Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See attached notes

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

See review notes

Author Response

First of all, I would like to thank you for reviewing the article
Reviewer's comment: Summary — First few sentences have some confusion and/or lack of 
language that interferes with understanding
Author's comment: the abstract has been revised
Reviewer's comment: Theory — there are a lot of ideas in the theoretical section that are not 
fully developed, in particular there seems a void of connection of the theories around human 
rights to social work through a lens of social work values and ethics practice. Some of the 
language related to HR are included but not explicitly addressed or acknowledged. I would 
argue that this section of the paper needs to connect more succinctly to social work practices 
& values as a focus, rather than a secondary lens. In addition, hold the key aspects of 
epistemology and identity points to get lost in as you move through the argument, and think 
that this paper would benefit from keeping your argument grounded in these ideas.
Author's comment: This part has been changed and revised. It was deleted and now the 
introductory part has clarified this relationship better. The concept of DH was defined and 
interrelated with social work and professional practice.
Reviewer's comment - Ethical Issues — confidentiality and anonymity are independent of one 
another, which principle was applied here?
Author's comment: This part has been corrected
Reviewer's comment - Discussion — The discussion was well done, there are some minor 
grammar issues to be addressed; however, it came together well and articulated the value 
element well, which draws me back to the literature review, where I didn't get this sense of 
the centering of a global human right through a values lens. I appreciate the findings of this 
study and think they are important for social workers around the world and could see this 
being replicated with an understanding of national constructions of social problems as a 
grounding element.
Author's comment: This part has been corrected in accordance with the correction of the 
theoretical part. The English review was carried out by a social worker who lives in a country 
where the English language is the first choice

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is an account of an important area of research in relation to social work practice and the enactment of human rights.  The article makes an important contribution to knowledge especially given the changing nature of society/social issues as briefly explored in the paper.  There are some changes which will strengthen the paper, sharpen focus and articulation of key ideas/findings explored.  In summary:  Overall the article needs a thorough edit, there are for example numerous typographical errors throughout which impacts the fluency of the work.  Similarly the article overall is quite densely written which can obscure the valid points which are put forward and explored.  This could be addressed by undertaking a further edit in relation to sentence construction.

The article refers to legislation/pacts/conventions and countries and laws but without ever saying what legislation/conventions.  Although the focus of the research is Portugal it is clear that there is an International currency. It is important therefore to set out the legal/policy frameworks to situate and contextualise the research to a wider International audience.

There is some inconsistency with terms used through the research eg non-discrimination/anti-discrimination - as with the concept of human rights it would be useful to clarify the theoretical framework which informs the research and make explicit what definitions authors are working with.

In some countries social workers are restricted in their professional right to engage in activism and protest and some acknowledgement of this is important.

The explanation of the sample does not refer to ethnicity or disability...is there a reason for that given that age, gender is referred to ?

Some further work on the methodology would be beneficial. In the ethics section for example the authors conflate explaining the purpose of the research with participants being able to express themselves freely.

There is a need for greater explanation/clarification of references to world systems, what is meant by scientific and technical.

Finally I wondered if it was possible to consider how findings are presented to make this more accessible to those not familiar with quants based analysis.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Overall the paper requires a thorough edit to address typographical errors and to further clarify sentences.

Author Response

First of all, thank you for reviewing the article and suggestions for improvement.

Reviewer's comment: The article is an account of an important area of research in relation to social work practice and the enactment of human rights. The article makes an important contribution to knowledge especially given the changing nature of society/social issues as briefly explored in the paper. There are some changes which will strengthen the paper, sharpen focus and articulation of key ideas/findings explored. In summary: Overall the article needs a thorough edit, there are for example numerous typographical errors throughout which impacts the fluency of the work. Similarly the article overall is quite densely written which can obscure the valid points which are put forward and explored. This could be addressed by undertaking a further edit in relation to sentence construction.

Author's comment: the ideas were clarified both in the theoretical part and in the presentation of the results. All changes are marked in red in the text

Reviewer's comment: The article refers to legislation/pacts/conventions and countries and laws but without ever saying what legislation/conventions. Although the focus of the research is Portugal it is clear that there is an International currency. It is important therefore to set out the legal/policy frameworks to situate and contextualize the research to a wider International audience.

Author's comment: the concept of human rights was presented as well as the main conventions, pacts and declarations to achieve this objective

Reviewer's comment: There is some inconsistency with terms used through the research eg non-discrimination/anti-discrimination - as with the concept of human rights it would be useful to clarify the theoretical framework which informs the research and make explicit what definitions authors are working with.

Author's comment: these words have been clarified in the text and standardized

Reviewer's comment: In some countries social workers are restricted in their professional right to engage in activism and protest and some acknowledgment of this is important.

 Author's comment: these ideas were introduced in the text when presenting the sample characterization data Reviewer's comment: The explanation of the sample does not refer to ethnicity or disability...is there a reason for that given that age, gender is referred to ?

Author's comment: this idea was introduced in the text stating that these variables are not used in official documents in Portugal. The word ethnicity or race is not used on the citizen's card, and disability is not used. In fact, this last case is problematic since even the censuses in Portugal do not have this variable deconstructed by the type of disability.

Reviewer's comment: Some further work on the methodology would be beneficial. In the ethics section for example the authors conflict explaining the purpose of the research with participants being able to express themselves freely.

 Author comment: This content has been changed

Reviewer's comment: There is a need for greater explanation/clarification of references to world systems, what is meant by scientific and technical.

