It Takes a Village: Listening to Parents

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic is very interesting, but the article must to be improved.  In points 1&2 the scholar/s point out a very "general" problem: 1. the low aspirations in education of the African community in Australia; 2. the  high value attributed to education by the African parents. First, my suggestion is to describe better the concept of "educational aspirations", discussing the several definitions (clarifying for example the difference between aspiration, expectative, ambition, etc.), and analyzing the contribution of studies on students with an immigrant (African) backtground. Migration studies highlight ethnic inequalities in education and, consequently, low aspirations linked to socio-economic background and other structural and cultural factors. But I don't know if there are comparative data confirming that African Youth has the lowest aspirations. If this affirmation is true (I think it is a bit deterministic and produces a sort of ethnicization of aspirations), the author/s have to explain why, reviewing the literature on this topic.  Second, the analysis of attitudes of African families towards education have to include very known theories as "immigrant optimism" / the "attitude/achievement paradox" / or the distinction between abstract or concrete attitudes of families, etc. I restate that the theoretical framework (see also point 5) is too weak to analyze in depth the topic.  As regards the research methods (point 6), some details are lacking: what are the mixed method used? I read only about semi-structured interviews. How the autors choose the participants for the interviews? What are the characteristics of the 10 interviewed parents (mother? father? profession? socio-economic status? etc.) What about the interview grid?  As regards the data analysis, I think there is an interpretative error. In my opinion, it is no possibile to use percentages to describe a group of 10 parents. I also suggest to focus only on the two questions "low aspirations of children" and "high value of education for parents", and their contradictory relationship, to present a synthesis of results and to develop a brief and coherent discussion. 

Author Response

The topic is very interesting, but the article must to be improved.  In points 1&2 the scholar/s point out a very "general" problem: 1. the low aspirations in education of the African community in Australia; 2. the high value attributed to education by the African parents.

 

Response: We appreciate the constructive feedback of the reviewer. As per required, we have reworked the paper and all reviewer’s comments has been incorporated in the paper. 

 

First, my suggestion is to describe better the concept of "educational aspirations", discussing the several definitions (clarifying for example the difference between aspiration, expectative, ambition, etc.), and analyzing the contribution of studies on students with an immigrant (African) backtground.

 

Response to 1: The concept of educational aspiration has been included in the introduction section of the paper with relevant literature cited to deepen understanding of the concept.

 

Migration studies highlight ethnic inequalities in education and, consequently, low aspirations linked to socio-economic background and other structural and cultural factors. But I don't know if there are comparative data confirming that African Youth has the lowest aspirations. If this affirmation is true (I think it is a bit deterministic and produces a sort of ethnicization of aspirations), the author/s have to explain why, reviewing the literature on this topic. 

 

Response 2: The literature in the field of migration studies on factors that may impact on low aspiration, especially within the African Australian communities, are inadequate and incomplete.  However, the issue of low aspiration was raised by the African parents not a deterministic view of the researchers. The lack of empirical evidence to affirm this position was the reason for this study.  This has been clearly defined in the introduction section (see page 2 para 1)

 

Second, the analysis of attitudes of African families towards education have to include very known theories as "immigrant optimism" / the "attitude/achievement paradox" / or the distinction between abstract or concrete attitudes of families, etc. I restate that the theoretical framework (see also point 5) is too weak to analyze in depth the topic. 

 

Response to 3: We looked at the immigrant optimism theory along the with the theory of value adapted for the study and did a juxtaposition why we consider the value theory more relevant to the study because of its alignment to the research questions and method of the study. Please see the theory section on page 4. Once again, we want to reiterate that this study is about understanding the perspective of the parent on the issue of low aspiration. We do acknowledge that attributes like attitude, discriminations, inequalities and gender bias could be an issue as discussed in the optimism theory, but none of these were mention by parent as issues impending aspiration.

 

As regards the research methods (point 6), some details are lacking: what are the mixed method used? I read only about semi-structured interviews. How the autors choose the participants for the interviews? What are the characteristics of the 10 interviewed parents (mother? father? profession? socio-economic status? etc.) What about the interview grid?  As regards the data analysis, I think there is an interpretative error. In my opinion, it is no possibile to use percentages to describe a group of 10 parents.

 

Response to 4: The research method for the study is qualitative and not mixed method. However, we included the demographics of the participants just to show the spread of the participants within the context of their country of origin. Please see the methodology section in page 5.

