COVID-19 Archives - EERA Blog

COVID-19 pandemic and the mental health and well-being of secondary school children

by Dr Margaret Wood, Dr Feng Su, Dr Andrew Pennington | BERA, NW 14 Communities, Families, and Schooling in Educational Research

This blog piece discusses the main findings from a research project funded and supported by York St John University and Liverpool Hope University into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Our research suggests that the pandemic and associated restrictions and disruptions exacerbated an already serious situation for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing (Wood, Su and Pennington, 2024)

The study

To gain an understanding of young people’s wellbeing, it is essential to access the views of young people themselves (The Children’s Society, 2022).

A National Health Service (NHS) study in the UK shows that before the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing numbers of children and young people were experiencing poor mental health and wellbeing (Newlove-Delgado et al., 2022). Our research drew on the views of young people about the development of factors conducive to their wellbeing and mental health in school and the sorts of factors that enable this.

A qualitative multi-method research design was used, consisting of an online questionnaire survey (n=605) and follow-up focus group interviews (n=16). The research took place in three secondary schools in one local authority area in England. Year 9 and Year 10 students aged between 14 and 15 years from these schools participated in the study.

The study addressed the following questions: to what extent has the Covid-19 pandemic affected secondary school students’ mental health and wellbeing in England? What do students value most for their mental health and wellbeing in a secondary school context during the pandemic? What are the implications for the post-pandemic future?

Findings

The analysis evidenced the social and emotional impacts of a number of other factors too including anxieties about family members’ employment security, health and circumstances at home during the pandemic on young people’s mental health.

Significantly, transition back to in-person schooling brought its own challenges. One particular message that emerges from this study is that in the return to in-person schooling, the dominant emphasis on ‘catching-up’ to make good the learning loss, appears to have been too restricted and narrow and in need of an accompanying focus on: the restoration and regeneration of friendships and social bonds that lie at the heart of schools as communities and human flourishing; and sports/physical activity, arts and cultural pursuits .

The findings of the study show that the pandemic and associated restrictions had a detrimental effect on the lives of a very large proportion of the young people in our study, with a greater impact on girls than boys. From the analysis, the resilience and ability of the participants to ‘bounce back’ from the upheavals caused by the restrictions was apparent. However, for a significant minority, the adverse impacts on their mental health and wellbeing continue to affect their lives.

Findings suggest the Covid-19 pandemic had a bigger impact on girls than boys, for example:

The reported impact on daily life was greater for girls ( 85%) than for boys (71%)
The continuing impact was greater for girls (37%) than boys (24%)
Friendships were more adversely affected for girls (54%) than boys (34%)
More girls reported an adverse effect on mental health and wellbeing (55%) than boys (25%)
Fewer girls felt supported by school (64%) than boys (79%)

Due to the scope of our study, specific reasons for the gender differences were not established. However, our study does suggest that there is a need for a holistic response to young people’s mental health and wellbeing issues, which gives prominence to addressing the gendered impact and recognises the importance of friendships, social bonds, arts, cultural and sports activities as well as the more academic domains of schooling.

Wider implications – insights from experts in the field

Findings and implications from the research have been widely shared at a number of briefings with school senior leaders, children’s services agencies, youth work organisations, and other partners from the local authority area in which the research took place.

In addition, the findings are being used to inform the annual report of the local Director of Public Health. The principal dissemination event to discuss our study findings with national and regional stakeholder groups was the ‘Symposium on Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing’, which took place in York on 19th March 2024. At the Symposium event, important insights were shared by the following expert panel members.

Anne Longfield, Chair of the Commission on Young Lives, UK, argued there is a need for joined up services and cross agency working to support children’s education and mental health and an extended role for schools in their communities. She stated that ‘I, for a long time, have been a big proponent of schools being fully open to their communities and making their precious resources more accessible to children and families’.

Alison O’Sullivan, Chair of the National Children’s Bureau, UK, suggested that the social contract between schools, parents and children has broken down and stressed the importance of renegotiating the relationships between children and families, communities and schools. She also expressed that ‘evidence increasingly demonstrates that children and young people’s sense of belonging plays a decisive role in shaping their social, emotional and mental health outcomes’.

Charlotte Rainer, Coalition Manager at The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, UK, suggested two possible solutions – firstly, to increase early intervention support with dedicated funding; secondly, to create children’s mental health and well-being drop-in hubs in the community.