Author's comment: This content has been replaced with theoretical knowledge

Reviewer's comment: Finally I wondered if it was possible to consider how the findings are presented to make this more accessible to those unfamiliar with quant-based analysis.

Author's comment: an effort was made to make the presentation of data clearer.

Reviewer's comment: Comments on the Quality of the English Language Overall the paper requires a thorough edit to address typographical errors and to further clarify sentences.

Author's comment: The intake review was carried out by a social worker, native to an English-speaking country

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It would have been desirable if the author had not confined his research solely to Portuguese practice in order to demonstrate the correspondence between social assistance and human rights, since in that case he missed the term of comparison, which narrowed the horizon of has knowledge.

I also consider that, in this case, the sociologist in question should not have reduced the thematic approach of his study to the results of a survey based solely on questionnaires sent to registered members of professional associations, and should not have explored the ontology of the relationship between social work and human rights solely from the point of view of the provisions of the main international instruments (the Declaration of Human Rights, the two International Covenants of 1966 (New York), the European Convention on Human Rights, etc.). ), but he had to be examined the rules of national law, in this case Portuguese law, as this would have enabled us to find out how human rights violations occur in the field of social assistance in some EU Member States.

Author Response

First of all, thank you for reviewing the article

Reviewer's comment: It would have been desirable if the author had not confined his research solely to Portuguese practice in order to demonstrate the correspondence between social assistance and human rights, since in that case he missed the term of comparison, which narrowed the horizon of has knowledge.

Author's comment: The article has been reviewed and we have tried to respond to the request

Reviewer's comment: I also consider that, in this case, the sociologist in question should not have reduced the thematic approach of his study to the results of a survey based solely on questionnaires sent to register members of professional associations, and should not have explored the ontology of the relationship between social work and human rights solely from the point of view of the provisions of the main international instruments (the Declaration of Human Rights, the two International Covenants of 1966 (New York), the European Convention on Human Rights, etc. ). ), but he had to be examined the rules of national law, in this case Portuguese law, as this would have enabled us to find out how human rights violations occur in the field of social assistance in some EU Member States.

Author's comment: the article was completely revised, and the notion of human rights was introduced as well as the main conventions. I hope it is now clearer for an international audience.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The aim of the study is to examine the connection between social work and human rights. To do this, a questionnaire has been distributed to practitioners in Portugal. The survey reached a total of 4079 respondents. Only 259 of these answered the survey. The omission is not analyzed or discussed. Such a low response rate points to methodological weaknesses. Is it possible to generalize the answers from such a low response frequency, and what hidden biases might be present? The survey may have been filled out by human rights advocates. This makes it difficult to validate the result. The study's specific purpose remains unclear, and the absence of any stated hypotheses further complicates matters. Implicitly, the discussion appears to rely on the hypothesis that social work prioritizes individual efforts over structural ones. However, the organizations in which the professions function also influence this, causing the study's design to fall short of the intended objectives. Could it be that their intention was to contribute to the debate, rather than providing empirical support for their findings? Since empirical evidence is to a rather low extent the basis for the conclusion, it becomes difficult to see the common thread. I think that in order to move forward, it is necessary to either stay within the framework of the empirical material and then also discuss/problematize the omission and be clear about which hypotheses were the basis for the choice of design. The next step could be to describe it as a pilot study and then formulate a series of questions for further research. Or to turn the article into a more theory-driven article about the need to implement human rights in social work as practice.

Author Response

First of all, thank you for reviewing the article and making important contributions to its improvement

.
Reviewer's comment: The aim of the study is to examine the connection between social work and human rights. To do this, a questionnaire has been distributed to practitioners in Portugal. The survey reached a total of 4079 respondents. Only 259 of these answered the survey. The omission is not analyzed or discussed. Such a low response rate points to methodological weaknesses. Is it possible to generalize the answers from such a low response frequency, and what hidden biases might be present? The survey may have been filled out by human rights advocates. This makes it difficult to validate the result.

Author's comment: this part has been clarified. The main reason is the fact that professionals, despite having received the questionnaire in their professional email, needed to have authorization from the organizations where they work to respond to such questionnaires. Another reason was that professionals considered the questionnaire to be too long.

Review comment: The study's specific purpose remains unclear, and the absence of any stated hypotheses further complicates matters. Implicitly, the discussion appears to rely on the hypothesis that social work prioritizes individual efforts over structural ones. However, the organizations in which the professions function also influence this, causing the study's design to fall short of the intended objectives. Could it be that their intention was to contribute to the debate, rather than providing empirical support for their findings? Since empirical evidence is to a low extent the basis for the conclusion, it becomes difficult to see the common thread. I think that in order to move forward, it is necessary to either stay within the framework of the empirical material and then also discuss/problematize the omission and be clear about which hypotheses were the basis for the choice of design. The next step could be to describe it as a pilot study and then formulate a series of questions for further research. Or to turn the article into a more theory-driven article about the need to implement human rights in social work as practice.

Author's comment: some of these ideas were realized, such as the objectives of the study were clarified. The hypotheses are theoretical and inform the study, that is, the SW and the Sws have a very clear relationship with the DH but when they practice this relationship is broken, due to contextual conditions but also, as expressed in the study, due to the methods of intervention they use, centered on the person and not so much on the structural dimension of the problems.

The remaining comments were resolved in the article. The changes have been made and are marked in red in the text. I hope you respond to the request.

The article was revised again in English.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The is now much more comprehensible and constitutes an important contribution to the field of knowledge and further research. However, additional language processing is required.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Language processing is required.