The Justice of Theory: How and What Do Educational Skills Distribute?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The main topic of the article is exposed in chapter 4. Chapters 1-3 are very general and to my understanding not precisely leading to the main topic of chapter 4. The conclusions do not refer in anything to chapter 4 and its arguments. They, therefore, need to be rewritten so that a consistent line of arguments will be noticeable.

In formal terms, on p. 7 lines 311-312 the sequences of "stars or molecules" should be changed in accordance with "a microscope [for molecules] or a telescope [for stars]".

Author Response

This review was extremely useful as a sounding board. I genuinely do want to direct attention in general to the way in which theory and thinking skills might be distributed (rather than focussing on RE), but accept that the level of detail given to apparatus 2 did front that as the theme of the article. I was not able to condense it without sacrificing clarity so I have taken the reviewer's advice and directed attention to it to a greater extent in parts 1 and 2 and the conclusion, and flagged the issue of distribution to a greater extent in part 4.

I have of course adjusted the sequence on page 7 as requested. Also the bibliography has naturally been changed to MDPI format now that I have downloaded the Endnote style.

Thank you for reading with understanding!

Reviewer 2 Report

While I understand that the manuscript is part of a special issue and proposes new ways to see the usefulness of education tactics used in religion classes, I find that the argument needs a lot more clarification and the writing style significant improvement.

First, I find the article thin on theory and methodology. Is there a niche that this particular analysis is trying to fill? That niche is not clearly defined, and therefore often I found myself lost in the argument. Why is the “apparatus” framework preferred? What does it bring new or useful to the table in terms of studying the phenomena described in subsequent sections of the paper? And what are the limitations of viewing the classroom like that? Moreover, what’s the criterion used to select the two apparatuses – why these are not others? Who makes the selection on the basis of which criteria? Is there any new empirical data that is employed here? Are these reflections applicable to classes on all religions or just some? Do they have a practical application – what’s that? In general, what are the limitations of this analysis? As far as I see, information from other studies is reexamined here through a new lens. I remain unconvinced.

Second, I find that many statements are either too verbose or backed by no evidence. On p. 6 we are told that “The past half century of research in Religious Education has been marked by discussions of the prepositions describing its enterprise: learning about religion; learning from religion” – isn’t this a caricature of the research done in the field? Isn’t this one way to succinctly describe that research – and leave out other important aspects? Any references to substantiate this claim? There is a lot of research on religious instruction in schools in various countries – Norway, European countries, as well as countries on other continents – that is not even mentioned here. So not only that I think the literature review is thin in general, the latest works are not reflected here, as though the author discounts all of them a priori with no good reason.

Last, the writing style needs drastic improving. Grammar, syntax and punctuation are deficient throughout.

Author Response

I do appreciate the critical reading of this article, as it does give me something to work with. As the reviewer mentions, the review is somewhat in tension with the call for papers, and so my loyalties are divided in responding: the change in register from the general and philosophical in the introduction to the intricate and discipline-specific in part four is perhaps unavoidable, but I have tried to make the transition easier for the reader by addressing the more verbose passages as requested. I suspect the reviewer will remain unconvinced (but of which particular claim, I wonder?) but obviously that is why we have public debates in published articles.

 

That said, the responses were extremely instructive, and I hope the changes I have made on the basis of them have improved the work.

 

I have:

-made the gap in the research more explicit by connecting "RE-searchers" to the phenomenon of "Transfer" in the following sentence: "Looking at literature on method in Religious Education, we have a wealth of assessments of individual approaches [6,8-12], an emerging methodological pluralism [7], but little reflection on or observation of the consequences of an asymmetrical distribution of methods."

-justified the choice of the "apparatus" as theoretical tool with a new paragraph: "The apparatus is particularly felicitous to understanding educational processes because it reflects our understanding that discourse, interventions and institutions are themselves embedded in each other as well as in politics, history and neurology in such a way as to extract them is to destroy them. There is no asocial education we can observe so we can not ignore social factors, there is no non-neurological education. This insight itself obliges us to study more than we can incorporate in finite thought without compromising the imperative to further our understanding rather than merely describe with precision. By identifying limited sets of heterogeneous elements, we meet the need for theoretical pluralism whilst retaining academic focus."

-made explicit the nature of the argument - as theoretical experiment rather than empirical observation - and adjusted summary statements accordingly. This includes justifying the choice of case on the basis of the theory rather than out of any concerns for representability. This is, after all, an issue addressing the philosophy of education, hence the use rather than production of empirical data.

-read through the language and attempted to adjust for verbosity. For example, adjusting the claim about the universality of the about/from choice and added references to the literature (one from Norway, one from England and one German scholar writing in a Slovenian journal).

-of course, changed the bibliographical formatting to MDPI now I have downloaded the right Endnote style.

 

As to the criticism concerning language, I am at a loss to know to what the reviewer is referring. I am a native speaker of English and have asked two other native speakers to read through the piece in its entirety. If I had examples to work with I would gladly make adjustments, but without more specific pointers I can only recommend the editors send it for proofreading. I would only ask to be allowed a final read through before the article goes to print.

 

I do appreciate the time taken by the reviewer to read an article that clearly went against the grain! I do hope the argument as a result is at least comprehensible, whether it is persuasive or not.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is now very convincing and clear in its intentions and arguments. Only the bibliography is confusing. It does not follow any alphetical order for the authors' names and it often repeats the same names and titles. Here a correction is needed for publication.

Author Response

Thank you for this response! I am assured that the MDPI format (based on the ASC style) does not order its bibliography alphabetically but rather in the order in which the entries appear in the article, which admittedly can be confusing if one is expecting an alphabetical list.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for your revisions. An explanation of the reasons why some text has been added might us understand the scope of improvements you had in mind.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf