Transforming Imaginations of Africa in Geography Classrooms Through Teacher Reflexivity

Reviewer’s comment

Authors’ actions/response

Dear Author(s),

Thank you for the opportunity to read your manuscript, "Transforming Imaginations of Africa in Geography Classrooms through Teacher Reflexivity." This is a timely and important study that addresses how Eurocentric representations of Africa continue to shape both classroom practices and teacher education. The qualitative, exploratory case study design and interpretivist framework are well-suited to the research aims, and the topic is clearly significant in the context of decolonizing education.

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your time and effort in reading and correcting our manuscript. We appreciate your acknowledgement of the timeliness and significance of our study.

Your feedback is important to us, and has been used to prepare the revised manuscript.

I have one suggestion regarding the structure of the manuscript. You might consider separating the literature review from the introduction and presenting it as its own section. This would allow you to more clearly engage with recent research and give it the space it deserves, rather than having it embedded within the introductory text.

We sincerely appreciate this thoughtful suggestion. After careful consideration, we have opted to retain an integrated introduction and literature review structure. This decision reflects both the limited availability of directly relevant literature on the specific intersection of African representations, pupil schemas, and teacher reflexivity in the German geography education context, and our intention to present the conceptual background in a thematically flowing and cohesive narrative.

Nonetheless, we have reviewed and refined the section to ensure that key debates and recent research are clearly cited and more explicitly engaged (see Lines 129 – 154).

Also, it might be helpful to include the research questions explicitly in the methodology section, as this would strengthen the link between your aims and your research design.

Thank you for this helpful suggestion. We have retained the research questions in the Introduction section (Lines 179 – 181) to preserve narrative coherence, but we now briefly reiterate the study’s objectives near the start of the Methods section (Lines 198–203) to reinforce the connection between aims and design. This dual placement helps readers follow the logic of the research from conceptualization to methodology.

Reviewer’s comment

Authors’ actions/response

The manuscript offers valuable insights into the persistence of colonial stereotypes about Africa among German pupils and teacher trainees, highlighting important implications for geography education and teacher training.

Thank you for this recognition and for your effort in reviewing the manuscript.

To improve the manuscript’s clarity and impact, it is recommended that the research focus be stated more explicitly and concisely in the introduction.

Thank you. We have added a concise statement of the research focus near the end of the introduction, just before the research questions (Lines 172–177), to clarify the dual aims of the study

The limitations related to sample size and contextual specificity should be acknowledged more clearly to situate the scope of the findings.

We have added a few sentences at the end of the discussion (Lines 666 – 671), explicitly noting the small sample size, the contextual specificity of the school and university settings, and the implications for transferability. This hopefully helps clarify the scope and boundaries of the study’s findings.

The discussion would benefit from more concrete and actionable recommendations for curriculum development and pedagogical practice to enhance practical relevance.

Thank you very much. We have added a short paragraph before the conclusion to highlight three actionable recommendations, which will enhance the practical relevance of the study’s findings (see Lines 672 – 679).

While the theoretical framework is well-developed, simplifying some dense sections could improve accessibility.

Thank you. We have implemented language editing for the revised manuscript to ensure accessibility for the readers.

Minor language and formatting issues, such as unintended hyphenation and occasional verbosity, should be addressed to improve readability. Additionally, balancing passive and active voice would strengthen engagement.

Thanks. Language is now checked and edited.

 Including reflections on potential challenges to implementing proposed pedagogical reforms and outlining directions for future research would further strengthen the conclusion.

We included some sentences to acknowledge the potential challenges of implementing the pedagogical reforms proposed in this study (Lines 679 – 681). The final sentences of the conclusion provide a brief direction for future research (Lines 720 – 724).

With these revisions, the manuscript would be well-positioned for publication and make a meaningful contribution to critical geography education research.

Thank you very much for your helpful comments. We have incorporated all suggestions given to improve the current version of the manuscript. 

The scientific language quality is solid and meets the expectations for peer-reviewed academic publication in education and social sciences. With minor editing for conciseness and readability, it would be even stronger. In terms of abstract part, remove the unintended hyphenation artifacts—the content and language are otherwise publication-ready.

We appreciate the reviewer’s attention to this detail. In revising the manuscript, we retained technical terms to preserve precise meaning, while also improving conciseness by reframing some sentences.

Regarding the hyphenation artifacts, these were automatically generated by the journal’s formatting and style settings within the submission template. We have reviewed the text to ensure no unnecessary hyphenation remains, and hope that final typesetting will eliminate these artifacts.