Dan Bodey, Inclusion Adviser, City of York Council, UK, observed that ‘school attendance has been significantly low since the Covid-19 pandemic particularly for children who have special education needs (SEN) and those who are on free school meals. In addition, the school exclusion rate has increased noticeably’. He also highlighted the importance of cross agency working to address these issues as part of post-pandemic recovery.

Conclusion

This study shows that the pandemic and associated restrictions had a detrimental effect on the lives of a very large proportion of the young people in our study, with greater impact on girls than boys. These effects have significant implications for the ways in which school and services develop their responses to the question of children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.

Key Messages

Overall, the principal insights affirmed the importance of:

· responding to the continuing adverse effects on mental health and wellbeing for a significant minority of young people, taking account of the gendered nature of these impacts

· ensuring young people’s voices are brought into decision making and policy formulation

· easily accessible early help and support

· inclusive educational practices to strengthen a sense of belonging for all children and placing children’s mental health at the heart of education provision.

· an inclusive curriculum which focuses on the whole person rather than an overemphasis on academic achievement and high stakes assessment and testing.

Dr Margaret Wood

Senior Lecturer in Education at York St John University, UK

Dr Margaret Wood is a Senior Lecturer in Education at York St John University, UK. Her recent research and publications have explored the centralizing tendencies of much current education policy and its relation to community and democracy at the local level, and the development of academic practice in higher education.

Dr Feng Su

Associate Professor and Head of the School of Education at Liverpool Hope University, UK

Dr Feng Su is an Associate Professor and Head of the School of Education at Liverpool Hope University, UK. His main research interests and writings are located within the following areas: education policy, the development of the learner in higher education settings, academic practice and professional learning.

Dr Andrew Pennington

Post-doctoral researcher at York St John University, UK

Dr Andrew Pennington was a senior officer in two local authority education and children’s services departments. He is now a post-doctoral researcher at York St John University, UK. His main research interests are concerned with democracy, power and community engagement in the governance of schools.

References and Further Reading

The Children’s Society (2022). The Good Childhood Report 2022. The Children’s Society. https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-09/GCR-2022-Full-Report.pdf

Newlove-Delgado, T., Marcheselli, F., Williams, T., Mandalia, D., Davis, J., McManus, S., Savic, M., Treloar, W. & Ford, T. (2022). Mental Health of Children and Young People in England 2022. NHS Digital. https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-of-children-and-young-people-in-england/2022-follow-up-to-the-2017-survey

Su, F., Wood, M. and Pennington, A. (2024). ‘The new normal isn’t normal’: to what extent has the Covid-19 pandemic affected secondary school children’s mental health and wellbeing in the North of England? Educational Review. DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2024.2371836

Silent heroes – Celebrating Peru’s Early Childhood Educators in times of crisis

by Tom Chambers | BERA, NW 10 Teacher Education Research, NW 14 Communities, Families, and Schooling in Educational Research

We are counsellors, we are nurses, we are legal helpers, even parish priests, we are multifaceted.

Maria

Leader/Teacher, Peruvian public school

These are the words of a Peruvian public-school early childhood educator/leader, as she described how her role morphed into one of holistic accompaniment, not just to her young students, but to their families as well during the extended period of school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. They highlight one of the many challenges thrust upon a previously maligned and disenfranchised workforce in a moment of crisis, but much more than this, they offer us a glimpse into the lives of early childhood education(ECE) stakeholders in Peru during this period.

The Peruvian Context

Life in Peru was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent social distancing requirements, which meant that education institutions were closed to in-person teaching for more than 18 months. Educational outcomes, whilst seeing an upward trend in the years leading up to the pandemic in terms of PISA scores, were still below the OECD average (OECD, 2018). The system was still considered to be struggling in terms of providing equal access to quality teaching and learning experiences as ‘poor, rural, indigenous girls are 91% more likely to be left behind in quality education than their wealthier, urban, non-indigenous peers’ (Alcázar et al., 2020, p12).

Public school teachers are historically perceived as having low prestige and relatively low pay in comparison to other professions (Saavedra & Gutierrez,2020), a significant contextual consideration when we ponder the critical role they not only played in ensuring educational opportunities for children, but also in support and guidance for families.