 

I also suggest to focus only on the two questions "low aspirations of children" and "high value of education for parents", and their contradictory relationship, to present a synthesis of results and to develop a brief and coherent discussion. 

 

Response to 5: As suggested by the reviewer, we have reworded the two research questions for more clarity.  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

It takes a village article review
The focus of the study is interesting as there is limited research in the area.

This is an interesting paper. There is limited research in the area. However, there are a number of problems with the paper.

Title – The authors talk about the notion of an African village and the influence of this on ‘working with the African community of Northern Territory’ (p.2) but how ‘the village’ materialises in the areas covered in the paper is not clear. E.g. what role does the village play in raising young people’s aspirations to access tertiary education? It seems connection with the ‘village’ helped the authors to gain access and understand parental concerns but not how ‘the village works’ in educational terms.
It is clear that the authors are reporting on a study that was conducted in 3 phrases, and that they are reporting one element, and that is phase 1 which seeks to provide insights as to African parents understanding of the Australian school system and their understanding of the pathways through which young people can access higher education. However, there is only one parent comment as to their understanding of the educational system and nothing about their understanding or not of the different educational pathways. There is a preoccupation instead with the parents high educational and employment aspirations for their children, which is the main focus of the study – i.e. parental and youth aspirations for tertiary education – and this is evident through the literature discussed alongside problematic behaviours displayed by African youth in Australia.

From the introduction there seems to be a tendency to report on the study findings before setting out the study aims and objectives or how the data was collected. For example, the introduction refers to ‘reflections from teacher across the two multicultural high schools used for the study showed evidence of failing educational aspirations on the part of the African students in grades 10-12…’. The introduction refers to meetings with community leaders which informed the research proposal might be better placed when discussing the study methods as the study was conducted across 3 phases, as determined by the community leaders.

In the statement of the problem – there is a suggestion of biased perceptions among the researchers. E.g. ‘The African scholars in this study could easily relate with the general notion of African parents towards any youth that refuses to move straight to university, after the completion of a grade as a failure. This statement assisted the researchers to infer if the notion of the African parents could be responsible for the anti-social behaviour of the African youth in the NT? Such perceptions are not challenged.

Theoretical framework- the setting out of the theoretical framework is interspersed with findings from author engagement in the ‘community consultative forums’ and their alignment with the framework and the author’s views. One would expect the theoretical framework to be set out and for how it relates to the data collected to come when discussing the study findings. Instead readers are presented with a conceptual model derived from the theory which purports to ‘explain the overarching views of African parents’ perspectives or values of higher’ (sic) (p. 5).

Research methods – the study employed mixed methods (questionnaire and interviews) but most of the discussion relates to the interview data collection, and qualitative justification. How the participants were selected, and the length of the interviews conducted is not stated.

The article needs to be more clearly written and points clarified. E.g. in section 3 following the research questions, it states ‘the first phase was designed to understand parental perception about their children’s aspiration for higher education’ (p. 3) but in section 4 (aims and objectives) it states, ‘the first phase of this study was to investigate if African parents’ perception of post-secondary school education and their understanding of the pathways through which their children can access tertiary education in the NT? (p.3)

Findings -emphasis is placed on participant reasons for migrating to Australia, and less attention is given to their perspectives on education, understanding of the Australian education system and raising their children’s tertiary education aspirations. The findings are primarily based on the qualitative element of the study, so it is surprising that very little is quoted from the parental contributions. Without parental comments on the questions being reported it is difficult to ascertain if the authors have interpreted the parental comments in the way they were argued.

The discussion is limited, and the conclusions and recommendations are not substantiated by the data presented.

The coherence of the arguments being made are undermined by typographical and grammatical errors, and incomplete sentences in places or sentences with a word or two missing.

 

Author Response

Response Reviewer’s Comments

It takes a village article review: The focus of the study is interesting as there is limited research in the area. This is an interesting paper. There is limited research in the area. However, there are a number of problems with the paper.

Response: We appreciate the reviewer’s comments on this paper.

Title – The authors talk about the notion of an African village and the influence of this on ‘working with the African community of Northern Territory’ (p.2) but how ‘the village’ materialises in the areas covered in the paper is not clear. E.g. what role does the village play in raising young people’s aspirations to access tertiary education? It seems connection with the ‘village’ helped the authors to gain access and understand parental concerns but not how ‘the village works’ in educational terms.

