Accepting Different Faiths: Insights from Religious Narratives of Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities in Poland

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic of the paper is original, quite well contextualized, the text have a clear structure with clearly stated research design, questions and methods. It seemed to me that the hypothesis is missing, but it migh have been somehow hidden in the introduction, so my suggestion goes to unveil it and make more clear for the final reader.

In addition, the text deserves attention because it raises the important issue of religious sensitivity of people with intellectual disabilities in the broad sense. The author(s) does not (do not) specify any categories or levels of these disabilities, which could be helpful to the reader. I recommend adding this information to the presentation of the findings or elsewhere.

Moreover, in the presentation of findings and further, in the discussion, my surprise was evoked by mentioning the difficulties the participants had in defining their religious affiliation. The authors noted, in the introduction to Section 6.1, that many could not indicate what religion/denomination they follow. However, this seems to be contradicted by subsequent information, found in sections 6.2 and 6.3. There, in the titles of these paragrpahs the authors assume a Catholic affiliation, and the respondents show a quite good knowledge of the basic terminology associated with this religion, that is, they are aware of the practices of this religion and correctly name the sacraments they have already received or practice, as well as the religious symbols they possess.

So shouldn't the conclusions in Section 6.1 be reworded? Isn't the respondents' uncertainty due to the fact that they somehow had to overcome their fear and gain confidence during the interview, and the uncertainty was just a kind of “research bias/error” subdue to the circumstances of the study? The authors are conscious about this by stating: "Not  knowing the terms that allow for the specification of one’s affiliation did not necessarily  indicate identification difficulties". (lines 467-468).

Respondents' statements cited in Sections 6.3 and 6.4 show that they have a good understanding of religious diversity and related terminology. Therefore, the use of general quantifiers, e.g., “participants,” “some,” “others,” introduces a great deal of ambiguity in the presentation of the findings (along the whole Section 6) and makes it difficult to identify the dominant trend. Certainly, the number of quoted statements cannot be the decisive indicator of dominant opinions. Therefore, with such a number of respondents, it would be wise to take care to indicate the exact number of responses assigned to a given category, which should not be difficult thanks to the method used in data analysis, clearly described in Chapter 5 and presented in Table 1.

Given that the research was conducted in Poland, the low representation of Polish sources in the references is surprising. This is a sign that little research of this type has been conducted in this country (cf. lines 529-530). In my opinion, this calls for a comment on the range of literature used or available on the topic in this country.

It is also important to correctly formulate some names that are mistranslated into English. For example: “vocational activity center” can mean vocational education and training (VET), which is far from the issue at hand. Similarly, it can be misleading to use the name “occupational therapy workshop,”which means occupational therapy training rather than places where it is practiced.

The authors also coined the term "social and vocational rehabilitation". In my opinion, it would be necessary to search for VR programs along with the proposed services to find English equivalents for Polish institutions and use the appropriate vocabulary.

I'm not sure if the principles and goals of the vocational rehabilitation in Poland are similar to those in the US implemented by The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 or any of the European Union documents issued as of 1974. Of course, the problem is not strict similarity, but the readability of the terms used in the text.

The notion "typical intellectual functioning" (line 516) shoud also be verified.

There are also some errors in religious English terminology. In line 314 we have the title of the prayer "Under Your Protection", but it seems to be a literal copy of the Polish title. Instead, this prayer should be called by its Latin title "Sub Tuum Praesidium", which is translated in several ways in English, e.g. "We fly to Thy Protection".  I am also not sure whether in line 319 the respondent referred to All Souls' Day or rather All Saints' Day, which is more likely in this context.

A moderate editing of English would also be required.

E.g. line 481: "A "good Catholic" is a virtuous and well-mannered person" instead of existing: "A “good Catholic” is a good and decent person".

Finally, the potential of inclusive research should be mentioned. The participatory perspective introduced by involving people with intellectual disabilities as co-researchers gives priority to these people and shows a way of inclusion that should be continued and developed in further research as good practise in methodology.

Author Response

Review 1

Comment 1.  The topic of the paper is original, quite well contextualized, the text have a clear structure with clearly stated research design, questions and methods. It seemed to me that the hypothesis is missing, but it migh have been somehow hidden in the introduction, so my suggestion goes to unveil it and make more clear for the final reader.

Thank you for your comment. We appreciate your feedback. In this project, we employed a qualitative design, which requires researchers to minimize the influence of their own preconceptions during analysis, including when identifying key themes (Morse & Mitcham, 2002; Patton, 2015). We opted for reflexive thematic analysis to address research questions that were intentionally broad and open-ended (Braun & Clarke, 2022). This approach enabled us to explore various dimensions of religious identification among adults with intellectual disabilities. Formulating hypotheses could have compromised this process, and thus, we deemed it inadvisable.