The challenges faced by early childhood educators

Within this complex context, initial findings from my multiple case study doctorate research project, where semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents, leaders and teachers at four early childhood settings, suggest that early childhood educators across private, public, rural, and urban areas faced several significant challenges. These included increased workload burdens, adaptation to the use of technology, their own emotional well-being, connecting in meaningful ways with children, and dealing with the day-to-day uncertainty. And from the outset of the strict social distancing measures put in place, they were bombarded with the demands of work.

If, for example, they did not have their child’s next call scheduled, or they didn’t know the questions to ask them, or they had a problem sending their evidence, there would be messages at midnight or at one in the morning… even at four in the morning, the phone rang. It didn’t matter if it was Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, the same.

Catalina

Teacher, Peruvian public school

Significantly, access to high-quality internet and devices in Peruvian homes is limited, so online lessons were not an option for many families. Instead, they relied on sending and receiving messages, usually via WhatsApp or SMS texts, which resulted in early childhood educators being the first point of call for parents, reframing their role in society.

And our role was more emotional accompaniment for the families, not only with children, with families too

Almudena

Teacher, Peruvian public school

If educators were able to connect virtually with children, they were faced with the challenges of adapting their pedagogical approach to foster relationships and engage young children through screens. A task that was initially faced by just the educators working in the private sector but soon by many in the public sector too.

It has been a very difficult time. For me, as a professional, no? Because in spite of having made every effort to bond with my students, it’s a dehumanising process, you are in front of a computer and have no contact with them.

Rosario

Teacher, Peruvian private school

Implications and conclusions

This blog post, rather than endlessly listing the challenging circumstances faced by early childhood educators in Peru during the pandemic, seeks to draw attention to their resilience and achievements, providing a voice to those often overlooked in vulnerable communities.

Resilience in educators was evident in the mere fact that ECE was able to be adapted and continued regardless of the extreme and unprecedented challenges faced. However, as Gu (2014) states, resilience in educators is not merely coping in the face of adversity; it encompasses a moral and vocational-like commitment to make a difference and support learning. Critical to this dedication was their ability to develop positive interactions with parents and foster supportive relationships with peers, as they shared online teaching practices and provided emotional accompaniment. These coping strategies are underpinned by collaboration, which was key in bringing the ECE community together, and ensuring the best outcomes for children.

This has significant implications for the future as the relationships forged between parents and teachers, alongside the new professional and personal skills developed by teachers, can be vital in addressing learning gaps and bridging inequalities. In highlighting these issues, there is the potential for the profession’s low prestige in Peruvian society to be changed or at least challenged.

Key Messages

Celebrating the efforts and dedication of early childhood educators during the pandemic provides a voice to those often overlooked in vulnerable communities
Resilience in educators includes a moral and vocational-like commitment to make a difference and support learning
The development of positive interactions with parents was critical, as was the fostering of supportive relationships with peers
The relationships forged, and the professional and personal skills developed by teachers during the pandemic, can be vital in addressing learing gaps and bridging inequalities.

Tom Chalmers

PhD Student at the University of Greenwich, UK

Tom Chambers is an early career researcher studying a part-time PhD at the University of Greenwich, London. His research is focused on exploring the impact of the pandemic on the key stakeholders associated with early childhood education (ECE) in Peru. The research will not only have implications for educational policy and practice but also highlight the inequalities in accessing high-quality ECE in countries in the Global South.

He has recently completed a two-year period of part-time volunteer work as a desk researcher with La Fundación Baltazar y Nicolás, a Peruvian NGO involved with supporting parents of young children in Peru. Tom is an experienced early years/primary educator and holds a Master’s in Education also from the University of Greenwich

Twitter/X: @TomChambers1984 LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tom-chambers1984 ORCID: 0009-0000-4439-9592

References and Further Reading

Alcázar, L., Bullard, M., &Balarin, M. (2020). Poor education and precarious jobs in Peru: Understanding who is left behind and why. Southern Voice, 64. https://southernvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Education-Jobs-Peru-Alcazar-Bullard-and-Ballarin-2020.pdf

Gu, Q. (2014). The role of relational resilience in teachers career-long commitment and effectiveness. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 20(5), 502–529. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2014.937961

OECD. (2018). Programme For International Student Assessment (PISA) Results From PISA 2018. In OECD COUNTRY NOTE. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/publications/PISA2018_CN_PER.pdf

Saavedra, J., & Gutierrez, M. (2020). Peru: A Wholesale Reform Fueled by an Obsession with Learning and Equity. In F. M. Reimers (Ed.), Audacious Education Purposes: How Governments Transform the Goals of Education Systems. Springer.