Response to 1: We have included a paragraph to deconstruct the meaning of the village as suggested by the reviewer.  Please see the introduction section paragraph 1

It is clear that the authors are reporting on a study that was conducted in 3 phrases, and that they are reporting one element, and that is phase 1 which seeks to provide insights as to African parents understanding of the Australian school system and their understanding of the pathways through which young people can access higher education. However, there is only one parent comment as to their understanding of the educational system and nothing about their understanding or not of the different educational pathways. There is a preoccupation instead with the parents high educational and employment aspirations for their children, which is the main focus of the study – i.e. parental and youth aspirations for tertiary education – and this is evident through the literature discussed alongside problematic behaviours displayed by African youth in Australia.

Response to 2: We appreciate the reviewer for his/her understanding of the research study as stated above. However, as stated in the methodology section, 10 participants were interviewed and more interview data has been presented in the paper. Please see data analysis and findings section on page 5 and 6.

From the introduction there seems to be a tendency to report on the study findings before setting out the study aims and objectives or how the data was collected. For example, the introduction refers to ‘reflections from teacher across the two multicultural high schools used for the study showed evidence of failing educational aspirations on the part of the African students in grades 10-12…’. The introduction refers to meetings with community leaders which informed the research proposal might be better placed when discussing the study methods as the study was conducted across 3 phases, as determined by the community leaders.

Response to 3: There was no preconceived mindset of reporting the findings from in the introduction section. What we did was to explain the process of how the study was conceived. We have reworded this to avoid confusion. See the introduction section for more clarity.

 

In the statement of the problem – there is a suggestion of biased perceptions among the researchers. E.g. ‘The African scholars in this study could easily relate with the general notion of African parents towards any youth that refuses to move straight to university, after the completion of a grade as a failure. This statement assisted the researchers to infer if the notion of the African parents could be responsible for the anti-social behaviour of the African youth in the NT? Such perceptions are not challenged.

Response to 4: We have rephrased that sentence. Please see the statement section for your perusal.

Theoretical framework- the setting out of the theoretical framework is interspersed with findings from author engagement in the ‘community consultative forums’ and their alignment with the framework and the author’s views. One would expect the theoretical framework to be set out and for how it relates to the data collected to come when discussing the study findings. Instead readers are presented with a conceptual model derived from the theory which purports to ‘explain the overarching views of African parents’ perspectives or values of higher’ (sic) (p. 5).

Response to 5: The theoretical framework has been rephrased to provide more clarity to the paper. Please see the theory section.

Research methods – the study employed mixed methods (questionnaire and interviews) but most of the discussion relates to the interview data collection, and qualitative justification. How the participants were selected, and the length of the interviews conducted is not stated.

Response to 6: The research method has been reworked to accommodate the reviewer’s comments on the selection of the participants and the focus of the research design which is qualitative.

The article needs to be more clearly written and points clarified. E.g. in section 3 following the research questions, it states ‘the first phase was designed to understand parental perception about their children’s aspiration for higher education’ (p. 3) but in section 4 (aims and objectives) it states, ‘the first phase of this study was to investigate if African parents’ perception of post-secondary school education and their understanding of the pathways through which their children can access tertiary education in the NT? (p.3)

Response to 7: We have rewritten the research questions as suggested by the reviewer.

Findings -emphasis is placed on participant reasons for migrating to Australia, and less attention is given to their perspectives on education, understanding of the Australian education system and raising their children’s tertiary education aspirations. The findings are primarily based on the qualitative element of the study, so it is surprising that very little is quoted from the parental contributions. Without parental comments on the questions being reported it is difficult to ascertain if the authors have interpreted the parental comments in the way they were argued.

 

Response to 8: We have reworked the findings with strong focus on education and parental concern about their children educational aspiration as suggested by the reviewer. The parental Regarding parental contribution raised issue raised by the reviewer, it’s one of the questions in the second phase of the student titled It takes a village: Listening to children which is not included in this paper.

The discussion is limited, and the conclusions and recommendations are not substantiated by the data presented.

Response to 9: The discussion section has been expanded as suggested by the reviewer. The recommendations were based on the outcome of the study. They were the future action plan for the researchers to work on their community engagement in the Northern Territory.

The coherence of the arguments being made are undermined by typographical and grammatical errors, and incomplete sentences in places or sentences with a word or two missing.

Response to 10: The paper has been reread and proofreads by colleagues in literacy and academic language support hub.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

  for me the article is ok.    Kind regards,    Mariagrazia Santagati

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is vastly improved, with previous comments addressed well. However, there are typographical errors and expressions of English which need to be addressed.