Braun V., Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic analysis. A practical guide. SAGE.

Morse J. M., Mitcham C. (2002). Exploring qualitatively-derived concepts: Inductive—deductive pitfalls. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1(4), 28–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690200100404

Patton M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research & evaluation methods: Integrating theory and practice (fourth). Sage Publications, Inc. Qualitative research (pp. 273–290). Sage.

Comment 2.  In addition, the text deserves attention because it raises the important issue of religious sensitivity of people with intellectual disabilities in the broad sense. The author(s) does not (do not) specify any categories or levels of these disabilities, which could be helpful to the reader. I recommend adding this information to the presentation of the findings or elsewhere.

This is a valuable comment. Nonetheless, in the process of recruitment the level of intellectual disability was not relevant. This is a diagnostic category which is important for educational, rehabilitation or social policy reasons. For us, it was important whether potential participants (out of whom all used services for adults with intellectual disabilities with the main aim focused on vocational activity and rehabilitation) were able to and were willing to share their experiences. However, we collected information about the participants level of intellectual disability whenever the participants or professionals shared this information with us. Overall, 6 participants were identified with mild intellectual disabilities, 10 with moderate intellectual disabilities and 2 with severe intellectual disabilities. In case of 16 interviewees the level of intellectual disability was not possible to determine.

Comment 3.  Moreover, in the presentation of findings and further, in the discussion, my surprise was evoked by mentioning the difficulties the participants had in defining their religious affiliation. The authors noted, in the introduction to Section 6.1, that many could not indicate what religion/denomination they follow. However, this seems to be contradicted by subsequent information, found in sections 6.2 and 6.3. There, in the titles of these paragrpahs the authors assume a Catholic affiliation, and the respondents show a quite good knowledge of the basic terminology associated with this religion, that is, they are aware of the practices of this religion and correctly name the sacraments they have already received or practice, as well as the religious symbols they possess.

So shouldn't the conclusions in Section 6.1 be reworded? Isn't the respondents' uncertainty due to the fact that they somehow had to overcome their fear and gain confidence during the interview, and the uncertainty was just a kind of “research bias/error” subdue to the circumstances of the study? The authors are conscious about this by stating: "Not  knowing the terms that allow for the specification of one’s affiliation did not necessarily  indicate identification difficulties". (lines 467-468).

Thank you for the comment and valuable insights. We believe that it is possible that the subsequent questions allowed the participants to discover their potential in this area. Each time, the interviews began with open-ended questions unrelated to the topic (for example, concerning the participants’ family situation, their interests, and preferences). We think that this helped them ease into the research situation. Regarding the difficulty in specifying their own affiliation, as we mentioned in the manuscript, this is a matter of not knowing the correct term, i.e. a cognitive issue. In the subsequent questions, we largely referred to the participants’ experiences, opinions, beliefs, actions, and practices. A similar problem, as we wrote, arose on the cognitive level when it came to specifying the names of other religions/denominations. Here too, the participants more often described their experiences (e.g., with Jehovah's Witnesses) rather than accurately named various denominations.

Comment 4.  Respondents' statements cited in Sections 6.3 and 6.4 show that they have a good understanding of religious diversity and related terminology. Therefore, the use of general quantifiers, e.g., “participants,” “some,” “others,” introduces a great deal of ambiguity in the presentation of the findings (along the whole Section 6) and makes it difficult to identify the dominant trend. Certainly, the number of quoted statements cannot be the decisive indicator of dominant opinions. Therefore, with such a number of respondents, it would be wise to take care to indicate the exact number of responses assigned to a given category, which should not be difficult thanks to the method used in data analysis, clearly described in Chapter 5 and presented in Table 1.

The use of numerical data is typical of quantitative research. Since we chose qualitative design, we aimed to identify themes that, when varied, could be represented by either individual or multiple cases.

Comment 5.  Given that the research was conducted in Poland, the low representation of Polish sources in the references is surprising. This is a sign that little research of this type has been conducted in this country (cf. lines 529-530). In my opinion, this calls for a comment on the range of literature used or available on the topic in this country.

Thank you for the comment. We added the following passage in the revised manuscript:

The issue of religiosity among people with intellectual disabilities is under-researched in the in Poland. We hope that this study, focusing on selected aspects of faith and based on qualitative research, will contribute to further exploration.

Comment 6.  It is also important to correctly formulate some names that are mistranslated into English. For example: “vocational activity center” can mean vocational education and training (VET), which is far from the issue at hand. Similarly, it can be misleading to use the name “occupational therapy workshop,”which means occupational therapy training rather than places where it is practiced.