Peru: A Wholesale Reform Fueled by an Obsession with Learning and Equity | SpringerLink

EERJ Special Issue: Researching space and time making in Education

by Decuypere, Hartong & Oudeweetering | ABCEduc, DFG, EERJ, NW 28 Sociologies of Education

The European Educational Research Journal (EERJ) was created by EERA to further the aims of the association and its members, educational researchers across Europe. It is a scientific journal interested in the changing landscape of education research across Europe. It publishes double-blind peer-reviewed papers in special issues and as individual articles. As part of the ongoing cooperation with EERJ, the EERA blog will share updates and information about upcoming and published special issues and articles alongside blog posts from EERJ contributors.

Introduction―Space-and time-making in education: Towards a topological lens

Vol 21, Issue 6, 2022

First published online February 16, 2022

Mathias Decuypere
KU Leuven, Belgium

Sigrid Hartong
Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg, Germany

Karmijn van de Oudeweetering
KU Leuven, Belgium

Have you ever had the feeling that time is going faster than it used to? That this acceleration is doing something with our idea of what good education is, or should be? That the pandemic has done something to our understanding of what it means to teach and learn physically ‘here’, or digitally ‘there’? That it is hard to say where and when exactly the workday of an educator starts or ends?

Space and time are made

These questions show us that it is increasingly getting more difficult to talk about space and time as if they are naturally just ‘out there’, surrounding us and our social lives. Contrary to such an instrumental and ‘neutral’ understanding of space and time, nowadays, we equally often hear that space and time are (partly) human constructions, and that our understanding of them changes continuously. For instance, the emergence of online educational platforms and other digital tools allow people from all over the world and across different time zones to be simultaneously present in a class or lecture.

Like a magnifying glass, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has powerfully invigorated and accelerated processes of digitization, and even more clearly illuminated how much impact they have on the educational field. As living rooms have transformed into do-it-yourself classrooms, as computer screens have served as both blackboards and lecturing halls, and as after-school programs have spread over the day, the pandemic has concretely shown how space and time are not only abstract ‘givens’. Rather than that, they have turned the self-evident and previously somehow “tacit” character of space- and time-making in education, into a topic of crucial concern.

Social topology at work

In our Special Issue in the European Educational Research Journal, we discuss and elaborate on one approach that allows us to research such processes of space- and time-making: (social) topology. The usage of topology is not necessarily new in educational research, but it has hitherto merely been used in very complex, theoretical, and abstract manners. In this Special Issue, our aim is to bring together various empirical studies that work within the framework of social topology. In adopting a topological lens, all the studies contained in the Special Issue show topology ‘at work’: they make it very concrete how you can, by means of this framework, research different sorts of space(s) and time(s) in educational practices.

Making educational spaces and times

Topology thus focuses on space and time as relational constructions that are made by humans, and that at the same time have a very profound impact on humans. A very intuitive example of this is the switching of the clock when we enter and exit daylight saving time – we then all very clearly feel the impact of our (human) tinkering with time. In our Special Issue, we have collected various contributions that show the different sorts of spacetimes that exist in the field of education; most of the time even existing at once. Where, for instance, does a lecture take place when it is being distributed in a digital form as a lecture capture and when it is equally being discussed online on Twitter?

Similarly, when and where does something like a borderless ‘European education’ take place when it is happening online? Where does it begin and where does it end?

These are the kind of questions that are addressed in our Special Issue, and that show the importance of using a topological lens in order to do research that focuses on the making of educational spaces and times. Moreover, as the Special Issue shows, these newly emerging spaces and times, when they are introduced in our educational systems, are doing something with and to do those systems. For instance, they create new sorts of professions and new types of professionalities. Equally, they are rhetorically deployed in such a way that they install particular future visions and desires into students and teachers.

Conclusion

In summary, then, our Special Issue focuses on educational spaces and times as things that are continuously being made. Moreover, the articles in the collection do so by giving mutual attention to space(s) and time(s).

As such, the collection greatly advances our understanding of how the spatial and the temporal continuously interact with each other, and thus makes a clear case for the importance of analyzing both conjointly, without seeking to privilege one over the other.

