Mind, Culture, and Activity

Mind, Culture, and Activity (MCA) is an international forum for the publication of peer-reviewed articles that examine the way that mind and culture are constituted in a wide variety of human activities. We seek to promote dialogue among different schools of thought theorizing relationships between the human mind and the sociocultural environments it inhabits. We place emphasis upon research that takes a critical stance towards questions of human praxis and development, including a reflexive stance towards the researchers' own practices. In particular, authors are advised to critically scrutinize their research practices and categories to avoid characterizing psychological and cultural diversity in terms of deficits. Studies that deal with cultural historical phenomena, such as emergent forms of mediation, relationality, ethical practice, power relations, politics of learning, or social justice, are encouraged. We especially encourage work that situates the studies of mind, culture, and activity in the Anthropocene epoch, attending to the challenges and issues that it brings forth.

We encourage interdisciplinary contributions—including, but not limited to, anthropology, psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, education, linguistics, critical race theory, media studies, queer studies, disability studies, and performance studies. We particularly encourage reports of research which have engaged partnerships reflecting a diversity of cultures, nationalities, and perspectives, especially which engage those that have been traditionally marginalised in the field. We invite authors to read the articles published in MCA in order to get a better sense of the journal's scope, as well as encourage them to engage in dialogue with prior relevant scholarship published in the journal.

Empirical and theoretical research is welcomed. When empirical results are part of a submission, the journal typically publishes research that is primarily qualitative, but quantitative and mixed research methods are encouraged as well.

We consider several types of articles: substantial contributions that present theoretical research or syntheses of theoretical and empirical research devoted to a significant topic (up to 8,000 words); commentaries responding to articles published in MCA (up to 2,500 words); and works written in alternative, creative formats (up to 2,500 words). We also include book reviews (up to 2,000 words), book review essays (up to 4,000 words) and shorter book notes, as well as retrospective narratives of one's own work (up to 8,000 words). If you would like submit a book review, please contact the Book Review Editor first.

Please keep in mind when you are preparing a manuscript that our readership includes a broad range of scholarship from the social sciences and humanities. Please avoid jargon that is familiar only to researchers in one field. We use APA (6th ed.) as reference style. Refer to Instruction for Authors to prepare your manuscript for submission.

It is our practice to perform a thorough editorial screening of every incoming manuscript before it is sent to reviewers for anonymized review. This screening ensures that manuscripts are at a stage at which the review can be generative for both reviewers and authors. We are mindful of the time reviewers devote to the journal, and we want to send them papers with real potential to provide significant contributions, developed in such a way that the reviews can provide clear guidance to authors. 

When we do not consider a paper ready for external review, we still aim to ensure that authors receive meaningful feedback, if the work is within the scope of the journal. In some cases, we desk reject a paper but invite the authors to resubmit based on this feedback. This practice is similar to some journals’ designation “reject and resubmit.” While our current digital system does not offer this option, and authors may still receive a message with the label "reject" in these cases, in our letter, we will communicate to authors our feedback and our invitation to consider reworking the paper and submitting it anew. In our experience, this is a better way to help authors to receive the reviews they need and to improve submissions that we can eventually publish.

This approach, based on editorial consensus, requires more time than traditional methods of desk reject which do not provide feedback. As a rule, our goal is to make a determination of whether to send the paper to reviewers within 4-6 weeks. Only papers clearly out of scope may receive a brief desk reject letter in a shorter time frame.

Publication office: Taylor & Francis, Inc., 530 Walnut Street, Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106.

Authors can choose to publish gold open access in this journal.

Read the Instructions for Authors for information on how to submit your article.