Thank you for your comments. We have changed the term ‘vocational activity center’ to ‘vocational development center,’ as this is the term used by PFRON (Polski Fundusz Rehabilitacji Osób Niepełnosprawnych, or Polish Fund for the Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons), the governing institution for people with disabilities in Poland (https://www.pfron.org.pl/en/institutions/placowki/vocational-development-centers/). When referring to the former institution, PFRON uses the term ‘occupational therapy workshop’ (https://www.pfron.org.pl/en/institutions/placowki/occupational-therapy-workshops/). To avoid any confusion, we have clarified in the revised manuscript that these are institutions.

Comment 7.  The authors also coined the term "social and vocational rehabilitation". In my opinion, it would be necessary to search for VR programs along with the proposed services to find English equivalents for Polish institutions and use the appropriate vocabulary. I'm not sure if the principles and goals of the vocational rehabilitation in Poland are similar to those in the US implemented by The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 or any of the European Union documents issued as of 1974. Of course, the problem is not strict similarity, but the readability of the terms used in the text.

According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, social rehabilitation is defined as: the achievement of a higher level of social functioning by individuals with mental disorders or disabilities through group activities and participation in clubs and other community organizations; the achievement of a higher level of independent functioning and social participation by individuals with physical impairments or disabilities through assistance with their activities of daily living as well as with employment, transportation, and appropriate housing (…).

In turn, according to the APA, vocational rehabilitation is: a program designed to develop or restore productivity in individuals with mental or physical disabilities or those who have been injured or ill. A vocational rehabilitation program includes assessment, vocational guidance, and training; it involves helping the individual to develop skills that have been lost or neglected and to find or return to employment in the competitive job market or another setting (…).

This is also the meaning of social and vocational rehabilitation undertaken in Poland in the aforementioned institutions, in accordance with the Act of August 27, 1997, on Vocational and Social Rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled Persons. Journal of Laws of 2024, item 44, 858, 1089.

Comment 9.  The notion "typical intellectual functioning" (line 516) shoud also be verified.

Thank you for pointing this out. We exchanged this term and in the revised manuscript we used a different one: individuals without intellectual disabilities.

Comment 10.  There are also some errors in religious English terminology. In line 314 we have the title of the prayer "Under Your Protection", but it seems to be a literal copy of the Polish title. Instead, this prayer should be called by its Latin title "Sub Tuum Praesidium", which is translated in several ways in English, e.g. "We fly to Thy Protection".  I am also not sure whether in line 319 the respondent referred to All Souls' Day or rather All Saints' Day, which is more likely in this context.

Corrected following the suggestion.

Comment 11.  A moderate editing of English would also be required.

E.g. line 481: "A "good Catholic" is a virtuous and well-mannered person" instead of existing: "A “good Catholic” is a good and decent person".

Corrected following the suggestion.

Comment 12.  Finally, the potential of inclusive research should be mentioned. The participatory perspective introduced by involving people with intellectual disabilities as co-researchers gives priority to these people and shows a way of inclusion that should be continued and developed in further research as good practise in methodology.

 

Thank you for this valuable comment. We added a short passage in point 8 (Reflections on the added value of the research) to emphasize the value of inclusive research with the involvement of co-researchers with intellectual disabilities:

For the co-researchers with intellectual disabilities, this project provided a valuable opportunity to enhance their skills and build self-confidence. It also allowed them to raise awareness about the experiences and challenges faced by their community, ensuring that their perspectives were recognized and valued. By actively participating in the research process, they not only contributed to the study but also experienced a sense of empowerment, knowing that their voices were being heard and making a meaningful impact. This involvement fostered a greater sense of inclusion and agency within both the research and their broader community.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is entitled to be published however for this it needs to be improved, revised, and with adhesion of missing materials. I point in the points below:

1.  There is a lack of a more precise description of the temporality, the focus territory of the analysis in the title, summary, and introduction of the article;

2.  It is important to highlight in a footnote that it is "intellectual disabilities" in a more descriptive way;

3.  At the same time, it is important to highlight the religious experience in this follow-up; 

4. In fragments such as "Researchers emphasize the need to prioritize", researchers are named for the important accuracy of scientific articles;

5.  In semi-structured interviews, it is interesting to have an outline, at least in a footnote of the questions raised;

6.  Returning to the question of territory: which region of the interviewees, the reasons for such a region, and the selection of such research center;

7. In fragments such as "When justifying the lack of such activity, they spoke of a lack of time, inability to understand the content of the scriptures or problems with reading", as in the emphasis on the difficulty of interpreting the basic elements of Catholicism as the biblical texts, Masses and prayers are relevant among recent Catholics. In this case, this element was described in the article by F. Py and M. Pedlowski in the article "Pentecostalization settled in the Zombie Settlement of the Palmares", Theological Perspective, v. 52: https://www.scielo.br/j/pteo/a/LMch3RcxnWhFyJYDRxW5BzM/?lang=pt. The authors see the usual difficulty of the different Catholicism with the typical expressions of this faith. In this case, it is interesting to attach to the work;

Thus, the article deserves to be published, however before you need to consider the parts marked, attach the indications on the seven points marked above.

Author Response

Review 2

Comment 1.  There is a lack of a more precise description of the temporality, the focus territory of the analysis in the title, summary, and introduction of the article;

Thank you for the comment. We added information about the time of conducting research and focus territory in the manuscript (including the title and the abstract):

Accepting Different Faiths: Insights from Religious Narratives of Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities in Poland [Title]

In 2023, interviews were conducted with 34 adults with intellectual disabilities in three Polish cities to achieve this aim. [Abstract]

Recruitment was conducted in four rehabilitation and sheltered employment institutions across three Polish cities: Lublin, Ostróda, and Elbląg. [1.4]

Comment 2.  It is important to highlight in a footnote that it is "intellectual disabilities" in a more descriptive way;

We cited the current definition of intellectual disability, which is also the leading one in Poland, according to the AAIDD:

Intellectual disability, which is a type of disability that includes many social and practical skills, is characterized by limitations in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behaviors, and occurs before the age of 22 (Schalock, Luckasson & Tassé, 2021).

Comment 3.  At the same time, it is important to highlight the religious experience in this follow-up; 

The aim of our study was to explore certain aspects of religious identification among adults with intellectual disabilities. This included their declared affiliation with a specific denomination/religion, their perceptions and subjective knowledge constituting the image of a ‘good follower’, their self-assessment, and their attitudes towards representatives of other denominations/religions. The specific aspects of faith/religiosity among people with intellectual disabilities were shaped by their life experiences, including the processes of socialization and education. The aspect of experience is evident here, and references to it, appear throughout the report.

Comment 4.  In fragments such as "Researchers emphasize the need to prioritize", researchers are named for the important accuracy of scientific articles;

Thank you for pointing this out. We included these researchers’ names in the revised manuscript:

Smith [20] and Carter [26] emphasize the need to prioritize the voices of individuals with intellectual disabilities regarding their religious experiences.

Comment 5.  In semi-structured interviews, it is interesting to have an outline, at least in a footnote of the questions raised;

Thank you for raising this issue. We added example questions in the revised manuscript:

Example questions included: How did you come to believe in God? Can you name your denomination? What are the characteristics of a good Catholic? Do you consider yourself a good Catholic? Why? What is your opinion of people who practice faiths different from yours?

Comment 6.  Returning to the question of territory: which region of the interviewees, the reasons for such a region, and the selection of such research center;

Thank you for the comment. We addressed this issue in the revised manuscript and added this passage:

Recruitment was conducted in four rehabilitation and sheltered employment institutions across three Polish cities: Lublin, Ostróda, and Elbląg. These locations were chosen based on their accessibility to co-researchers with intellectual disabilities, as they were close to where they lived or to institutions whose services they utilized.

Comment 7.  In fragments such as "When justifying the lack of such activity, they spoke of a lack of time, inability to understand the content of the scriptures or problems with reading", as in the emphasis on the difficulty of interpreting the basic elements of Catholicism as the biblical texts, Masses and prayers are relevant among recent Catholics. In this case, this element was described in the article by F. Py and M. Pedlowski in the article "Pentecostalization settled in the Zombie Settlement of the Palmares", Theological Perspective, v. 52: https://www.scielo.br/j/pteo/a/LMch3RcxnWhFyJYDRxW5BzM/?lang=pt. The authors see the usual difficulty of the different Catholicism with the typical expressions of this faith. In this case, it is interesting to attach to the work;

Thank you for pointing out this interesting publication. However, we believe that we do not have the right to directly reference it when interpreting the results of our research. The suggested article discusses, among other things, the departure of community members from the Catholic faith and their conversion to another due to perceived flaws in the former (such as the limited availability of priests and their openness to people's needs) as well as difficulties in meeting its requirements (for example, due to challenges in attending church services). Community members are embracing a new faith that better aligns with their daily life experiences, values, etc. As the article's authors write, Catholicism, with its institutionalization and tradition, ceases to reflect the realities of everyday life.

Our respondents did not explicitly express motivation to change their faith or abandon religious practices. They only indicated difficulties in fulfilling some of them (like reading the Bible), which stem from various factors, including environmental and personal ones (such as cognitive limitations or sensory impairments). It seemed that the Bible was challenging for individuals with intellectual disabilities, and they needed support in understanding it, i.e. explaining its content into an easy-to-read format (note added to the revised version of the article). They were dependent on people without intellectual disabilities in engaging in other religious practices (like attending church). The issue of barriers will be addressed in a separate study.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper has been appropriately adjusted.