Roma Youth’s Perspective on an Inclusive Higher Education Community: A Hungarian Case Study
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Paper is dealing with important topic. It is well written and understandable. However, I have two main recommendations:
(1) I believe that theoretical background should started with right to education as a main concept why inclusion of Roma is must;
(2) I have problems with quantitavization of qualitative data. There are qualitative research questions, and there are "words" collected, therefore qualitative data, and still those are coded into quantitative codes. In qualitative anayzis data should be coded in themes, categories and codes that represent variability of answers. They should not be coded in % and other number-like data.
Author Response
Firstly, we would like to express our gratefulness for the very detailed analysis and review process. These opinions, notes helped us to step back and look at our writing from a more objective view and helped us to form our paper to become more straightforward, strictly written, and understandable.
Reviewer’s suggestions:
“(1) I believe that theoretical background should started with right to education as a main concept why inclusion of Roma is must;”
We share the reviewer’s ideas and put these thoughts to the introduction, in the beginning of the theoretical background.
“(2) I have problems with quantitavization of qualitative data. There are qualitative research questions, and there are "words" collected, therefore qualitative data, and still those are coded into quantitative codes. In qualitative anayzis data should be coded in themes, categories and codes that represent variability of answers. They should not be coded in % and other number-like data.”
We tried to clarify these issues in the description of the methods (highlighting the process of data collection and analysis) and we deleted the % and left just the numbers of the mentions.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
An example of an inclusive community in higher education in Hungary from the perspective of Roma youth
While there are many merits evident in this paper, it is not recommended that it is published until the following are issues considered.
Focusing on the role of a student society as an inclusive community in Higher Education is to be lauded. However, the following philosophical question needs to be considered and clarified in the paper– is the student society in question ‘exclusionary’ in its nature by the very fact that it appears to be set up to support a particular group of students. This needs to be deliberated in terms of developing an inclusive community.
The focus of the research is not explicitly stated in the introduction and the paper’s coherence is impacted by the variations of aim/purpose that are evident throughout, [28, 115]. Reference is made to inclusive characteristics, responsiveness to needs in the population,[116], socially mobility [118] and resilience [124-125] in the paper – are all of these addressed and discussed sufficiently?
The introduction of a paper is critical in setting in providing the reader with a clear understanding of the research, in addition to the scope, rationale, aims and objectives etc. It would be beneficial to revisit the introduction provided to ensure clarity.
Explain key terms as they are understood for the purpose of this paper, e.g., first generation intellectual.
Greater transparency required in terms of methodology and data collection required, e.g., it can be inferred that student researchers conducted the interviews. [193] This needs to be set out explicitly in section 3.
Further detail on the quantitative statistics desirable. [148-153, 161-162]
Consideration of ethical issues needs to be included as this is not evident in this paper.
The conclusion should be strengthened -What contribution does the student body make? What are the inclusive characteristics reported?
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Greater use of punctuation would enhance clarity of sentences.
There are some instances where the choice of word is unusual, e.g, ‘assumptions’ rather than ‘perceptions’.
Avoid writing clauses rather than full sentences.
Author Response
Firstly, we would like to express our gratefulness for the very detailed analysis and review process. These opinions, notes helped us to step back and look at our writing from a more objective view and helped us to form our paper to become more straightforward, strictly written, and understandable.
Reviewer’s suggestions:
- “Focusing on the role of a student society as an inclusive community in Higher Education is to be lauded. However, the following philosophical question needs to be considered and clarified in the paper– is the student society in question ‘exclusionary’ in its nature by the very fact that it appears to be set up to support a particular group of students. This needs to be deliberated in terms of developing an inclusive community.”
We totally agreed with the question, so we explained [108-110] that the community of this Roma Student Society is heterogeneous, so itself tries to be inclusive.
- The focus of the research is not explicitly stated in the introduction and the paper’s coherence is impacted by the variations of aim/purpose that are evident throughout, [28, 115]. Reference is made to inclusive characteristics, responsiveness to needs in the population,[116], socially mobility [118] and resilience [124-125] in the paper – are all of these addressed and discussed sufficiently?
In the introduction and the theoretical background, we tried to make clarify all these phenomena, their definitions and at the results and discussion the proofs are shown. We really focused on presenting proofs for the process of inclusion.
- The introduction of a paper is critical in setting in providing the reader with a clear understanding of the research, in addition to the scope, rationale, aims and objectives etc. It would be beneficial to revisit the introduction provided to ensure clarity.