You can access the EERJ Special Issue here (open access). If you are interested in submitting to the EERJ, you can find the Submission Guidelines here.

Prof. Mathias Decuypere

Associate Professor of Qualitative Research at KU Leuven, Belgium.

Mathias Decuypere is Associate Professor of Qualitative Research at KU Leuven, Belgium. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mathias-Decuypere

Professor Sigrid Hartong

W3-Professor of Sociology at Helmut Schmidt Universität Hamburg, Germany.

Sigrid Hartong is W3-Professor of Sociology at Helmut Schmidt Universität Hamburg, Germany. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sigrid-Hartong

Karmijn van de Oudeweetering

Doctoral candidate at KU Leuven, Belgium.

Karmijn van de Oudeweetering is a doctoral candidate at KU Leuven, Belgium. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karmijn-Van-De-Oudeweetering

Walking together apart – how mobile material methods can help us think towards better educational futures

by Bastos, Hogarth, Taylor, Barr, Barratt-Hacking, Cranham, Hewlett, | NW 13 Philosophy of Education

Whilst working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have been bound to our chairs and desks, suffering screen fatigue, isolation, and anxiety. In this context, an invitation to ‘get up and move’ enticed seven of us, all at different stages in our careers, to take part in a refreshing research opportunity. This blog offers some insights which emerged as we walked, talked, wrote, crafted, and immersed ourselves in walking as a methodological practice.

An invitation: ‘Get Up and Move’

Framed by the feminist approach of Collective Biography (Gannon and Davies, 2006), we shaped a practice of walking together-apart which involved us in walking in different geographical locations at more or less the same time in relation to an agreed aim. This helped us shape walking together-apart as a mode of knowledge-making that is relational, embodied, and collaborative, and that (we think) offers the means to think and work towards better, more hopeful educational futures.

Walking as method

Walking is an embodied, mobile, materialist research methodology which challenges the positioning of language and human interaction as the central feature in research (Taylor, 2020). It creates opportunities for research that is embodied, multi-sensory, emergent, relational, situated and bound to time, context, and location. Further, walking methodology reveals how geographies and histories are shaped by colonialist practices (Springgay and Truman, 2018).

In our Get Up and Move project, we experimented with paying attention to the places and spaces where we were walking. We adopted a materially engaged and situationally immersed research positionality, allied to Karen Barad’s feminist posthumanist orientation where ‘knowing does not come from standing at a distance and representing but rather from a direct material engagement with the world’ (Barad, 2007, p.49). This methodology involves a research orientation to the not-yet-known and to knowledge as a space of possibility.

Walking together-apart

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to take its toll as we process and experience the traumas of living with the virus and the uncertainty regarding potential new viral mutations, fluctuating infection rates, and accompanying new bodily practices of mask-wearing, and varying governmental and personal restrictions on social freedoms. Within these new and harsh conditions, the lockdowns imposed to slow down the spread of COVID-19 offered educational opportunities to connect online in new ways.

Using a feminist posthumanist walking as methodology and Collective Biography approach, we engaged in a series of walkings, writings and reflections, creating and co-creating knowledge together-apart. Collective biography focuses on the collaborative production of written memories and a collective re-thinking and re-writing of meanings. It is a feminist method for moving beyond the individual towards a practice of co-authorship (Fairchild, 2021) in which research productions are collaboratively produced and ‘owned’.

Collaborative Biography challenges traditional individualistic social science approaches and privileges the moments as they happen. It encourages us to pay attention to the mundane, the micro, and that which is often taken for granted.

The walks

We enacted the methodology of walking together-apart in three walks: the first was in a familiar place which focused on noticing; the second was in an unfamiliar place and sought to attend to bodies and bodily sensings, and the third was at dawn focusing on the elements and atmosphere.

After each walk, we recorded individual stories in which we attended to embodied moments, collecting these in our ‘treasure chest’ (our shared online site). Later, together-apart in online group discussions, shared themes, and experiences emerged in a process of collective re-creation of memory and meaning. Through this iterative telling, listening, and writing process, particular things came to matter.

Data experimentations

Our ongoing encounters in researching our walking insights together-apart encouraged us to engage creatively with the data. Our treasure chest encompassed multiple forms of data – photographs, videos, written text, poems, sounds, and recordings of online conversations.

In a ‘first pass through the data’ we sifted through the folder, responding to what was there. Sharing these responses led to conversations that sprawled in unanticipated ways ranging from how our bodies meet the world – cold teeth, runny nose, wet socks – to big discussions about colonialism, misogyny, violence, and poverty.

As we continued thinking, writing, talking, and crafting, certain moments resonated, providing us with themed scents to pursue and paths to wander. Our knowledge-making was rhizomic, a botanic metaphor of a plant stem which creeps underground sending out roots and shoots, and which we use, following Deleuze and Guattari (1987), to describe the complex, nonlinear, erratic and nomadic nature of knowledge production.

Our experimentations in collaborative writing (Cranham et al., 2023, f.c.), string figuring and collage, and painting with data in hybrid classrooms were swept by the affective, exhilarating processes of becoming-we, leaving us joyfully animated in nurturing collaboration.

Insights for education

Walking as a methodological practice unveiled insights to knowledge-making in the following ways:

First, such approaches are slow. They require time and space to linger in the moment and to experience and learn with the world as it is encountered.

Second, the methodological practice of attentive noticing enables us to apprehend the significant role of the more-than-human (for example, objects, animals, nature). This displacement of human exceptionalism can be life-affirming and produce more generous and inclusive research and education practices.

Third, through an ethical process of care, trust, honesty, and open collaboration, ‘I’ became ‘we’, and ‘mine’ became ‘ours’, enabling knowledge creation beyond the individual. The knowledge that emerged was transversal, becoming an affective flow across the group, materialising in shared moments of laughter, insight, and silent musing.

Fourth, embracing the unknown involved trusting something exciting would emerge and a willingness to take a risk.

Fifth, creative open-ended methods disrupt current thinking and help recast what matters in education. They reject disciplinary boundaries and goal-oriented approaches, resisting current neoliberal practices that tend to promote individualised competitive practices over collaboration.

Walking and Collective Biography helped us envisage and enact more relational, embodied, collaborative, inclusive and joyful research practices – these, we think, can help inform better educational futures for students and staff.

Key Messages

The COVID-19 pandemic enabled using online spaces to connect and do research in new ways.

Walking as a methodology offers possibilities for research that is embodied and attends to both the human and nonhuman world.

Collaborative approaches have potential to disrupt neoliberal practices that promote individualised competitive practices that dominate the academy.

Such approaches are slow and require developing care-full relationships founded on trust and ethical engagement

References and Further Reading

Barad, K., 2007. Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham and London: Duke university press. Barad, K., 2007. Meeting the universe halfway

Cranham et al., 2023 (f.c.). Not mine, not yours, but ours: Collaborative writing simultaneously together-apart. In Hughes, C, Taylor, C. A., Salazar Pérez & Ulmer, J. (Eds.) The Routledge International Handbook of Research and Methods in Transdisciplinary Feminism. London: Routledge.

Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F., 1987. A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/a-thousand-plateaus

Fairchild, N., 2021. Pedagogies of place-spaces: walking-with the post-professional, PRACTICE, DOI: 10.1080/25783858.2021.1968279 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25783858.2021.1968279

Gannon, S. and Davies, B., 2006. Doing collective biography: investigating the production of subjectivity. Maidenhead, England: Open university press. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-6091-615-1_10

Springgay, S. and Truman, S.E., 2018. Walking methodologies in a more-than-human world. Abingdon: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Walking-Methodologies-in-a-More-than-human-World-WalkingLab/Springgay-Truman/p/book/9780367264956

Taylor, C. A., 2020. Walking as trans(disciplinary)mattering: A speculative musing on acts of feminist indiscipline. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341470739_Walking_as_transdisciplinarymattering. In Taylor, C. A., Ulmer, J., and Hughes, C. (Eds.) (2020) Transdisciplinary Feminist Research: Innovations in Theory, Method and Practice. London: Routledge. pp. 4–15. https://www.routledge.com/Transdisciplinary-Feminist-Research-Innovations-in-Theory-Method-and-Practice/Taylor-Ulmer-Hughes/p/book/9780367500511

Equity in Education during COVID-19 and the Danger of “Microwave Equity”

by Seun Adebayo | NW 4 Inclusive Education, NW 7 Social Justice and Intercultural Education

