Finnish Teachers’ Perspectives on Caring and Meaningful School Development Work

Reviewer 1

Revisions made to the manuscript

 1. The entire manuscript needs to be edited by a professional language editor – this includes in-text references and the reference list.

The language has been revised.

2. review the abstract and keywords.

The abstract has been reviewed.

Keywords have been reviewed: school development, school improvement, caring, work culture

3. Throughout the paper the authors mentioned school development, I suggest authors rethink the use of ‘development’ – ‘Improving and transforming pedagogical guidance in schools’ is better fitted for this paper and this Special Issue.

Thank you for your comment. We discussed the use of different concepts and decided to keep “development” in the title, see also our response below (point 13). However, we noted that the title needs revision, and made some changes to it.

Regarding the Special issue. Unfortunately we are not aware of the aims and theme of a special issue. We did not submit this manuscript to any of the available ones on the journal’s website. Moreover, we tried to find information about whether this manuscript had been assigned to a special issue but could not find anything.

4. Reconsider heading 2.1

We reconsidered the heading 2.1, and decided to keep it as it is. See also our comment regarding the concepts (development, improvement) below (point 13).

5. I am concerned about the Theoretical framework section – clarity is needed  regarding a specific theorist and theory that informs this research and as such this section.

The text has been revised. We changed the heading to Study framework, and reorganized it to include both theoretical and context sections.

6. Page 15 – line 101 – Teachers’ adjustability and capability?

Thank you for this, the manuscript has been revised accordingly.

7. Line 111 – new practices should rather be new pedagogies

Thank you for the valuable comment. We have revised the manuscript accordingly.

8. Heading 2.2  - A caring pedagogical culture

Thank you for the comment. We reconsidered the heading 2.2, and decided to keep it as it is.

9. Line 118 – their work – their pedagogical practices (work)

Thank you, we have revised the manuscript accordingly.

10. Line 137 and 130 – Caring is a common concept - Caring in a school environment is a common pedagogical concept.

Thank you, we have revised the manuscript accordingly.

11. Page 4 – Section 3 – I suggest that authors consider replacing teachers’ ‘work’ with teachers’ pedagogical engagement, practice or reasoning (This suggestion is in the light of the Special Issues theme). Please consider this throughout the manuscript.

Thank you for this comment, we have revised the manuscript according to it.

12. Page 5 – please be specific with what kind of interviews were conducted – semi-structured? How many participants in a focus group?

Thank you, we have revised the manuscript accordingly.

13. The use of ‘development’ throughout the manuscript seems to capture’ improvement’ – please reconsider the use of concepts

That is a good comment, we considered it and made some changes, yet, the concept of development has better fit than "improvement" to the Finnish context, and therefore, we decided not to change language throughout the article. The concept of improvement is often given connotations related to making progress in terms of something we can give a rank and assess/measure the expected outcomes that is rarely the case in Finland.

14. Headings 5.2.2 and 5.2.3 – Impact on teacher pedagogical capacity and Caring in meaningful school learning and teaching improvement?

Thank you for these viewpoints. Your suggestion regarding 5.2.2 (Impact on teacher pedagogical capacity) is really good and describes the content more accurately than the original one.  Meaningful school development is the central concept and main category in our study, and based on justifications provided above (point 13) we decided to keep the original heading in that section.

15. Page 10 – line 387 and 388 – more instructions or information about the ideas….  It might be beneficial for the flow of the argument to use ‘a framework with more pedagogical guidelines ‘

Thank you, we have revised the manuscript accordingly.

Reviewer 2

Revisions made to the manuscript

Thanks for an interesting article on an important topic.

Thank you for your kind words on the relevance of the manuscript.

I was a little surprised by the title - concerning the combination of school development and caring, but it is well argued (line 40-41). Perhaps you could improve the title to make the relationship more evident?

Thank you for the beneficial comment. We have revised the title. It is now  “Finnish teachers’ perspectives on caring and meaningful school development work”.

The section on "Theoretical framework" (p. 2-) is a combination of theory and context description (the Finnish situation concerning school development and leadership). These two might be separated  or the subtitle changed?

Thank you for the important comment. We have revised the section and separated the subsections.

I think you draw a rather "rosy" picture. In many cases, these ideals are challenged in daily practices with heterogeneous classes and school environments.

The empirical basis is focus group interviews with staff. Interviews concern teacher roles and responsibilities. It's obvious that when you only base the study on interviews outside the practical context, you only get a picture of teachers' self-assessed practice (which may be quite different from practice "in reality"). This also characterizes the result section which is a combination of quite positive self-assessment views and demands for school leadership. This methodological problem (what do we learn from interviews based on respondents' self-assessment?) should be more clearly discussed. I miss this discussion in section 7. "Limitations and future research"

Thank you for the valuable comment, we have revised the manuscript accordingly.