We rewrote the introduction according to the suggedtions.
- Explain key terms as they are understood for the purpose of this paper, e.g., first generation intellectual.
We corrected and rewrote the definitions.
- Greater transparency required in terms of methodology and data collection required, e.g., it can be inferred that student researchers conducted the interviews. [193] This needs to be set out explicitly in section 3.
We wrote a clearer description of the methodology and the role of the students in the research process [147-154].
- Further detail on the quantitative statistics desirable. [148-153, 161-162]
We gave details in the lines of 172-185. Quantitative statistics was not in the presentation of results.
- Consideration of ethical issues needs to be included as this is not evident in this paper.
We complemented it in lines 155-164.
- The conclusion should be strengthened -What contribution does the student body make? What are the inclusive characteristics reported?
For this note we went through the whole paper again and wrote down more explicitly the evidence of inclusion e.g. 257-261, 319-321, 485-488 and then extended the conclusion.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Thank you for sharing this research.
The general direction of this research and the focus on Roma people in the Hungarian HE is promising. The authors attempted to produce some interesting findings. However, I have some concerns regarding the design, methodology, and presentation of the findings.
1. I think that the study could have been more in-depth by applying a specific/clear theoretical framework. The authors focus on many ideas and issues, and it is hard to place this study on a strong footing without connecting it to some solid theoretical framework.
2. The design is quite outdated - a simple interview and listing of student impressions does not (I am afraid) yield convincing findings. The authors could approach their data analysis in a more in-depth way, which again takes me to the question of a strong theoretical framework.
3. The qualitative design is welcome but without an innovative mindset, the study may seem quite trivial, as I am afraid is the case here. For example, the questions are okay but they also impose a follow-up - So what?
4. I think the study needs a more rigorous approach to data analysis, but the bigger concern is how those data were collected (it is not clear in the methodology).
5. Certainly, it is not a good idea to describe authors' backgrounds in the first few lines of the Introduction section.
6. I am also somewhat concerned about the insufficient quality of presentation (how about introducing more visually appealing graphs? ... etc)
7. Last but not least, the implications of this study need serious revision.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Minor
Author Response
Firstly, we would like to express our gratefulness for the very detailed analysis and review process. These opinions, notes helped us to step back and look at our writing from a more objective view and helped us to form our paper to become more straightforward, strictly written, and understandable.
- I think that the study could have been more in-depth by applying a specific/clear theoretical framework. The authors focus on many ideas and issues, and it is hard to place this study on a strong footing without connecting it to some solid theoretical framework.
In the introduction and the theoretical background, we tried to give clearer description to all these phenomena, their definitions and in the results and discussion the proofs are shown. We really focused on presenting proofs for the process of inclusion.
- The design is quite outdated - a simple interview and listing of student impressions does not (I am afraid) yield convincing findings. The authors could approach their data analysis in a more in-depth way, which again takes me to the question of a strong theoretical framework.
At lines 147-154 we wrote down the novelty and specialty of the research method we used.
- The qualitative design is welcome but without an innovative mindset, the study may seem quite trivial, as I am afraid is the case here. For example, the questions are okay but they also impose a follow-up - So what?
For this note we went through the whole paper again and wrote down more explicitly the evidence of inclusion e.g. 257-261, 319-321, 485-488 and then extended the conclusion.
- I think the study needs a more rigorous approach to data analysis, but the bigger concern is how those data were collected (it is not clear in the methodology).
We wrote a clearer description of the methodology and the role of the students in the research process [147-154].
- Certainly, it is not a good idea to describe authors' backgrounds in the first few lines of the Introduction section.
We accepted and deleted the mentioned sentences.
- I am also somewhat concerned about the insufficient quality of presentation (how about introducing more visually appealing graphs? ... etc)
We considered the advice of the reviewer to replace our tables to other visual presentations but did not find any satisfying solutions. The tables were edited and simplified (%-s were deleted) and we hope that this makes the presentation of our results easier to follow.
- Last but not least, the implications of this study need serious revision.
To follow the advice of the reviewer we tried describing the evidence of inclusion e.g. 257-261, 319-321, 485-488 and extending the conclusion to include implications.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Can authors add visuals (graphs), not just stat tables to visualize the theoretical framework, research problem or findings?
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Minor
Author Response
Thank you for your suggestions to our manuscript.
We have proofread our manuscript and edited the text where it was necessary, grammatical changes have been made.
We have designed a figure as suggested (line 448) and added a short explanation (439-444).
