Values and Ethics as Education Policy: Media Framing of Ecuador’s 2024 Curriculum Reform

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

First of all, please allow me to congratulate the Author(s) for the very thorough investigation. This is not just an interesting read but it is the type of media research that should be performed to support curriculum studies. The text is well written and provides a mature and expert point of view, which wisely blends theories and empirical evidence to construct a credible framework that enables the international reader to fully understand what is going on concurrently with the Ecuadorian reform.

This said, please receive my comments and recommendations below. Most of them bear on the first section of your work (the Methodology and Results being almost flawless, in my humble opinion). Most of the recommendations you will see are about two things:

1. Provide some missing sources. Despite Results and Discussion being laden with Ecuadorian references, in your literature review it is not always clear what the evidence is for your Ecuadorian claims. This also begs a question you should ask yourselves when addressing the Literature Review: are you providing the reader with genuine premises or are you unwittingly anticipating the results? Most of the writing is very good, but occasionally the reader might wonder why a certain piece of information appears in the Literature Review rather than in the Results section.
2. Improve organization with metatexts. This includes the need for openings of each sub-section (and especially the longest ones).

My hope is that, after the implementation of the recommendations below, this contribution could be quickly published to the advantage of the academic community.

 

DETAILED FEEDBACK

# Content

Line 32: "public discourse". Please cite at least one source as an example of public discourse.

Line 53: is APA7 being used? If so, quotation marks in the body of text require page numbers in the parenthetical reference.

Line 54: please clarify the ministerial term (e.g., "appointed in 2024") as a service to the international reader.

Line 56: "permissiveness" -- by whom? Authorities?

Line 59: "(Galston, 2001; Gutmann, 1999)". Are these sources being cited as an example of "civic virtue" frameworks or do Galston and Gutmann directly adress Crespo's position? Please clarify by rephrasing.

Line 65: please clarify if the choice of a moral value to discuss is mandated by the Ministry or if teachers can choose what they like.

Lines 66-69: "such practices recall ... mid-20th century". But not just that. Please consider including, for sake of comparison, details from the Itorero program rolled out by Rwanda. A calssic on this topic is Sundberg's 2016 book: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58422-9
(as a form of disclaimer, I do not know this author personally and just cited her when required in my papers--I believe hers is a very good example of study of a State-driven education project)

Line 77: consider including a sub-heading "statement of the problem".

Line 88: "urgent" is prescriptive language. This paper kind of makes the point of "urgency" for Ecuador, but please consider documenting urgency instead of just claiming it.

Lines 97-110: is it logical to have these two paragraphs ("the Ecuadorian reform can be interpreted..." and "The public statements of the Minister also suggest...") right here? Recommendation: these belong to your introduction and State of the Art. The Statement of the Problem should follow these, rather than come before them. 111-116 positioning is more warranted here, because the paper is trying to anticipate the analytical dimensions of the issue.

Lines 117-120: please provide evidence of polarization and distrust. Do not rely on the reader agreeing with you: "show, don't tell".

Lines 281-286: even in this section comparison with Sundberg (2016) would be excellent (see above).

Lines 318-324: is this a premise of the argument or an investigative result?

Lines 341-344: please clarify the "vitamin" metaphor and provide evidence of the journalistic narratives you mention.

Lines 359-363: Please provide evidence.

Lines 328, 345, 364: "Critical Discourse Analysis". This sub-section is getting very long and the reader is faced with a series of paragraphs, which, except for the occasional lack of circumstancial evidence, follow each other quite smoothly. However, there is a sensitive lack of systematization when it comes to theories. That is, about line 328 we get "media framing"; about line 345 we get "agenda-setting theory"; about line 364 we get CDA. What is missing here is an opening of 1.1.5 that really frames the subsequent content. In other words, there is a noticeable lack of introductory meta-text, and this might be the case for 1.1.1., 1.1.2, 1.1.3, and 1.1.4 too.

Lines 394-404: please state number of retrieved articles.

Line 402: it would be interesting to see a list of performed queries, perchance in a table or sandbox.

Line 440-444: finally someone who knows what they are doing when calculating intercoder reliability!

Line 491: "information-hygiene mechanism". Please elaborate more on that. The example is fine, but it would be better to specify again what you mean. Or do you mean "sanitization" instead of "hygiene"?

Lines 552-553: please specify the grades in parenthesis as a service to the international reader (I assume you mean G1 to G12).

# Proofreading

Lines 2-3: please check hyphenation because the title appeared hyphenated even in the metadata shared with me.

Lines 335-338: there seem to be very long paragraph breaks that need to be addressed.

Line 401: italicize foreign words.

Line 415: do not say "were operationalized:". Replace with: "were operationalized as shown in table...". That is, because you do not know where the table will be placed during typesetting once you are being produced.

Line 568: should publication outlets' names be italicized?

Lines 1002+: is there a copy-paste issue in the list of references? The syntax does not look like APA7 and it displays parenthetical notes that should be limited to in-text citations. Please sanitize.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude for the careful, thorough, and insightful review of our manuscript. Your constructive observations and detailed recommendations have been invaluable in improving the quality and clarity of our work. Without your accurate and timely feedback, it would not have been possible to achieve the current level of refinement in this study.

We are pleased to inform you that all of your comments and suggestions have been carefully addressed and incorporated into the revised version of the manuscript. These revisions have strengthened the methodological structure, improved the organization of the literature review and clarified several conceptual aspects as you recommended.

We deeply appreciate the generous time and expertise you dedicated to this review process, as well as your supportive guidance that has allowed us to present a stronger and more rigorous contribution.

Thank you once again for your kind and valuable support.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I commend the great effort the authors made in completing this distinguished study of curriculum reform in Ecuador in 2024, focused on integrating civic, ethical, and integrity education in response to the societal conditions of violence and organized crime. It specialized in a qualitative analysis of national coverage, revealing the crucial role of the media in influencing as a strategic tool for promoting national identity and social advocacy. The study is distinguished in several aspects, such as using a qualitative analytical approach that highlights the histories of media and the symbolic framing of educational policies, providing an innovative perspective for various industries on the role of civic and moral education in confronting violence, and highlighting the importance of national rituals and school symbols in rebuilding trust and identity.

I recommend adding some of these topics for Future Research.

• Expanding the school study of media literacy and media activities in schools.
• Exploring attitudes of teachers, parents, and students towards new educational reforms.

The study is ideally conducted, original, and methodologically clear, and I recommend it as is with minor modifications regarding further research.

Author Response

We sincerely thank for the thoughtful and constructive feedback provided on our manuscript. Your kind recognition of the study’s contribution, together with your insightful recommendations, have been greatly appreciated.

In particular, we have carefully considered your suggestion to expand the Future Research dimension. In response, two additional paragraphs have been incorporated at the end of the Conclusions section. These paragraphs outline future lines of inquiry that emerge from this study, focusing on the role of media literacy and media-related activities in schools across Ecuador, and the exploration of teachers’, parents’ and students’ attitudes toward the new educational reforms at the national level. To strengthen these points, we have integrated relevant academic references and citations within the body of the text and updated the bibliographic section accordingly.

We are confident that these additions enhance the depth of the manuscript and respond to your recommendations in a manner that reinforces both its theoretical and practical contributions. Thank you once again for your generous work in reviewing this article and for guiding us toward a more robust and comprehensive version of our research.