Mirrors for Pacific Islander Children: Teaching Resilience Through Culturally Adapted Bibliotherapy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a beautifully written paper about a carefully constructed study of American Samoan children’s responses to a bibliotherapy activity that was meticulously culturally adapted to their community. The very important and notable contribution of this study is its’ analysis of the elements of bibliotherapy that contribute to and/or detract from its effectiveness. The authors use a meticulous qualitative analysis that gives confidence to their results. The careful attention to the American Samoan children’s response to illustration and story elements provides a very strong example of the analyses needed to create stories and books that support bibliotherapy strategies. In reading through the paper’s analysis, I found myself hoping that we might see similarly careful analyses of the children’s literature that is often used with newly arrived immigrant children, inner city communities, and children from the small, sparsely populated communities on the Great Plains.

 

I very much appreciate the deep respect that the paper shows for the Samoan American culture, both in the purpose of the study, the preparation of materials that might be used to strengthen the emotional regulation of Samoan-American children, and the active and ongoing participatory inclusion of community members and American Samoan professionals in conducting and understanding the study and its results.

 

The only jarring note in the paper is its suggestion that the culturally adapted bibliotherapy activities are ‘teaching resilience.’ The intervention seems mostly about awareness of and self-regulation of emotions – a competency that contributes to resilience but is not equivalent to resilience. While resilience indeed includes a child’s acquisition of skills to manage challenge emotions and situations, it is much more than that; resilience emerges out of social environments that incorporate large numbers of protective factors in children’s daily lives. (Masten’s (2014) Ordinary Magic). Some specific examples: (page 3) Line106 is a bit confusing in saying that social emotional learning is closely aligned with resilience, but then says that resilience-building must be integrated into SEL. Lines 116-120 appear to equate resilience training with training in components of SEL. I believe that this paper is a very valuable analysis of a bibliotherapy strategy for teaching children an important social emotional skill; and that individual mastery of emotion regulating strategies is one aspect of resilience. As one example, resilience as represented in Masten’s (2015) Ordinary Magic is much broader than an individual’s self-regulation; it also includes the creation of social environments for children that incorporate large numbers of protective factors (i.e. close bond with at least one caretaker, effective parenting, nurturing from other caring adults, moments of joy, prosocial organizations, effective schools).   It would be possible to revise this paper so that it never mentioned ‘resilience’ and it would lose none of its value and relevance.

 

 

Masten, A. S. (2015) Ordinary Magic: Resilience in Development. Guilford

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study is timely, well-researched and inspiring.  I would love to use it for my bibliotherapy classes once it is published.  Perhaps for further studies, a deeper look into the possibility of cultural "transference" may be meaningful as a next step.  While cultural identify is an important element to draw a reader in, cultural diversity in reading materials is a way to add perspectives. I do not mean to give the children with dominant pop literature.  I wonder, for example, how Anishinaabe children would respond to Samoan stories, or the vice versa.  This thought is not a critique of the article; it is inspired by it.

Most of the questions suggested for the reviewer are answered in the survey, and since I have no concern for this article, I do not have suggestions for "improvement" -- but an idea for future studies.  The main question of the research is how a culturally adapted bibliotherapy program may help teaching resilience to Pacific Islander children.  Geographically, the study specifically focuses on American Samoa where suicide rate is high.  The authors state that mental health issues are often ignored due to cultural values in community-reliance and the belief that mental health problems mainly affect White individuals (lines 60-88), while criticizing the inadequacy of mental health services and resources from the U.S. government under "colonial mental health legislation" (line 79).  Colonialism is discussed further also as a factor of mental health issues later (lines 259-270). Here enters bibliotherapy -- a method or resource that can be engaged through the education and library system (perhaps, if any addition to the article, this point may be stressed). In order to make bibliotherapy work, it is important to adapt it culturally for relevance. Though not entirely new, as the article cited other attempts in various cultures, adapting it for American Samoa is a great idea.  It is the details that count and thus I consider that the qualitative data may be more important in this mixed method study.      The research team takes careful cultural consideration in the program, e.g. integrating the oral tradition by reading aloud, using field notes (and avoiding audio and video recording) for contexts, employing card sorts and small groups to minimize passive learning and maximize participation, etc.  As I have done similar research projects with Indigenous people in Canada, I recognize the importance of the adaptation, and I think Hull's team is comprehensive in its cultural considerations.      For one article of a study, this piece is as far as 18 pages (not including documentations) can go.  My thoughts are, therefore, about future study.      (1) The discussion focuses mainly on the mechanism of identification.  As a clinician, I also find that sometimes a certain distance or difference between the reading and the reader can also help.  The logic is "both... and," not "either... or."  There are the concepts of transference (the refocus of powerful emotions to a reading as a deflector or dissipator) and transformation (thinking or perceiving differently through reading to stimulate a second other change) which can work better with reading materials that does not identify with the reader immediately, e.g. same culture or same situation.  Further study may involve using stories from other cultures (e.g. Torres Strait Islanders or Anishinaabe) to learn about other reactions and interventions.      Metaphorically, if reading that reflects one's own context is a mirror, reading that opens a reader to other cultures is a window.      (2) Arts-based or arts-integrated methods may be helpful for data collection; it is something I have done with fruitful results.   On the whole, I whole-heartedly support the publication of this article.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf