When the Invisible Makes Inequity Visible: Chilean Teacher Education in COVID-19 Times
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a strong manuscript, well structured and connected to previous research.
I am not sure if the author is using student teachers as a synonym for preservice teachers. In the literature, usually, student-teacher refers to preservice teachers who are completing the final, capstone practicum experience.
I understand that K-12 schooling in Chile is highly inequitable due to social segregation and educational opportunities available in schools serving different SES groups. From the paper, however, I was not clear on what are the issues on "the debate about inequity in teacher education." The fact that students' lives are inequitable, from my perspective, does not make teacher education programs inequitable.
Whereas the distributive and recognition perspectives of justice relate to the interactions between teachers educators and students, the participation perspective relates to interactions among teacher educators. I find this shift in the "object" of justice problematic.
From my perspective, all three frames should be applied to the same social processes. The authors need to explain why this change is made.
It might be helpful to develop a table to summarize the main findings. For example, what resources and characteristics remain constant and which ones are different across the cases studies?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
We want to thank you for your useful comments on the paper. These comments led us to a significant improvement in the writing. Our revisions reflect all reviewers’ suggestions. We have highlighted changes in the article.
We are re-submitting a new file with revisions. You will see a summary of the changes made to the paper below with reference to locations in the paper.
Kinds regards.
Responses to Reviewer 1
General Comment: “This is a strong manuscript, well structured and connected to previous research”
Comment 1: “I am not sure if the author is using student teachers as a synonym for preservice teachers. In the literature, usually, student-teacher refers to preservice teachers who are completing the final, capstone practicum experience.” (R1)
Response to comment 1: We appreciate this indication. We have opted for using the term pre-service teachers throughout the text (all document).
Comment 2: I understand that K-12 schooling in Chile is highly inequitable due to social segregation and educational opportunities available in schools serving different SES groups. From the paper, however, I was not clear on what are the issues on "the debate about inequity in teacher education." The fact that students' lives are inequitable, from my perspective, does not make teacher education programs inequitable.(R1)
Response to comment 2: Thank you for pointing this. This comment helps us to clear that in Chile there is a cycle that reproduces the social injustices in education. Specifically, in teacher education, some studies indicate that programs tend to reproduce socioeconomic differences that are expressed in schooling. We have added two references supporting this discussion and made it clear at the beginning of the paper with a statement so readers can understand the issue. (p.1)
Comment 3: Whereas the distributive and recognition perspectives of justice relate to the interactions between teacher educators and students, the participation perspective relates to interactions among teacher educators. I find this shift in the "object" of justice problematic. (R1). From my perspective, all three frames should be applied to the same social processes. The authors need to explain why this change is made.(R1)
Response to comment 3: Thank you for this comment. The goal of the paper was to examine teacher educators' specific responses and adjustments in their practices to the new pandemic scenery and their relation to social justice perspectives. We saw the misunderstanding produced through reading. The responses from teacher educators about the participation perspective do not refer to preservice teachers. Teacher educators were worried about their participation in several institutional instances in their university. We clear this in section 4.3. We believe the change can be of help to communicate the results in the sense we needed. (p. 10)
Comment 4: It might be helpful to develop a table to summarize the main findings. For example, what resources and characteristics remain constant and which ones are different across the cases studies? (R1)
Response to comment 4: Thank you! this is a great suggestion. We added a table to summarize the results and organized them taking into account the social justice framework (p.4-5)
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for such an interesting and compelling paper regarding the experiences of teacher educators and students during the pandemic. The adoption of a clearly defined social justice framework has helped analysis and articulate heretofore hidden inequities in the teacher education landscape of the time. It would be interesting to follow up the research by exploring how whether and how far (sustainable) the changes in practice indicated have been in order to address inequity.
This situation became more critical during the pandemic and, in some cases, even difficulted developing and maintaining an institutional hallmark re lated to social justice.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
We want to thank you for your kinds comments on the paper.
Our revisions reflect all reviewers’ suggestions. We have highlighted changes in the article. We are re-submitting a new file with revisions.
You will see a summary of the changes made to the paper (based on your comments) below with reference to locations in the paper.
Kinds regards.
Responses to reviewer 2
Comment 1: It would be interesting to follow up the research by exploring how whether and how far (sustainable) the changes in practice indicated have been in order to address inequity.
Response to comment 1: We agree with your comment. We stated in the last sentence of the paper "Further research could delve into the sustainability of these responses or changes on teacher education and the new challenges regarding equity in the post-pandemic era." (p. 17)
Reviewer 3 Report
The theme is interesting, the reference is appropiate and actual and focused on the theme.
The methodology must to be more explained. The sample is low. The Number of cases for research is small. It could be improved.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
We want to thank you for your useful comments on the paper. These comments led us to a significant improvement in the writing. Our revisions reflect all reviewers’ suggestions. We have highlighted changes in the article.
We are re-submitting a new file with revisions. You will see a summary of the changes made to the paper (based on your comments) below with reference to locations in the paper.
Kinds regards.
Responses to Reviewer 3
General comment: “The theme is interesting, the reference is appropriate and actual and focused on the theme”.
Comment 1: "The methodology must to be more explained. The sample is low. The Number of cases for research is small. It could be improved". (R3)
Response to comment 1: We understand the reviewer's comment. It seems to suggest that qualitative research (in this instance case studies) should use a quantitative perspective for taking a count of “samples” (from our perspective of participants). To give support to our study we make reference to Stake (2006) about multiple case study methodology.
“At the outset of such a multicase study, the phenomenon is identified. The cases are opportunities to study it. Even in the larger multicase studies, the sample size is often much too small to warrant random selection. For qualitative fieldwork, we will usually draw a purposive sample of cases, a sample tailored to our study; this will build in variety and create opportunities for intensive study.” (Stake, 2006, p. 24)
We added one phrase with two main references in the field that support this methodological decision on the paper. (p. 3).
