Critical Family History: A Tool to Dismantle Racism

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an excellent and well-written article about doing Critical Family History to contribute to acknowledging group disparities of privilege and reveal the truth about oppression and oppressing. I have a few suggestions to improve the presentation:

1. The abstract and text (p. 2) suggest four authors, including two professors and two students. Yet, the "positionality" of only the first and second authors is reported (pp. 2-3). No reason is given for omitting the positionality of the other two authors nor why the positionality of the included ones is more important or crucial to the article. Either some explanation is needed, or the positionality of all four authors should be included. If in fact there are only two co-authors on this paper, that needs to be clarified.

2. On pp. 7-8, there is an extensive discussion of Vicki's childhood recollections about religion, God, race, and power relationships. One paragraph in particular seems misplaced. Nothing in the narrative reported on pp. 7-8, lines 302-355, suggests that Vicki as a child had much if any awareness or even "confusion" about race and racial power relationships until adulthood, later in life. The paragraph on p. 7, lines 326-329, is contradictory in hinting that Vicki experienced "inner unsettledness" related to "differences in how Black people lived and were treated". The other discussions in this section suggest that Vicki was more unsettled about why there was "suffering and injustice in the world" if there were a God, rather than focusing this confusion on race. Perhaps it would be more accurate to situate this paragraph (lines 326-329) after the subsequent paragraph, moving it to what is now line 343 and before the paragraph beginning with "Pinar et al. (2008) explain...."

3. There are a plethora of semi-colons throughout the paper that don't seem to make sense and sometimes even result in several sub-sentences rather than the conventional use of a semi-colon to separate two sentences that are closely related to one another. For example:

p. 8, lines 401-403, lines 403. 

p. 9, lines 405-409, lines 413-415, line 455.

Also, there are line-space breaks that are obvious printing errors: p. 9, lines 433-435. Finally, there is an over-use of commas; this could be a matter of style, so I leave that issue to the authors and editor.

4. There are a couple of instances where text seems to be missing: p. 10, line 468, should this read "family occupied for much of his childhood" rather than just "family much of his childhood." On p. 11, line 532, the phrase "a faith she shared accepts all races of people" is not grammatical within this sentence.

5. It is standard for research involving human participants that a formal IRB or "human subjects" review be conducted prior to doing the research. The notes at the conclusion of the article make no reference to an IRB review. Particularly as the article deals with issues that could arouse distress in the participants (especially the two students which were in a power relationship with the two professors), this should be noted.

See above summary of the only punctuation and grammatical concerns.

Author Response

Thank you for your careful review and comments!  Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I enjoyed reading this manuscript. Two things about it struck me: 1) the powerful impact of personalizing history, and 2) the stories that emerged from the research that would have been buried and forgotten otherwise. Very powerful!

I'm not sure that the conceptual framework of relational cultural knowing fits very well. For one thing, that framework is grounded in cultural difference, but racism was the core problem the stories from the research uncovered. Cultural difference and racism are not the same thing. I believe that the manuscript either needs to link the existing framework more closely with the rest of the paper, or use a different framework that focuses more on racism than on cultural difference.

I was a bit confused about authorship. I believe that the manuscript has two authors. If Alexia is one of the authors, then her section in Findings should be written in her voice, not in the first author's voice. And other places that could be written as "we" (especially in the methodology) should be written that way. Otherwise, it isn't clear why a second author is listed if the second author isn't even authoring her parts of the paper.

Line 363: The author notes that she and her family benefited from oppressing Blacks -- please elaborate. Benefited in what way(s)? This is an important idea that should be fleshed out a little more.

Section 3.4.1 contains some repetition from the paragraphs right above. The authors should trim repetition.

This is minor, but indented quotations should be fully indented. Right now they appear as paragraphs rather than as indented quotations.

Spell out what AERA refers to, and check to make sure there are no other acronyms that aren't spelled out.

Author Response

I appreciate your comments!  Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an education paper that I read as a historian and so I am unaware of the education field. I do have an interest in Critical Family History.

I understand the urgency of you doing this work in the current situation in the US. 

In line 7 you should have the word 'mention' rather than thought. The first sentence of the introduction must be deleted because you do not cover how the idea of race emerged at all and the quote sits oddly with the rest of the paper. 

The introduction needs reworking. 

The whole of 2.6 should be moved to the front of the paper because Bhatt--harya explains exactly what you are attempting and your discussion of constellation stories also sets out your project. - line 191 plus. Then an explanation of de-colonization and then line 49-59, then 155 -173, the idea of care.

'tolerant and good about themselves' is emotion and the management of the emotions emerging from one person in the class having detailed their own family's history which might be bloodier and more graphic than others is to be dealt with through cultivating such emotions. I can see the point of the religious perspective of Buddhism here but there are negatives to introducing religion into a the classroom when it might be better to leave it out. I would like you to ward off this criticism in your paper if you decide to keep the religious section. Since the religious turn in education ie. fundamentalism has been significant in the US you may well be seen as doing exactly the same with your Buddhism. The culture of care might well take its place 164.

I do keep thinking of memory work and writers like Passerini while I read the memories presented - it does not entirely relate to this paper but might be worth thinking about in terms of the information or memories coming from students and its relationship to a constructed past.

Research question 4 deconstruct the way racism impacts me etc rather than past tense.

Line 91 - insights - could you add something about how living with a Black man illuminated your white privilege in day to day encounters? It always shows so much about racism eg. renting a house, stopping a taxi etc.

PWI - do you need so many acronyms - this I gather derives from education, but at points I had to look back to remind myself what exactly they meant.

123 - 'exploration' of power relations not nature.

469 - is it plot or is plat an American term.

473 - First Nations people - is it possible to draw attention to colonization earlier in the paper.

section 3 - you need to define gavel as it is not an important symbol in other countries. 'a sacred symbol' was desecrated by being made from such a tree yet how does symbol relate to its reality as part of a system of law that allowed lynching? One expects the gavel to be made from the tree then. The lynching is the problem and the culture that thought it a 'sacred' thing itself in order to use its wood in this way is also the problem. I think rephrase - the pit in your stomach comes from the lynching and its symbolics.

601 - Are not there class exercises that are introduced before tackling racism in the classroom? Perhaps these could be referenced in place of Ikeda if you decide to leave Buddhism out.

645 - the boar story, this is not entirely relevant to the concerns of the paper and can be left out. 

656 - 'white supremacist ideology' - can you also add white privilege or would it be better to have the word 'racism in all its forms' instead.

679 - this is a thought provoking idea. Love and appreciation for ancestors, I have always wondered what kind of love that is exactly. Family history companies do sell information on the basis of it and it is widely advertised. Connection to the word 'family' has been politically encouraged in Australia and it is only in recent times that it has meant so much. From whatever cause the emotions are engaged and your paper will be most helpful in dealing with them.

English is fine.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and suggestions.  Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf