Caring and Schooling in the Time of COVID-19

Abstract

This chapter presents a research study which explored the experiences of teenage secondary school girls in England whose schooling was disrupted by the pandemic and implementation of lockdowns. We begin by setting the context for school-based research with children and argue children and young people experience ever-increasing pressure to act as redemptive future agents and thus sites of capital accumulation. Despite this we go on to argue that there were important moments, practices and experiences of care during the lockdown periods that can be harnessed to help resist the capitalist logics that exert such pressures upon current school children. We explain the process of using arts-based methods to engage pupils in discussing their experiences and how these methods are based on caring practices which we argue are essential for research on care. Our findings suggest the girls had positive experiences of schooling and lockdowns and we present some significant examples of caring agency that young people demonstrated in contrast to the negative media discourses about home learning. We do not seek to obscure the difficulties that these young people experienced, but in highlighting their caring agency, we demonstrate the complexity of lockdown experiences and illustrate the role and importance of care in the unbounded space of the school.

Citation

Disney, T., Grimshaw, L. and Thomas, J. (2024), "Caring and Schooling in the Time of COVID-19", Disney, T. and Grimshaw, L. (Ed.) Care and Coronavirus (Emerald Studies in Child Centred Practice), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 145-162. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83797-310-120241011