The last two years have been quite challenging for the world and for educators. First, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world for a while, and many learning institutions were closed as a result of the pandemic.[1] At the same time, the increasing strength of the anti-racism movement from the United States and across the world has highlighted the importance of equity, inclusion, and equality in education in such a time as this. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent school closure globally led to 1.6 billion children [2]missing out on education, which has further amplified the inequalities inherent in many education systems. In many regions around the world, for example, in Europe, groups affected by the COVID-19 pandemic on education may include students of minority migrant background, new language learners, disabled students, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and others (LGBTQ+) students. My PhD research study on developing culturally inclusive teaching and learning environments in Ireland, funded by the Irish Research Council postgraduate scholarship and Galway Doctoral Research scholarship programmes, has caused me to reflect deeply on the concepts of equity, inclusion, and equality in education. Furthermore, my research and work with student-teachers, teachers, parents of minority migrant backgrounds, in Ireland and beyond, has further revealed the importance of an understanding that is all the more urgent in the context of the inequalities that will exasperate equitable and quality education for all learners in the era of COVID-19.

What is the difference between equality and equity?

The image to the left is a graphical representation of equality, while the image to the right represents equity
Image credit: Maryam Abdul-Kareem

It is quite challenging to unpack the concepts of equality and equity in education, particularly the differences between these two concepts. It is critical for teachers to know the differences between these two concepts to ensure equitable learning for all students, especially in a time of crisis.

In the left image, everyone is provided with equal support to watch the football game. In the right image, everyone is equipped with differential supports that allow equitable access to the game.

It should be noted that understanding the differences between equity and equality is not straightforward. It is layered with many complexities. Therefore, the above image provides a basic representation of the differences between equity and equality.

In summary, equity is based on needs, that is, responding to students’ individual or specific needs in our classrooms to ensure quality teaching and learning. In contrast, equality is based on fairness, which means being fair to all, without acknowledging the additional challenges faced by some.

UN Sustainability Goals and

the importance of equity and inclusion in education

Many education systems around the world are concerned with the issues of equity and inclusion in policy and practice. However, more work needs to be done in developing and implementing equity and inclusion policies and practices in education, particularly in the current COVID-19 crisis. Equity can be explained as providing students with personalised support that overcomes potential hurdles such as poverty and minoritised cultural backgrounds.[3]While inclusion in education implies that all students, irrespective of their socio-economic backgrounds or disabilities, are accepted and fully catered to in mainstream school environments. In other words, ‘inclusion is about all students belonging’ in a classroom.[4] The concepts of equity and inclusion in education are not new. Global educational goals have long sought to advance the principles of equity and inclusion in education systems internationally. For example, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 requires countries worldwide to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by 2030. The SDGs were passed in 2015 by United Nations member states as a holistic approach to ensure that countries around the world achieve equitable and sustainable development in different sectors of society by 2030. [5] However, recent reports by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) tasked with tracking the world’s progress in achieving SDG 4 presented that it is unlikely for the world to meet the targets of SDG 4 by 2030.[6]Unfortunately, the current humanitarian emergency of COVID-19 has further validated the reality of the findings of this new report on the impact of the pandemic in achieving the SDGs[7]

The role of teachers in addressing equity and inclusion in their classrooms

Moving forward, teachers can begin to address equity and inclusion in education with support from other educational stakeholders to ensure equitable learning for all students and developing peer accountability systems. Secondly, teachers can build better working relationships with students and their guardians/parents. Third, they can commit to continuous professional development programmes. Finally, teachers can promote equity and inclusion in their classrooms during this COVID-19 pandemic and beyond by constantly checking ‘whether what they are doing enables or empowers the students to help improve them.’[8]

Avoiding the quick fix of ‘Microwave Equity’

Image credit: Twitter user Valentina Gonzales Cornelius Minor Twitter

Cornelius Minor, a US-based educator, coined the term ‘Microwave Equity,’ which means teachers and educators attempting to achieve equity quickly or overnight. Instead, he warns, the work on equity in education takes time and patience. In his book, We Got This, Minor argued that to be equitable and inclusive, teachers need to intentionally listen to kids in achieving equity in the classroom, decentralise power by empowering students’ voices, and do the self-work without blaming students.

