Teaching the Others’ History in an Arab National Context Comparing Emirati to Syrian School Textbooks
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis manuscript examines the history education textbooks from Syria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). I think the paper requires substantial revision to clarify its theoretical grounding, methodological choices, and interpretive framework.
The review of prior research is incomplete. Summaries of the prior research should clearly delineate the scope, key findings, and limitations of each existing study. Based on this, specify how your study fills a knowledge gap in the history education research, and how it builds on or diverges from previous work.
Beyond shared Arabic and Islamic heritage, the rationale for focusing on Syria and the UAE is not evident. What other socio-political, economic, or educational dimensions make this pairing particularly informative? Consider comparing with other countries featured in the literature (e.g., Jordan) or explain why those cases fall outside your study’s objectives.
The manuscript notes differences in each country’s relations with Western nations, but neglects major divergences in economic development, population size, and political systems. These factors may confound your findings.
For an international audience, provide a concise overview of each country’s history education system, including curriculum structure and exposure to political influences. I also recommend incorporating a brief comparative overview of each country’s socioeconomic and political context to help readers appreciate the complexity behind any observed textbook differences.
The term “the Others” appears repeatedly in the manuscript without definition. Clarify exactly what this category encompasses.
Explain why you selected the four critical aspects for analysis and describe in detail how textual passages were assigned to these categories (e.g., coding scheme).
The conclusion section should restate your principal findings, situating them within the context of existing research. Discuss the principal drivers behind any divergences you observed (e.g., political ideology, national identity construction, economic factors). Emphasize the broader significance of your results for Arab educational policymakers, regional curricula development, and comparative education scholarship globally.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
thank you very much for your time and your enlightening remarks that definitely improve the general outlook of our essay. We did our best to address every concern raised in your comments
Comment 1
The review of prior research is incomplete. Summaries of the prior research should clearly delineate the scope, key findings, and limitations of each existing study. Based on this, specify how your study fills a knowledge gap in the history education research, and how it builds on or diverges from previous work.
Response 1
You are certainly right in this; therefore, we worked a lot to expand on literature review and the significance of this study as you will find out in the new section we added ''Research background and Objectives'' (lines 26-124)
Comments 2, 3, 4
Beyond shared Arabic and Islamic heritage, the rationale for focusing on Syria and the UAE is not evident. What other socio-political, economic, or educational dimensions make this pairing particularly informative? Consider comparing with other countries featured in the literature (e.g., Jordan) or explain why those cases fall outside your study’s objectives.
The manuscript notes differences in each country’s relations with Western nations, but neglects major divergences in economic development, population size, and political systems. These factors may confound your findings.
For an international audience, provide a concise overview of each country’s history education system, including curriculum structure and exposure to political influences. I also recommend incorporating a brief comparative overview of each country’s socioeconomic and political context to help readers appreciate the complexity behind any observed textbook differences.
Responses 2, 3, 4
For your own convenience I clustered the aforementioned comments and provided a new section (1.2. Syria and the UAE: a comparative overview, lines 126-190) which, I think, addresses all the points raised above
Comment 5
The term “the Others” appears repeatedly in the manuscript without definition. Clarify exactly what this category encompasses
Response 5
I hope that we addressed this deficiency, please check lines 38-49, 110, 226-229
Comment 6
Explain why you selected the four critical aspects for analysis and describe in detail how textual passages were assigned to these categories (e.g., coding scheme).
Response 6
The whole "Materials and Methods'' section was restructured to correspond to your comment, please check lines 194-242
Comment 7
The conclusion section should restate your principal findings, situating them within the context of existing research. Discuss the principal drivers behind any divergences you observed (e.g., political ideology, national identity construction, economic factors). Emphasize the broader significance of your results for Arab educational policymakers, regional curricula development, and comparative education scholarship globally.
Response 7
You are definitely right; the conclusions section should have been much more elaborate. Therefore we drastically amended it trying to respond to all your points of concern (lines 665-757)
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Authors,
An interesting paper, which I believe should be published after attending to some matters that concern me. I start with the trivial editorial, and encourage you to ensure that all such slips are rectified.
