From Transdisciplinary Research to Transdisciplinary Education—The Role of Schools in Contributing to Community Well-Being and Sustainable Development

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper need to provide more detail about what is the research problem? and how to design this research, otherwise this article is more like a report than a research paper.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a good paper on the potential of TE in schools.  It is grounded in an excellent set of references that cover the long historic trajectory of this topic in its various guises.  It certainly deserves publication.

However, as a reviewer, the task is to identify weaknesses and to find ways by which the paper can have its potential impact improved. Currently it is wordy and comes across as promotional rather than considered and this needs to be addressed. The comments below are written with this in mind and there are two areas where it needs to be improved prior to further review:

1. As a research article (rather than as a commentary / perspective), it needs to show more research rigour.  Most importantly, what is the question being addressed? And, to a lesser extent, in a traditional sense, what is the hypothesis, how is it tested and what are the results / critique arising?  It currently reads as a persuasive argument for TE - which is completely valid and important.  However this is not the place for advocacy alone.  There needs to be more discussion on why this is needed and how this might arise.  Given that this is a social science article, there will not be a formal experiment as such however the arguments needs to be more objectively developed and not just presented as a requirement.  I suggest that this can be done without losing much of the current text but through a subtle revision.  In particular attention to the overall language (see #2.) and a more objective 'voice' (e.g. the term "imperative" in l107). That is emphasise the insights (including difficulties please) and, perhaps, highlight drivers and enablers to implementation of TE in the final section. 
2. There are multiple places where language trips up the flow of the article. These are summarised in the attached with very brief suggestions as to how they could be addressed. Many of these points appear elsewhere in the  article and the whole paper needs to be carefully edited for this.

Finally i would draw the authors attention to three other bodies of work that build on the broader topic of TE.  The first is Ivan Illich and the notion of deschooling society - like Piaget, Freire (and indeed Gramsci) this has a long pedigree that continues to develop and is worth mentioning.  The second, and this is less central, is the work of Riel Miller (UNESCO) and his various papers on Futures Literacy which are also part of a non-schools approach to TE.  Finally, and much more contemporary, is the work of people like Dougald Hind (https://aschoolcalledhome.org) and others associated with the Dark Mountain Project.  All are lines of enquiry that I find stimulating and relevant to this paper if it is given a broader remit.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachement

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

none

Reviewer 2 Report

Very minor editorial comments:

 - l39 - the pandemic may not be 'current' permanently - rephrase

 - l79 - 'minorly' - rephrase

 - l90 - 'part of' - sentences shouldn't end with a preposition

 - l101 - 'own and others' = their own behaviour and that of others

 - l106 - add space between full stop and new sentence

 - l150 - Error!

 - l211 - Error!

 - l253 - opportunity 'to' use their

 - l332 - indent?

 - l338 - 'community.  .'?

 - l381 - it's considered polite to acknowledge reviewers....