Roots and Shoots: Building Bridges between Schools and Their Communities

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I thought that this was a thoughtful and worthwhile paper, written in a progressive spirit of active education for sustainability and citizenship education. The authors are authoritative on place-based education. There is appropriate methodological detail and reflexivity. The paper addresses germane research questions and teacher confidence around participative and active citizenship approsaches and student voice. The paper highlights some of the frustrations around implementing local change projects, with school timescales often misaligning with the messier realities of municipal timescales.

In terms of additions to then literature review, I would invite the authors to further cite some of the literature on the challenges of active citizenship approaches (which will support their thesis).

My second point of substance (and invitation to the authors) relates to the confronting detail that they share in relation to the park clean up, which was followed up by re-vandalization and daubing of swastikas. Whilst the authors DO follow up this detail in their discussion section, I thought that there was an opportunity here to further broaden the analytical lens. Some of the teacher and student experiences clearly highlight the connections between environmental sustainability and social sustainability. The latter connects to issues of local 'regeneration' and 'renewal' as well as 'community cohesion'. The UN SDGs connect these two areas explicitly. I thought that there was scope for an additional paragraph on 'social sustainability' implications.

Other than these observations, my main issues were around English expression - many pick ups and suggestions (especially in the first half of the paper) that require revision and betray that the authors are working in a second/foreign language. I share details and suggestions below.

Overall, though, I commend the authors for their thinking and paper and thank the editors for the opportunity to review the paper. Best wishes with further sharpening this prior to publication.

English language pick ups:

p.1, l.13 'emerging not emerged

l.33...'an international "Roots and Shoots' program based in.....'

l.42 'cross-curricular' not cross-cutting

l.43 not-for-profit organizations

p.2, l.46 logistical

l.47-48 participative approiaches with the aim of....

l.52 in authentic settings (no 'the')

l.52 often 'presents logistical barriers'

l.55 'at odds with' is better than 'connected with'

l.59 components of place-based education

l.72 some athors (no 'of')

l.82  in cultivating civic agency (not toward)

p.3, l.97 'the adoption of policies targeting....'

l.106 the concept

l.117 'deciding on the project focus' and 'proceeding to plan'

1.119-120 'for project realization' (no the)

l.120 undertake not do

p.4, l.165 'in the research' (not 'to')

l.186 consisting not consistent

l.189  semi-open

p.5 l.200 'amount of' not 'number of'

l.225 omit 'consequently'

p.9, l.438 'less centrrally is better than 'limitedly'

Author Response

Thank you for your inspiring, detailed, and positive review. Based on this, we

• provided more references analyzing the challenges of the active citizenship approach;
• elaborated the issue highlighting the interconnection between social and environmental sustainability in more detail;
•  improved the English - thank you for these comments.

All of the changes are highlighted in yellow.

Once again, thank you for your help and feedback.

Reviewer 2 Report

The reviewed paper aims to investigate benefits and challenges for students that participated in the RaS program.

The research results presented in this paper contribute to the current knowledge on youth active citizenship. The research problem is not original, although in my opinion it is very important to explore it in various contexts. Besides, case studies implemented in qualitative strategies are very valuable as they allow for in-depth analysis. The results of this type of research could be included in meta-syntheses that allow building grounded theories.

The article is properly written according to academic standards. The theoretical framework is presented clearly and legibly with reference to work and current research in the place-based education and environmental citizenship field.  However, there is no information about student participation in the Slovak Republic context. What does it look like? What are the organizational conditions for functioning of student participation there? What is the students' sense of influence on what is happening at school? Has there been any research on this subject? If so, I suggest that the authors consider supplementing the article with these research results. The context (even a general outline of it) is important for the interpretation of research results and helps make the analyzes and conclusions readable for an international audience also.

I have no comments on the research design. The results, discussion, and conclusions are very clearly presented .

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your positive feedback. Based on this, we have provided more information about the regional context - students' participation at Slovak schools. The new paragraph is highlighted in yellow.

Once again, thank you for this idea.

Best regards,

Authors