Foraging Eco-Ethology, Incentives and Motivations in the Kindergartens of Norway Based on Sámi and Norwegian Cultures
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a very interesting article, covering a research hole. There is a lack of research in this field, and the article may become an answer to this need.
However, the structure is a bit out of the ordinary, which means that the sample and methodology of the re-analysed studies are not well described. Additionally, the two re-analysed studies seem tp be occuring three times through the article; 1) as previous research, 2) as initial presentation in part 1.4, and 3) in part 4. Additionally, if I read the text correctly, one of the researchers is also serving as an informant, as expert in at least one project.
This makes it hard to get an overview of the involved projects, and I suggest a more common structure, where the involved projects and the re-analysed materials are clearly stated in the beginning.
The article is based on partly re-analysing two existing studies, partly adding new data. Due to the somewhat blind review process, I cannot with certainty verify my main concerns about the mixture of references to previous research and the re-use of the same data.
Anyway, I recommend a changed structure for the article, that clarifies my above mentioned concerns.
The results seem to come from two small samples, which further motivates stringency in the methodology.
Apart from this, the text is well written. Some minor things:
Iine 65 chapter - shouldn't it be article?
line 42 ff Most of the references to specific pages are often written as (pp89-98) IS this according to the Journal's style? More usual is (pp. 89–98).
The reference list needs to be addressed for consistency, however, I am not familiar with the style of the Journal.
Finally, I couldn't find the Figure in the draft, and cannot comment on its status or contribution.
I wish you good luck with the article.
Author Response
Dear reviewer 1
Thank you for your time to read and review our manuscript. We really appreciate that you find it interesting and that it fills research gaps on indigenous issues in ECE.
We have got permission to write our paper in accordance with the IMRAD-structure and not following the template of Genealogy where the methods-section was positioned after the discussion section. It was indeed “a bit out of the ordinary”, and we believe that your impression of the methodology as “not well described” may partly be due to the strange and uncommon order of things.
This paper is already very long (almost 10.000 words) and it was originally prepared as a book chapter. That’s why we had removed details on the methods in the description and instead cited the papers that originally held this information. We have added more details in the method section (se changes in red). To clarify the first author’s role in the research, we have included a sentence that states that the Norwegian ECE study was a participatory action research (line 306-312). This implies active participation of both the researcher and the practitioners in the study. The author’s (expert’s) field notes and ECE professional interviews show that the external expert had a crucial part of the incentives and motivations for foraging in the Norwegian ECE setting.
The minor issues are changed in accordance with your comments.
The reference list has been updated for consistency.
The figures that were part of the analysis of the data were included in the submission in a separate zip-folder. We have also provided a new table 1 to give the reader an overview of the data material, which was a request from reviewer 2.
We hope that this responds letter and our changes in the manuscript clarifies it all for you.
Kind regards,
The Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper on incentives and motivations of Sámi and Norwegian kindergarten teachers to implement foraging into ECE. The authors explore viewpoints of nature, knowledge transfer, and motivations for applying foraging in ECE in Sámi and Norwegian teachers with a qualitative approach. I found the paper very interesting to read and it certainly has multiple strengths. For example, the study specifically addresses the concerns of an indigenous minority and shows possibilities in which cultural heritage can be supported in our youngest. Although there are undoubtedly strengths to this manuscript, I have some concerns as well. My main concerns focus on (a) a lack of clear hypotheses motivated by the literature in the introduction, (b) a lack of a thorough description of the sample and the methods, and (c) the involvement of the lead author in the study procedure. I detail my queries in more detail below:
The theory part explores Norwegian and Sámi cultural differences. However, the focus on ECE practice is missing. It would help to tailor the theory part to the main topic of the study and explore in detail how the cultural differences translate into ECE practice. For example, it is interesting to read about the Sámi’s cultural heritage, in ll. 72 ff. However, it remains unclear how this translates into everyday ECE practice, which is the main topic of the paper. The same applies for the description of the foraging traditions in Norway.
From ll. 50 ff.: I appreciate that the authors are explicit about their cultural heritage. However, this information contains the employment information of the authors and would have made it possible for the reviewer to find the authors’ identities. This part should have been blinded at least for peer review. Moreover, I do not think that the university information provides any additional benefits to the paper.
More information is needed about Norwegian kindergartens, as kindergartens differ greatly between countries. For example, are all children from 0 to 6 in one group? Are they play-based or more education-based? How are teachers trained? This information will help compare the Norwegian system to other countries.
From ll. 195 ff.: What were the results and take-aways of these studies/discussions? How do they matter for your hypotheses? Moreover, what are the research gaps that warrant investigation and why?
Chapter 1.4.2: How do the practices differ from Norwegian kindergartens?
l. 246: So is becoming a “birgen” a goal of Sámi kindergartens in particular? Who defined this goal?
The method part should be situated before the results part. Moreover, information is missing from the method section. Please explain the sample in more detail, referring to age, gender distribution, number of participants etc. Please also explain how consent was obtained.
Also, what methods were used for data collection? What questions were asked? Did all participants receive the same prompts and questions? If not, this might have implications for the results.
Where were the kindergartens situated? Rural areas, urban areas? How large were the urban areas? How many kindergartens took part? Did the location differ between Norwegian and Sámi kindergartens? If yes, this might have implications for the results as well.
Please explain the procedure of the study in general. What was done when? What was observed when?
It is otherwise hard to follow the reasoning and the results part without a proper explanation of the procedure and currently, the paper does not allow the reader to assess the merit of the results or estimate whether they might be biased in any way.
Moreover, without a proper explanation of the sample, it is hard to figure out whether we are truly seeing cultural differences or whether they are rather interindividual, age-related, or location-related (urban vs. rural).
ll. 267 ff: How did you arrive at this research question? Please explain your rationale in more detail. What were your hypotheses? Are “viewpoints” etc. hypotheses or how where these generated?
ll. 340 ff.: It is a major concern that the lead author was involved as an expert in the project to such a high degree. Their interaction with the kindergarten personnel could have biased the results as they were not blind to the study’s hypotheses. This should be discussed in the limitations. As of now, I am not convinced that the results are unbiased and can be trusted.
l. 431: “Foraging is also an arena for kindergarten children’s language learning.” How did you arrive at this conclusion? What about potential effects on life sciences?
l. 547: it is mentioned that the Norwegian kindergarten was situated in an urban area. This should have been mentioned earlier. Moreover, what does urban imply? How large is the urban area approximately (50.000 inhabitants? 20.000?)?
ll. 567 ff.: The fact that the lead author was involved in the study and coded the answers is very concerning and might have biased the results substantially, calling the whole results part into question. It is good that the second author also looked over the data. However, was the second author blinded to the research questions and the participants’ heritage? If not, author 2 could also have been biased. I advise the authors to have an independent person code the available data as well (in a double-blind procedure) to see whether they arrive at the same conclusions.
4. Materials and Methods: This part should be situated before the results part.
Minor concerns:
l. 203: What were these “valuable experiences”?
l. 332: What are the eight seasons?
There were some typos throughout the manuscript. Please check the spelling and punctuation again. Otherwise, the manuscript was easy to follow and the English was of high quality.
Author Response
Dear reviewer 2
Thank you for your time to read and review our manuscript. We really appreciate that you find it interesting and that it fills a research gap on indigenous issues in ECE.
Your major response was (a) a lack of clear hypotheses motivated by the literature in the introduction, (b) a lack of a thorough description of the sample and the methods, and (c) the involvement of the lead author in the study procedure. We will try to answer this below supported by changes in the manuscript (red text). We have tried to merge your questions into one paragraph where questions/comments overlap.
Reviewer: (a) a lack of clear hypotheses motivated by the literature in the introduction
We have now clearly stated our research questions in the last paragraph of the introduction section (see line 74-76). The motivation from the literature is highlighted from a governmental white paper and the framework plan of kindergartens (line 45-55). How foraging is incentivized and motivated in ECE of Norway are research gaps that are addressed in our paper. We know that foraging takes place in some Norwegian ECE settings, but until now we did not clearly see what incentivized and motivated it.
Reviewer: The theory part explores Norwegian and Sámi cultural differences. However, the focus on ECE practice is missing. It would help to tailor the theory part to the main topic of the study and explore in detail how the cultural differences translate into ECE practice. For example, it is interesting to read about the Sámi’s cultural heritage, in ll. 72 ff. However, it remains unclear how this translates into everyday ECE practice, which is the main topic of the paper. The same applies for the description of the foraging traditions in Norway. Chapter 1.4.2: How do the practices differ from Norwegian kindergartens? l. 246: So is becoming a “birgen” a goal of Sámi kindergartens in particular? Who defined this goal?
The section which includes a literature review of foraging in ECE, both with respect to Norwegian and Sámi culture can be read in section 1.4. First, we give an international and general review, and then, in the subsections 1.4.1 and 1.4.2, a Norwegian and Sámi ECE literature review respectively. We have changed the title of the subsections to clarify this. I addition we have inserted that Sámi practices are connected to the eight Sámi seasons with a new reference (line 257-258). Most Norwegians have a western view where there are only four seasons. Foraging is usually done in the autumn. See also line 651. Becoming birgen is a value in Sámi child rearing and society, and according to the Norwegian framework plan for kindergartens Sámi kindergartens should pass on Sámi values (see line 271-273). We also discuss this in line 654-655.
Reviewer: More information is needed about Norwegian kindergartens, as kindergartens differ greatly between countries. For example, are all children from 0 to 6 in one group? Are they play-based or more education-based? How are teachers trained? This information will help compare the Norwegian system to other countries.
Details about Norwegian kindergartens and ECE professionals' education have been added in section 1.3.
Reviewer: From ll. 195 ff.: What were the results and take-aways of these studies/discussions? How do they matter for your hypotheses? Moreover, what are the research gaps that warrant investigation and why?
We have summarized the take-aways from the previous studies and pinpointed the research gap that warrants further investigation in line 247-251 and 291-295.
Reviewer: (b) a lack of a thorough description of the sample and the methods. The method part should be situated before the results part. Moreover, information is missing from the method section.
- b) We have now got permission to write our paper in accordance with the IMRAD-structure and not following the template of Genealogy where the methods-section is positioned after the discussion section. We believe that your impression of the methodology as not well described may partly be due to the strange and uncommon order of things.
Reviewer: Please explain the sample in more detail, referring to age, gender distribution, number of participants etc. Please also explain how consent was obtained. Also, what methods were used for data collection? What questions were asked? Did all participants receive the same prompts and questions? If not, this might have implications for the results. Where were the kindergartens situated? Rural areas, urban areas? How large were the urban areas? How many kindergartens took part? Did the location differ between Norwegian and Sámi kindergartens? If yes, this might have implications for the results as well. Please explain the procedure of the study in general. What was done when? What was observed when? It is otherwise hard to follow the reasoning and the results part without a proper explanation of the procedure and currently, the paper does not allow the reader to assess the merit of the results or estimate whether they might be biased in any way.
This paper is already very long (almost 10.000 words) and it was originally prepared as a book chapter. That’s partly why we have removed details on the methods in the description and instead cited the papers that originally held this information (age, gender distribution, number of participants etc. consent). We have included a table 1 that provides information about the whole data set and write additional information to give a better overview of the methods used for data collection. We have also included data on ethical issues in the text. However, we do not think the details on methods from the previous papers are critical to the discussion of this study. In other papers, it is common to cite already mentioned methods and data handling, and just include information of importance for data interpretation.
Since the objective of this study is to revisit previous data from other studies that has been published in the past, we argue that the procedures and details are unnecessary. However, we can include interview guides in the supplementary data if required.
Reviewer: ll. 267 ff: How did you arrive at this research question? Please explain your rationale in more detail. What were your hypotheses? Are “viewpoints” etc. hypotheses or how where these generated?
The research questions in the two previous studies were to study “the how and what - how things are done in daily practice”. This study explores “the why – incentives and motivations behind foraging”. That is a more abstract question which can be interpreted in the previous data, and we see cultural motivated statements in the data. That’s why we have included many direct citations from the interviewees and field notes, to show and support the themes in our RTA.
Reviewer: ll. 340 ff.: It is a major concern that the lead author was involved as an expert in the project to such a high degree. Their interaction with the kindergarten personnel could have biased the results as they were not blind to the study’s hypotheses. This should be discussed in the limitations. As of now, I am not convinced that the results are unbiased and can be trusted.
- c) To clarify the external expert’s role in the research, we have changed two sentences that states that the Norwegian ECE study was a participatory action research which implies active collaboration of both the researcher and the practitioners in the study. The field researcher’s (expert’s) field notes and ECE professional interviews showed that the external expert had a crucial part of the incentives and motivations for foraging in the Norwegian ECE setting (see result and discussion). The research questions of this study were designed in january 2023. The data collection of the previous studies was in 2021 and 2022. The researcher could thus not have biased the participants.
Reviewer: From ll. 50 ff.: I appreciate that the authors are explicit about their cultural heritage. However, this information contains the employment information of the authors and would have made it possible for the reviewer to find the authors’ identities. This part should have been blinded at least for peer review. Moreover, I do not think that the university information provides any additional benefits to the paper.