- Line 55 - 'do' should be 'does';
- Line 142 - 'finaly' should be finally';
- Line 297-331 is all one para. There are many dense and long paras in the Discussion section, which need breaking into meaning chunks for readability;
- Line 407 " A good deal of excerpts is dedicated to..." - there are several examples of clumsy expression such as this.
- Lines 58-82 - the Methodology section, is quite short. The section does describe WHAT materials were analysed but not actually HOW these materials were analysed: Yes I realise you name the content analysis with references like Cresswell and Denzin and Lincoln - this is good - but please attend to the other details required. Please let the reader understand how you carried that out: Which software? Manual Content Analyses? ChatGPT or other AI? Please add a section that describes how this was done - remember, all research must be reproducible, so there should be enough detail in the paper to understand how to replicate the study. How many runs at the analyses did you do? Did you carry out any cross-cutting analyses to check the original one? How were the thematic categories refined step by step using these methods to the 4 themes you end up reporting in the Discussion section?
- The Discussion and Conclusions sections are quite good and clear. However, at present, the Conclusion only reports what has been covered, but doesn't draw out the implications. It should be added to to include:
- A succinct list of the study's findings, maybe restricted to 3 or 4;
- Once the findings are stated clearly, what are the implications that you can draw out of these findings for POLICY (For the various administrations you deal with), PRACTICE (Education/curriculum etc) and FURTHER RESEARCH.
- In general, this is an interesting paper which contributes some new angles on the Middle East. However, these results and implications need more drawing out in the Conclusion section.
Difficult and long slabs of text. The actual expression is OK - needs loosening up a little with more well-structured paras to break up the slabs-of-text issue.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
thank you very much for your kind words and your enlightening remarks that definitely improve the general outlook of our paper. Your assistance is highly appreciated and we did our best to respond to all your concerns
- Line 55 - 'do' should be 'does';
- Line 142 - 'finaly' should be finally';
- Line 297-331 is all one para. There are many dense and long paras in the Discussion section, which need breaking into meaning chunks for readability;
- Line 407 " A good deal of excerpts is dedicated to..." - there are several examples of clumsy expression such as this.
Response:
We paid attention to all the language comments raised, therefore we consulted professionals to assist us through the process. I hope that all language issues are now addressed and all ideas are clear and expressed in the most sophisticated fashion. Please note that due to additions, the lines you mentioned in your initial comments have now changed.
5. Lines 58-82 - the Methodology section, is quite short. The section does describe WHAT materials were analysed but not actually HOW these materials were analysed: Yes I realise you name the content analysis with references like Cresswell and Denzin and Lincoln - this is good - but please attend to the other details required. Please let the reader understand how you carried that out: Which software? Manual Content Analyses? ChatGPT or other AI? Please add a section that describes how this was done - remember, all research must be reproducible, so there should be enough detail in the paper to understand how to replicate the study. How many runs at the analyses did you do? Did you carry out any cross-cutting analyses to check the original one? How were the thematic categories refined step by step using these methods to the 4 themes you end up reporting in the Discussion section?
Response:
you are definitely right in pointing this out. The methodology ought to be more elaborate, thus we restructured the whole "Materials and Methods'' section so as to make sure that we met all the concerns raised. Please check out the lines 194-243
6. The Discussion and Conclusions sections are quite good and clear. However, at present, the Conclusion only reports what has been covered, but doesn't draw out the implications. It should be added to to include:
A succinct list of the study's findings, maybe restricted to 3 or 4;
Once the findings are stated clearly, what are the implications that you can draw out of these findings for POLICY (For the various administrations you deal with), PRACTICE (Education/curriculum etc) and FURTHER RESEARCH
7. In general, this is an interesting paper which contributes some new angles on the Middle East. However, these results and implications need more drawing out in the Conclusion section.
Response:
your final remarks enabled us to revisit the overall literature and put our research in context. As you will find out, we added two sections in this regard, making sure that the literature review and the theoretical background are clearly demonstrated (lines 26-190) and after the discussion we drastically amended the Conclusions with a view to highlight the study's implications as requested (lines 666-757)
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors have addressed my comments well.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Authors,
I have read this revision, and while I now feel the modifications have gone a bit over the top, but it is now OK for publication.
