Becoming a Global Citizen through Participation in the Global Storylines Program

Round  1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have read with pleasure and great interest the article presented to the journal “Sustainability” for its evaluation and possible publication.

It is an elegantly, well-organised, solidly structured and thoroughly researched study -with a rich bibliography- in which the author/the authors demonstrate(s) a deep and detailed knowledge of the subject.

The only thing: I recommend to the author/s to link a little better the theoretical framework to the analysis. Please, explain in more detail the Global Citizen concern, in the context of your research  In this way, a more fluid work would be achieved. Please, also, update the literature.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you for your positive feedback and important recommendation. We have extended literature review, updated literature, and explained the concept of global citizenship in more details in the theoretical part.

Thank you once again for your help with our manuscript,

Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Introduction: paragraph 2 - in addition to socio-environmental interactions political developments help influence global issues

In recent times the word 'barriers' (in Introduction and Section 2) is usually used in context of 'obstacles/problems which can not be overcome' whereas 'constraints' is used to reference challenges which can be addressed.

Methods:

The authors failed to indicate the number of participants in each focus group. Focus groups are generally 10-15 participants. Were there more than 15 participants?

Why not efforts were made to include male teachers? Could the absence of male teachers introduced some element of gender bias in study/results? Authors need to address this matter;

Indications are that no basic training was given to the teachers in preparation for study. The results point to some of the consequences of the lack of preparation by teachers for participation in this study.

Conclusions: The authors did not have any statement about the limitations of the study given some of the concerns I have raise above. Study limitation should be addressed by authors.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you very much for your comments. We have modified our manuscript accordingly. Specifically we

replaced the word "barriers" by "constraints",

added "political dimension" to introduction;

provided more information about focus groups;

explained while only female teachers were interviewed and posed it as one of the limitation of the study;

discussed the limitations more carefully;

provided information about teacher training.

Once again, thank you for your help with our manuscript.

Best regards,

Authors

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript that is focused on global citizenship through participation in global storytelling could be of interest to ‘Sustainability’ readers. The following comments and suggestions should be addressed by the authors before considering this manuscript for publication:

INTRODUCTION:

The ideas of global citizenship education and global storytelling are nicely presented in the introduction. However, it is not quite clear how those two subjects connected to each other. You should clearly present this connection in the introduction.  You mention very briefly the connection between global citizenship education and global storytelling on p. 2. 

On the last paragraph of the introduction you present the approach of transformative learning as a suitable framework for global citizenship education. It is not clear why you mention the transformative learning. Is it part of the theoretical framework of your study? If yes – you should expand the description of this approach.

The research questions focus on the benefits and barriers of the GSL program from the perspectives of students and teachers. While the perspective of students is sufficiently presents in the introduction, the role of teachers in global citizenship education and GSL is not well described. The teachers’ importance and role are briefly discussed on p. 4 lines 162-166. A much more detailed description on teachers should be presented in the introduction.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Using focus groups as the major tool in this study seems appropriate. Please explain the reasons for choosing this tool, what are the benefits or the advantages of this tool? What was the objective of the data collection through focus groups (and not through personal semi-structured interviews that were used for the teachers) ? What did you ask the students?

How did you choose the participants in each of the focus groups? What were the criteria for that? How many students participated in each focus group? Does the sample of 52 students include students who have diverse opinions and feelings to the GSL program? Could you choose students with diverse attitudes toward the GSL program and avoid the very positive answers they actually provided?

How did you validate the content analysis you made? Please clarify

RESULTS:

The results are nicely organized and written; However, not all of the citations and interpretations that are presented in section 3.1 and 3.2 are organized around the context of “dealing with global issues”. You should stick to the original aims of the original research questions if you wish to publish the manuscript in an environment/sustainability-oriented journal. For example, claiming that the students were too young to understand the complexity of the main (environmental/global) issues in the stories is a relevant claim. You should expand on that and give some specific examples. On the contrary, I’m not sure if the extra-time that the teachers added in class to employ the story-telling should be at the front of the barriers , it not a unique barrier to EE/ESD.

Looking forward to read the next version of your manusript.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you for your inspiring comments. We have improved our manuscript to meet your reccommendations. Specifically, we

we have discussed the connection between global citizenship education and GSL more explicitly;

we have provided more information about the role of teachers, specifically  about their training;

we have provided more information about focus groups, particulaly sample selection strategy;

we have mentioned the strategy used for ensuring credibility of our findings;

we have provided more examples in Findings and made minor changes in organisation of information.

Once again, thank you very much for your ideas that helped us improving the manuscript.

Best regards,

Authors 

Round  2

Reviewer 3 Report

I read the revised version of the manuscript. All my previous comments are adequately adressed. I suggest to accept the paper for publication.