The push to introduce more equity in education is badly needed, but it comes at a time when teachers are already facing significant challenges and additional responsibilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Equity and the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic

Teachers are crucial to achieving equity and inclusion in education, and the current crisis has further affected teaching and learning. The pandemic has denied millions of learners access to equitable and quality education.[9] Teachers, to a large extent, are critical stakeholders in helping to manage the crisis. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has further changed the nature of teachers’ work, e.g., many teachers were expected to switch to online teaching quickly. The burden of additional responsibilities placed on teachers in a crisis is not new. Research has shown that all humanitarian emergencies have affected teachers’ work. For example, in post-conflict Liberia, teachers’ responsibilities included serving as second parents, humanitarians, role models, parents, counsellors, guardians, unifiers, and psychologists to help students affected with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). [10] From the case of Liberia and in similar contexts, teachers can be adequately supported and performance improved when education stakeholders possess a deep understanding of the factors that limit their capacity to function effectively.[11] Therefore, placing the responsibility for achieving equity and inclusion solely on teachers is problematic. Educational stakeholders and the entire education system must be involved to make equitable and quality learning for all students a reality, even in the current era of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, school leaders in the United Kingdom took proactive steps and initiatives to provide support for teachers and promote sustainable good practices during the global pandemic. The research study finds that school leaders developed effective and pragmatic approaches to engage other stakeholders such as parents, pupils and policymakers, allowing learning to continue during the pandemic.[12] It is hoped that more attention will be given to having discussions on what equity and inclusion in education really mean in different contexts and levels of education. For example, regional educational research associations such as European Educational Research Association (EERA) can engage existing platforms such as the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) conferences, within their network for educational researchers to continue to engage in discussion and research on issues of equity and inclusion in European education systems and globally. This knowledge and understanding will undoubtedly help concerned educational stakeholders working on equity and inclusion in education to address the challenges of ensuring an even playing field for all learners.

References and Further Reading

[1] UNESCO (2021). Education: From disruption to recovery. https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse

[2] Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (2022). Prioritizing learning during COVID-19. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/114361643124941686/pdf/Recommendations-of-the-Global-Education-Evidence-Advisory-Panel.pdf

[3] Waterford (2020). Why Understanding Equity vs Equality in Schools Can Help You Create an Inclusive Classroom. https://www.waterford.org/education/equity-vs-equality-in-education

[4] Giardina (2019). What does an inclusive classroom look like? https://inclusiveschools.org/what-does-an-inclusive-classroom-look-like/

[5] https://sdg4education2030.org/the-goal

[6] UNESCO (2020). Inclusion and education: ALL MEANS ALL. Global Education Monitoring Report. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/in/documentViewer.xhtml?v=2.1.196&id=p::usmarcdef_0000373718&file=/in/rest/annotationSVC/DownloadWatermarkedAttachment/attach_import_d3682741-8fe5-4012-98c6-66d2bb13b7f0%3F_%3D373718eng.pdf&locale=en&multi=true&ark=/ark:/48223/pf0000373718/PDF/373718eng.pdf#p29

[7] Shulla, K. (2021). The COVID-19 pandemic and the achievement of the SDGs. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43621-021-00026-x

[8] Adebayo and Chinhanu (2020). Ubuntu in Education: Towards equitable teaching and learning for all in the era of SDG 4. NORRAG. https://www.norrag.org/ubuntu-in-education-towards-equitable-teaching-and-learning-for-all-in-the-era-of-sdg-4-by-chiedza-a-chinhanu-and-seun-b-adebayo/

[9] Moss and Bradley (2021). Education in a Post-COVID World: Creating more Resilient Education Systems. https://blog.eera-ecer.de/resilient-education/

[10] Adebayo S.B. (2019). Emerging perspectives of teacher agency in a post-conflict setting: The case of Liberia. Teaching and Teacher Education. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X18300143?via%3Dihub

[11]Tao, S. (2013). Why are teachers absent? Utilising the Capability Approach and Critical Realism to explain teacher performance in Tanzania. International Journal of Educational Development, 33 (1): 2-14 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257243592_Why_are_teachers_absent_Utilising_the_Capability_Approach_and_Critical_Realism_to_explain_teacher_performance_in_Tanzania

[12]Beauchamp, G., Hulme, M., Clarke, L., Hamilton, L., & Harvey, J. A. (2021). ‘People miss people’: A study of school leadership and management in the four nations of the United Kingdom in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 49(3), 375-392. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1741143220987841

COVID-19 pandemic and the mental health and well-being of secondary school children

The study

Findings

Wider implications – insights from experts in the field

Conclusion