Talking about Homelessness and School: Recommendations from Canadian Young People Who Have Experienced Homelessness

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Talking about homelessness and school: Recommendations from Canadian young people who have experienced homelessness

Abstract: The abstract is a good start but could use some editing for clarity and to ensure that the reader knows exactly what direction you are taking. The points are good, but all over the place. For example, the author starts by discussion school, then housing, then stigma, then what information should be available in schools, then bullying, then race/gender. The abstract should tell me everything I need to know about the entire research study in a snapshot. Maybe the author can use headings to break up the abstract so that it can be made clearer. As a reader, when I read this abstract, I have no idea of the research question or the intention and purpose of the research. The points being made are very important but the writing and organization needs to be revised. 

Introduction: In your introduction, include some general points about youth homelessness and educational barriers and then go into your own research and expand on some of the points where possible, to be more specific. Again, I feel that the introduction does not clearly outline what will be discussed. The writing feels a bit rushed throughout, slow down and take your time explaining everything and expanding on the points. As I am reading, I am asking whether your paper is about youth homelessness and barriers to education, or is it about youth who are homeless not being able to ask for help in school when they need it, or is it about stigma in schools regarding homelessness or how the education system could better support youth who are homeless. It can be about all of these things because youth homelessness in relation to education is a very complex issue with compounding layers, but it is not clear in the abstract or the introduction what the direction of the paper is to the reader. You also discuss how the US aims to ‘find’ and support students to help them stay in school – can you expand on this ‘finding’ piece a bit? I noticed you wrote there is no equivalent legislation in Canada, but it depends on age too, young people do get apprehended and measures are taken; all of these distinctions needs to be made more clear and there needs to be a more comprehensive discussion here. You also discuss ‘upstream’ in your introduction and that has now become a very specific approach to helping youth who are homeless stay in school, so this also needs to be explained as it is an early intervention approach to preventing youth homelessness altogether but also relates to school-based early intervention.

Literature Review: I like that the literature review goes into even further complex layers of violence and criminalization related to youth homelessness, but it feels out of place because the authors have not discussed this in their introduction or abstract. Again, I feel the paper could benefit from being more organized. New ideas are brought up without context. For example, in the literature review, close to the beginning, the author writes “this research…” and I cannot tell if they are referring to an article or their own research. To clarify, you can write “research by so and so et al., makes apparent that …” so that readers know you are exploring another authors research and not your own. There are also a few areas in the literature review that are not explained in depth; for example, the author writes: “There are situational and social factors that may leave young people with little agency and few choices in their responses and Gaetz has contributed to many articles and reports that explain these reasons” What does Gaetz say about this, what is the explanation of reasons? Again, I feel the authors need to slow down and expand on their writing. The literature review should give us a comprehensive account of what existing and emerging literature says about your specific topic and where you aim to contribute to this literature or fill the gaps with your own research. This is not happening in your literature review.

Methodology: Is section 3, research participants, your methods section? If so, a lot more would need to be included in this section related to the process of doing this research, including ethics, positionality and social location of authors, the specific data collection and recruitment tools used. How did you build rapport with interviewees and what protocols did you follow? How did you analyze the data? Was it narrative and thematic analysis? What was the sample technique? I think you need a separate methods section outlining all of this in a very detailed way. What are some of the challenges faced by researchers doing qualitative work with such a vulnerable population of young people and how did you navigate those challenges. What was your research question, what was included in your interview protocol, did you have an informed consent? There needs to be a clear outlined methods section with all of this included.

Results: There are a lot of important points raised in your results section that are important for existing, current and future literature. This is a very valuable section that should be organized and highlighted as much as possible. Could the authors potentially use subheadings to organize their work? This way, the reader has an idea of your themes and subthemes. It would make it easier to follow along all the complexities. Since the paper started off as being about youth homelessness and education, I think that the results also need to align more comprehensively with this as this is the original intention of the paper. For example, the authors need to integrate how educational barriers are heightened as a result of family histories and current circumstances (Section3) in order for that to flow better into the next section, which discusses school more specifically. In section 4, I think subheadings are needed (For example, school legislation in Canada, bullying etc etc) The authors can decide what they want those subheadings to be but it would help.

Discussion: I like the subheadings used in section 5, makes the paper more organized and clear. These are all important and valuable recommendations. The authors should also add a limitations sections to either the discussion section or the methods section, you can decide where. Maybe in that section, discuss the limitations of doing qualitative research and the limitations of doing research with young people who are experiencing the difficulties of homelessness.

Conclusion: Conclusion is good; some of the very important points regarding racialized experiences of homelessness should also be in the introduction and discussion. Those points should also be addressed in terms of methodology and what it means where there are layers of vulnerability and marginalization compounding and what that means for research.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English is good, I just think some sections could be more formal as this is supposed to be a formal academic paper.

Author Response

Thank you for your thoughtful review of our paper.

We have rewritten the abstract to clarify the research question, the primary method used, the results of the interviews and the changes in schooling that the youth propose in the order they are presented in the paper. We have removed the references to stigma in the abstract because their use of the word signifies misunderstanding and lack of knowledge of homelessness and does not connect with current academic use of the word.

In the introduction, we have clarified that this study is specific to one province in Canada and more thoroughly described the characteristics of the people we interviewed. We have moved further discussion of current Canadian policies to the literature review section and expanded their description to give a more comprehensive picture of the context in which the current paper is located.

In the literature review we have expanded on the work that Steve Gaetz (et al) have done to better clarify how this work has moved the discussion of youth homelessness towards a more systemic analysis. We also expanded the explanation of “working upstream” as it is both discussed in Canada and has been put into practice in Australia and is providing significant lessons on how to help students who are at risk of homelessness in Canada.

We have added a new section to discuss the methods and challenges that we faced in this research including some details about the theoretical approach that we used particularly in the analysis of the interview transcripts. This gives more context as to how we did the research, who were the participants, how we obtained ethics clearance and consent, why we chose the responses that we include in the paper, and how we prioritized certain observations and statements from the participants to be included. This better explains how we have answered the basic research question that is at the top of the abstract.

In section five (formerly four), we provided sub-headings to clarify the discussion and to make the flow of the argument easier to identify for the readers. We also changed some of the headings in section six for the same purpose as well as doing some slight re-arranging and editing.

We added a new sub-section in section six that discusses the limitations of the research with particular reference to the fact that former students have a limited perspective of the school system that needs to be combined with the understanding of others in the system such as teachers and administrators.

We did some light editing of the conclusion, particularly in the first paragraph, to make it flow better from the new section of limitations.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the manuscript. Knowledge about the experiences of homelessness among youth is a valuable contribution to both homelessness and youth research. The data material seems rich, providing a rare opportunity to gain insight in how the youth themselves understand their situation as deprived of a safe and stable home.

However, the manuscript lacks some essential elements of an academic article. There is no problem for discussion that frame the empirical material, neither an account of a theoretical framework guiding the analyses. “Stigma” is mentioned briefly in the abstract and in the discussion, but there is no account of what is meant by stigma, and why this is a relevant theoretical approach in this case.

The most important insufficiency of the manuscript is the lack of an account of methods. How did the researchers contact the participants in the study?  Is the data material obtained through interviews? Observation? How many participants? Over what period of time? Overall, the impression is that the article is based on qualitative material, however, sometimes, eg in line 125, it is referred to a percentage of a group, is there a quantitative data set as well? To be able to interpret and learn from this article we need to know the answer to these questions and others, we need a thorough account of the methods before we are introduced to the empirical material. The methods section should also include an account of the analyses of the data material, including the research questions that has guided the analyses.

The literature that is reported in the literature review section seems adequate.  However, the article concludes with the section “better school support as a form of homelessness prevention”. With this conclusion, maybe the literature review should include some literature on school support and what it includes today.  

 

I agree with the authors in that individual stories from young people can contribute to “reimagine our responses to homelessness” (p.11). With this data material I believe that there is great potential for a novel contribution in this respect, and hope that the authors will do the job that is needed to turn this into a very interesting article.

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your careful reading of our paper.

We have added a new section on methods that clarifies that we collected some quantitative information on the participants through a brief survey but that the analysis is based on qualitative interviews with them. We have included some details of the questions asked as well as the overall research question that was focused on their experiences in school before they dropped out or, in some cases, graduated. We have also described how we did the analysis and the theoretical approach we took to choose the themes and excerpts we elucidate in the body of the paper.

We have also expanded the literature review to clarify that this is focused on the Canadian context and expanded on the work of Steve Gaetz in particular who has done a great deal of to move this discussion forward. This expansion includes some further references to other work done on how schools are providing support and current projects to help schools mitigate the effects of homelessness. We note some of the shortcomings in this literature and why there are, in many cases, very little school supports for youth experiencing homelessness.

We clarified that the use of the word ‘stigma’ is based on comments made by the participants and not connected to current theoretical discussions of stigma in the academic literature but is used to signify a lack of discussion in schools according to the perspectives of the participants. We are working on another paper at this time that will expand on how stigma works in regards to these young people in school and connect it to this literature. We have removed the word stigma from the abstract and included a discussion of how young people use this word to define their own experiences in school. This difference in the use of language between the participants and academics is part of the complexity of perspectives that we are analysing in this paper.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Great revisions, paper is much better now.

Very timely topic!

Author Response

Thank you so much! You have been very helpful and we have also made some further revisions that build on your feedback and that of others.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to reread and comment on this new version of the manuscript. The manuscript has been significantly improved, particularly with the new methods section providing a much clearer description of the study. However, the text still needs needs clarification and restructuring. 

First some general comments. The text is quite rich in words, some sections may require evaluation for potential cuts. The order of presentation in the manuscript should be reconsidered, as well as the structure of paragraphs. I recommend reviewing each paragraph and ensuring adherence to the "rule" of one idea per paragraph. For example, in paragraph two (starting line 31), you initially describe schools in Canada. However, in line 38, you transition to a description of your research, which should ideally begin a new paragraph.

 

The introduction starts abruptly with a description of findings, making it difficult for the reader to follow the text. It would be beneficial to begin the paper with a section that establishes the research territory, such as youth homelessness. Following this, a section should establish the niche, focusing on the role of schools in the lives of young people experiencing homelessness, and the knowledge gaps your paper aims to address. The research question, along with some principal findings, would be suitable for inclusion at the end of the introduction, before outlining the paper's structure. The text similar to that found in the abstract would fit nicely at the conclusion of the introduction.

The literature reviewed in the literature review section still appears adequate, but it is not entirely clear how your study and findings contribute to or expand upon existing knowledge of youth homelessness. This should be addressed in the discussion. Additionally, models introduced, such as those mentioned in lines 99-101, should be clarified regarding their use in your analyses or how they inform your study.

The language throughout the manuscript could be more precise. For example, in line 79, "This requires people" should specify who these people are. Are they social service workers, employees in jails, or something else?

Although the methods section is much clearer now, some questions remain. In the first section, you describe what seems to be the general project, whereas your paper is based on data from a specific part of this project. Clarify in line 124 where the empirical data come from—are they interview data?  Documents that describe educational policies ect, described in the same paragraph, is also empirical material, but I get the impression that this is not included in the analyses for the present paper. Additionally, for the section describing researchers' lived experiences of homelessness, consider including references to other literature discussing this kind of participatory research to highlight its advantages and disadvantages.

In the analysis section, you refer to phronetic research and how this approach reveals "some of the habitus or structures that influence the lives of the participants" (line 171). If your goal with the analyses is to reveal the habitus of the informants or the structures influencing their lives, this should be shown more clearly in the discussion and conclusion. Otherwise, consider revising the description of the analytical approach. You mention "looking for themes" (line 165), so it would be insightful to know which themes were most central in the empirical material—a useful preparation for the presentation of empirical material.

Section 4 seems to be a combination of a description of research participants and presentation of empirical material. Consider splitting this section by including a description of participants in the methods section and presenting only empirical material here. Also, It would be nice if the empirical material is presented according to the themes that were identified through analyses. Additionally, consider a description of number of qualitative interviews, and a text or a table that prepares the reader for the names the informants have chosen for themselves. In the empirical sections the use of names is a bit confusing, cool names, but sometimes it takes a moment to realize that it is the participants the names refer to.

You mention in your response letter that the analysis for this paper is based on qualitative data, despite some survey material being available in the project. That is ok, but it seems to me like you still refer to material from the survey in some parts of the text. For instance, in line 201, you use percentages—are these derived from survey material?

In section 5, you begin with a sentence stating that none of the youth were in school at the time of their interview. Since school is central to this project, this information should be mentioned in the description of the study participants.

You write that “We clarified that the use of the word ‘stigma’ is based on comments made by the participants and not connected to current theoretical discussions of stigma in the academic literature (…)”. I see your point, but still believe that a brief mentioning of literature describing stigma in general and as experienced in the homeless population would increase the quality of the article. It also gives you the opportunity to point at a need for further discussions of stigma in (your) upcoming articles. 

In section 6.4, you discuss the limitations of the study, which is commendable. However, starting from line 587, you describe a study of policy documents and its main findings. Introducing this information earlier would provide important context for the reader.

I would also recommend some work on section 7, some of the conclusions do not seem to follow from the discussion of the empirical material, examples are in line 604-5, 608-609, 638-40. There is also some ambiguity regarding what material you refer to, examples 632-36, 638-40.  

I wish you the best of luck with the development of the text. 

Author Response

Thank you so much for the detailed reading of our manuscript. It has been very helpful in helping us focus our discussion and better put into context the stories and comments of the participants.

We have re-ordered the introduction as you suggested to move from the general context of the research to the specific research question as well as rewriting parts of it to better reflect the structure of the paper and highlight the focus of the paper on school experiences that are reported by former students who have also experienced homelessness.

We have clarified some of the language such as in line 79 to more precisely define who we are referring to as well as added and edited sentences to clarify the model we are using and how we contribute to building on that model. We have also added some discussion and citations to work that discusses the challenges and advantages of having researchers with lived experience of homelessness involved in doing this research.

In the methods section, we have clarified that we are referring to other work done on school board policies and that was part of the background work that we have cited. This includes a policy paper some of our research team recently completed and also other academic work that we cite.

We explain in more detail that the data for this paper comes from interviews and give a more comprehensive explanation of the process of analysis and the themes that we found central to our analysis. These are then reflected in the following presentation of empirical material in section 5. We also moved some of the description of research participants into this section and included a list of the names that are used and how they were chosen as part of the effort to include participants in the research process.

We also clarified the meaning of ‘phronetic’ and added some additional citations and eliminated the reference to Bourdieusian concepts that are not used in the analysis in this paper.

Section 4 is now focused on presenting empirical data about families and living circumstances and we have altered the paragraphs throughout this section to shorten them slightly and ensure that each paragraph is more focused with a clear point made at the beginning of each paragraph.

Section 5 has been rearranged to more clearly follow the subheadings that indicate the structure of the discussion.

Section 6 has been reduced in length with some extraneous observations removed when they distract from the focus of each paragraph. Most paragraphs have been altered in this way.

The theme of stigma and stigmatization has been clarified in section 6.1 to how that term is important to the participants and had a specific meaning for them that reflects their understanding of why information on homelessness is difficult to find in schools. We have added a footnote that states we are working on an article that will expand on the experiences and ideas of stigma that the participants have brought up.

In section 6.4, the study of policy documents refers the reader to discussion that is included in the literature review.

We have re-rewritten the first paragraph of section 7 to more accurately follow from the discussion of the empirical material and clarified the connections between the conclusions and the discussion above.