consistent and thoughtful mentorship to authors; and that—because of this publication process—cultivates the reputation of a dynamic and supportive venue for research.
Dr. Christopher M. Schulte is Endowed Associate Professor of Art Education and Assistant Director of the School of Art. He is also founder and director of the Center for the Study of Childhood Art (CSCA), an interdisciplinary research, teaching and community engagement center affiliated with the Art Education program in the School of Art at University of Arkansas. Grounded in childhood studies and informed by critical, poststructuralist, posthumanist, and decolonial approaches, Christopher’s research explores the artistic, play-based, and aesthetic practices of young children, with particular attention given to the study of drawing and its relationship to historical and contemporary childhoods.