Cultural Frameworks for Transformative Documenting and Learning
A Call for Submissions | Vol. 12 (2025) | Guest Editors: Naomi Sturm-Wijesinghe and Mauricio Bayona
Publication Scheduled for Fall 2025. Sign up here for updates.
Submit an Article HERE or use the button below.
All Inquiries may be sent to info@jfepublications.org.
Full Articles due April 1, 2025 to our submission portal.
Keywords: identity, documentation, art, folklife, representation, memory, transformation, justice, ethnography, filmmaking, media making, social impact, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, transmedia, multimedia, community archiving
The 2025 Journal of Folklore and Education seeks submissions that amplify and demonstrate the power and the promise of multimodal storytelling to educate. Developing and analyzing the findings of ethnographic documentation also involves creation of transmedia products, from podcasts to poetry, comics to videos. Ethnography provides opportunities for engaging culturally responsive pedagogy and diverse texts that reflect multiple perspectives. Examining community narratives and cultural practices in the classroom and beyond prompts students and audiences to explore the concept of cultural identity, both their own and that of others, in ways that are immediate and nuanced, and contest common misconceptions. The products of media production from the past century can also be found in archives around the world.
We seek submissions that present case studies, programs, lesson plans, teaching modules, and research on media, tradition, and arts that are based in community cultural life, for example:
- Interdisciplinary approaches to media literacy and production in education, including topics of social media, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), social media, hybrid presentations, and other forms of media-driven representation;
- Media technology and STEM education;
- Stories or examples of how people use media in community settings to advance cultural well-being or engage resilience, agency, transformation, generative practices;
- Artist-driven projects and grassroots archives that reflect the transformative nature of community and tradition.
We want submissions from: Educators, artists, folklorists, documentarians, and culture bearers. Our audiences include:
- Educators in diverse settings across subject areas;
- Curators, archivists, and program managers at museums, community centers, and cultural institutions addressing issues of representation and access in content creation and program development;
- Administrators addressing the need for tools that engage the multiple senses and perspectives of diverse learners;
- Students and community members who want to see their cultural knowledge valued in educational practices, curricula, and policy.
This JFE considers documentation and media through a cultural framework. Questions you might consider to inspire a proposal include:
- In what ways can the study of ethnography and documentation help learners of all ages connect their lives and cultures with those of others? Between literature and social studies? Between the arts and social studies?
- How can folk arts in education approaches share content, value, and insights about human relations, creativity, and problem solving?
- What frameworks and models productively examine the role of media in dismantling stereotypes or bias about cultural groups and their movements, understanding and addressing cultural appropriation, and trauma-informed pedagogy?
- Culturally responsive teaching asks educators to recognize students’ cultural displays of learning and meaning making. Culturally sustaining teaching sees culture more deeply as an asset that should be explicitly supported. How can educators engage traditions—narratives, arts, and meaningful lifeways shared within families and groups—through media to foster learning and understanding across subject areas?
- How can educators from multiple disciplines such as English language arts (including composition and literacy), ELL, art, music, science, or social studies use inquiry through media-rich folk arts education to create inclusive learning environments?
About the Guest Editors
A public folklorist and ethnomusicologist by training, Naomi Sturm-Wijesinghe is the founding Executive Director of Los Herederos, a media arts nonprofit dedicated to inheriting culture in the digital age. She is also the Creative Traditions Program Director for City Lore and an adjunct professor at the New School. Her practice centers around interdisciplinary ethnography and working collaboratively in communities to encourage meaningful social transformation through the folk and traditional arts. It is her deeply held belief that local knowledge both sustains communities and advances the quality of everyday life. Her public folklore work, media publications, and writing deal extensively with issues of ethnic identity, political economy and cultural sustainability, transmedia storytelling and documentation, and exploring new models for holistic economic development through folklife-centered cultural tourism. Naomi holds an MA in Ethnomusicology from Columbia University and a BA from Bowdoin College. She sits on the Board of the Mencius Society and currently serves as the co-chair of the Cultural Diversity Committee and on the Nominating Committee of the American Folklore Society.
Born in Bogota, Colombia, Mauricio Bayona has lived in Queens, NY, since 1999. His work as a videographer, editor, art director and producer are both informed and inspired by his immigrant experience of more than two decades. He is known for his work documenting New York City’s immigrant communities and their contributions to individual neighborhoods’ collective consciousness/social history. He has worked with the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, the World Music Institute, Cabrini Immigrant Services of NY, and Make the Road NY to build their digital archives around local musical activity and dissemination in migrant communities. As the Los Herederos’ founding Artistic Director, Mauricio oversees the organization’s media projects and overall creative direction. He also runs a small production house called 32A.
We are grateful for our Advisory Committee for their input on this special issue:
Benjamin Bean – Social Studies Teacher, Mount Pleasant High School (Wilmington, Delaware)
Sarah Bryan – Director, Association for Cultural Equity (New York and North Carolina)
Katy Clune – Director, Virginia Folklife Program, Virginia Humanities (Charlottesville)
Barry Dornfeld – Principal, CFAR and Part-time lecturer, Goucher College (Philadelphia)
Raienkonnis Edwards – Mohawk Filmmaker (New York)
chloē Fourte – MA Ethnomusicology Graduate Assistant, Indiana University Archive for African American Music and Culture (Bloomington)
Pauline Fan – Creative Director, Pusaka (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
Javier Gaston-Greenberg – Curriculum Designer, Educurious (New York)
Bradley Hanson – Director of Folklife, Tennessee Arts Commission (Nashville)
T.C. Owens – Folk Arts Coordinator, ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes (Corning, NY)
Vivian Poey – Professor, Lesley College of Art + Design (Cambridge, MA)
More About Submissions: We seek submissions of articles, model projects, multimedia products, teaching applications, and student work accompanied by critical writing that connects to the larger frameworks of this theme. We particularly welcome submissions inclusive of perspectives and voices from underrepresented communities. Co-authored articles that include teachers, students, administrators, artists, or community members offer opportunities for multiple points of view on an educational program or a curriculum. We publish articles that share best practices, offer specific guides or plans for implementing folklore in education, and articulate theoretical and critical frameworks. We invite educators to share shorter pieces for “Notes from the Field.” Nonconventional formats are also welcomed, such as lesson plans, worksheets, classroom exercises, and media submissions, including short video and audio clips. When considering a submission, we highly recommend reviewing previous issues of JFE. We encourage authors to contact the editors to learn more and explore whether their concept might be a good fit.
Research-based writing that theorizes, evaluates, or assesses programs that use folklore in education tools and practice are also welcomed. These research articles may intersect with the theme, but all submissions with a research component will be considered. We expect that, regardless of the format, all projects presented in submissions will have appropriate institutional permissions for public dissemination before submission to JFE, including approval from Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and/or data licensing for the acquisition of existing data, as may be required. See the protocol for publishing a study used by ArtsEdSearch for guidance.
Format: Articles should be 1,500-4,500 words, submitted as a Word document. We use a modified Chicago style (not APA) and parenthetical citations. All URL links hyperlinked in the document should also be referenced, in order, at the end of the article in a URL list for offline readers. Images should have a dpi of at least 300. Be in touch with the editors to discuss submission and media ideas and to learn formatting, technical specifications, and citation style.
The Journal of Folklore and Education (ISSN 2573-2072) is a publication of Local Learning: The National Network for Folk Arts in Education.