Your comments concerning the authors cultural heritage and employment information is relevant to mention as this is a study that concerns indigenous issues (we study Sámi culture perspectives from within a Sámi context, not from the outside), but we agree that it does not support anonymity. We will be aware of this for future submissions to peer reviewed journals. We do not mind that you now know who we are, but anonymity was requested by this journal.
Reviewer: l. 431: “Foraging is also an arena for kindergarten children’s language learning.” How did you arrive at this conclusion? What about potential effects on life sciences?
We see this language learning in the interview statements (line 530-540). We only back up and discuss results from our data. The effect of competence building has been discussed in previous papers. This paper explores cultural issues and motivations to forage in ECE. The teachers seem to be more eager to learn about the foraging process with the children, that gave a juicy product, than exploring the life science behind it.
Reviewer: l. 547: it is mentioned that the Norwegian kindergarten was situated in an urban area. This should have been mentioned earlier. Moreover, what does urban imply? How large is the urban area approximately (50.000 inhabitants? 20.000?)?
We believe that the cultural features in this study are significant since all ECE professionals work in urban areas (towns of 10.000, 77.000 and 210.000 inhabitants). The Norwegian ECE setting was in a town/municipality of 77.000 inhabitants (approximately 15th largest town in Norway). We discuss this in the limitation section (4.2), but we leave out details on the size of the town. It is urban in a Norwegian context.
Reviewer: ll. 567 ff.: The fact that the lead author was involved in the study and coded the answers is very concerning and might have biased the results substantially, calling the whole results part into question. It is good that the second author also looked over the data. However, was the second author blinded to the research questions and the participants’ heritage? If not, author 2 could also have been biased. I advise the authors to have an independent person code the available data as well (in a double-blind procedure) to see whether they arrive at the same conclusions.
Doing reflective thematic analysis (RTA) as described by Brown and Clarke endorses the subjectivity of the researcher. We have mentioned this in the method section in line 356-359. We argue in this way: “RTA was chosen because it “fully embrace qualitative research values and the subjective skills the researcher brings to the process” (Braun and Clarke 2021)(p333) and because of the flexibility that lies in abductively developing themes as a “pattern of shared meaning, united by a central concept or idea” (p341)”. Please read through the analysis again and see how we worked it through using our subjective skills with the aim of finding pattern of shared meanings (see also figure 1). We investigated the data set again and again to find the themes of shared meanings. RTA must not to be mixed with coding consensus or codebook reliability of double-blind procedures. Please read Brown and Clarke https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1769238 . RTA is suitable for this kind of study as the expertise of the authors also plays an essential role in the theme development. RTA can have only one author that have collected and immersed with the data set to interpret it to find shared meanings or ideas. See also: Quality | Thematic Analysis. We have used many citations from the informants to exemplify the meanings and cared ideas within the themes. We believe that the data speaks for itself.
Minor concerns:
Reviewer: l. 203: What were these “valuable experiences”?
The authors that wrote this (and we) believe that foraging practices are “valueble experiences” for children. We have removed the word “valuable”, although it is obvious that it is valuable to know the origin of food.
Reviewer: l. 332: What are the eight seasons?
It is the Sámi way to see cycle of the year. We have added an explanation and reference in line 257 where this was mentioned the first time.
Kind regards,
The Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I appreciate the revisions the authors applied to the manuscript. They have addressed my main concerns.
I detected some few minor issues:
1. In response to my comment the authors state:
We see this language learning in the interview statements (line 530-540). We only back up and discuss results from our data. The effect of competence building has been discussed in previous papers. This paper explores cultural issues and motivations to forage in ECE. The teachers seem to be more eager to learn about the foraging process with the children, that gave a juicy product, than exploring the life science behind it.
Please refer to this explicitly in the text. It was not clear for me how you arrived at this conclusion.
The authors that wrote this (and we) believe that foraging practices are “valueble experiences” for children. We have removed the word “valuable”, although it is obvious that it is valuable to know the origin of food.
I did not mean for the authors to change the wording here, but asked for an explanation what these valuable experiences entail. The authors gave such an explanation in their response and I urge them to add the knowledge of food origin to their paper.
Author Response
Dear reviewer 2
Thank you so much for your deep and thorough review of your paper. We have now included the words: “the knowledge of food origin” in line 219, and the sentence “The Norwegian professionals use words actively while harvesting and are aware of the language environment, while the Sámi professionals use the opportunity of foraging to learn words for the different kinds of berries (see section 3.2).” in line 636-638.
We are very grateful that you have improved your paper immensely. Thank you again!
Kind regards,
Veronica Bergan
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
