Black Women’s Narratives Navigating Gendered Racism in Student Affairs
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper addresses an issue of high interest to academia. However, it is not well-structured according to academic standards. The abstract does not summarize the content of the paper effectively (you can refer to this example for guidance on the expected parts: https://www.anu.edu.au/students/academic-skills/research-writing/journal-article-writing/writing-an-abstract).
The method section is incomplete. The authors should provide a comprehensive account of all the steps followed and how qualitative methodology has been systematically applied. The results cannot solely consist of an independent coded summary of the three interviewees. Additionally, the discussion section is missing, and the conclusions are not sound.
Author Response
Thank you for this helpful review. Please find our response attached.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I had the opportunity to review the manuscript titled “Black women’s narratives navigating gendered racism in student affairs.” The authors address an important issue: how Black women in student affairs understand and navigate racial battle fatigue. Specifically, their attention to how Black women in student affairs centralize healing is an important contribution to higher education. I hope my comments help the authors strengthen the manuscript’s contribution to the field. Overall, the manuscript is well-written, conscience, and compelling. However, I believe there are areas where the authors could further revise to elevate the manuscript’s impact. In particular, the authors could further revise the literature review, methods, and discussion sections. Below, I provide my feedback by section if I have comments for that section.
Literature Review
Overall, the literature review is clear and concise. I have three points of feedback: (1) Provide more discussion around the coping strategies and their examples. The paragraph from lines 55 to 62 could be strengthened by providing examples of coping strategies. It is unclear whether Black women named the coping strategies they used as John Henryism, Strong Black Womanhood, and Superwoman schemas or are the researchers are categorizing such strategies with those schemas above. (2) Provide research on what Black women do to heal, even if that work is not within the context of higher education. Providing research on healing strategies could help to theorize further how you are conceptualizing healing. (3) After reading the manuscript, I wondered why the authors decided not to use Black Feminist Thought, given the focus on centralizing Black women and how their social locations informed their understanding of RBF and coping strategies. I encourage the authors to determine whether and how applying Black Feminist Thought could further provide nuance to the data and interpretations.
Methodology and Methods
I want to acknowledge the importance of the study, which was evident in the number of people who initially expressed interest in participating.
Consider moving up the positionality section before the data analysis. After reading the data analysis section, I wanted to know more about how your positionalities informed what you each determined as compelling. Also, in the data analysis, consider providing more information on how you collectively defined compelling: for example, was it related to your RQ or focus on healing? Be clear about what anchored your re-analysis. You don’t provide a research question but have a purpose for re-analyzing the data. As a reader, I was unsure about your structure to analyze the data in ways that were consistent across the three authors.
Findings
I understand that you are not providing themes, but it would be good to tell the audience what each narrative highlights and what the three collective narratives offer before going into each narrative.
Line 191: explain why Mercy’s identity as a Jamaican Black woman was important to interpret her narrative within the context of this paper.
Line 403: Is it supposed to say, “Wait a minute.”?
Lines 541-542: formal what? It does not make sense with the rest of the sentence.
Discussion and Implications for Practice
It will strengthen the contribution of your findings if you further develop the conversation about healing strategies and what that means to the field. Also, expand on the implications for practice.
Author Response
Thank you for this helpful review. Please find our response attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Please see attached reviewer comments.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for this helpful review. Please find our response attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
For the most part, ties together information from all sources. Paper flows with only some disjointedness. Author's writing demonstrates an understanding of the relationship among material obtained from all sources.
The review of literature needs to be expanded to include race and gender microaggressions.
The structure of the methodology needs to be cleaned up.
Author Response
Thank you for this helpful review. Please find our response attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Some parts of the paper have been rewritten and significantly improved. There are just a couple of issues I would like to point out:
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- Line 23: Please delete "para. 26."
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- Lines 191-194: Avoid repeating the research questions. I recommend referring to them as RQ1 and RQ2 or using a similar format."
Author Response
Thank you for the feedback. Please find the response attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Conditions have been met with the latest revisions.
Author Response
Thank you for the feedback. Please find the response attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
