A duoethnographic exploration of what peer reviewing teaches us about peer review

Background

The peer review process plays a vital role in the advancement of engineering educational research because it is largely through this process that the field determines which knowledge claims are considered valid. Unfortunately, peer review processes may reinforce inequities when peer reviewers, as readers, are not reflective about the ways that their own experiences, as situated within power-laden and racialized sociohistorical contexts, shape how they evaluate manuscripts.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to describe the ways in which the authors experienced the same phenomenon—evaluating manuscripts—differently due to our racialized positionalities.

Method

We reflected on the peer review process while participating in the Journal of Engineering Education's Mentored Review Program. The reviewers met over the course of 1 year to write responses to each other regarding our experiences and the tensions that arose during the process of peer reviewing manuscripts with race and oppression in mind.

Results

Three central ideas emerged from analysis of our reflective dialogue; namely, situating our “selves” within our review practice, reckoning with the roots of the strain between our personal and professional lives, and taking affirmative actions to enact racial equity in knowledge production.

Conclusions

This duoethnography calls for individual change among reviewers, as they seek to be more informed and introspective, as well as structural changes in standards that shape peer review culture.