Learning Inequalities During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Charlotte Goddard
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
The majority of children who did not attend school between March and July 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic lost 15 weeks’ face-to-face schooling. Prolonged school closures and the abrupt transition to home-schooling could have severe consequences on students across the UK. Researchers from the University of Southampton set out to discover the impact of home learning on children from different backgrounds.
Report: Learning Inequalities During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Report authors: Nicola Pensiero, Anthony Kelly and Christian Bokhove
Published by: University of Southampton, July 2020
SUMMARY
The researchers used data from the Understanding Society study, which surveyed the families of 1,430 primary and 1,595 secondary school children in April 2020 – one month into “lockdown”. They found children in primary schools spent on average 2.4 hours a day doing schoolwork and had another two hours a day of extra support from adults. In secondary schools, children were spending an average of three hours a day doing schoolwork and had 0.9 hours a day extra support from adults.
The amount of time spent on schoolwork varied according to a child’s circumstances. Primary school pupils from a higher socio-economic background spent on average 2.6 hours a day doing schoolwork compared with 2.3 hours among children from families with a lower socio-economic background. Meanwhile, secondary school pupils from a more advantaged socio-economic background spent 3.1 hours doing school work compared with three hours among those from lower socio-economic groups.
Children in families where both parents were working from home were more likely to undertake a larger volume of schoolwork. When only one parent was regularly at home, or parents were at home due to unemployment, there was no such advantage. This difference was mostly driven by uptake of offline lessons, such as worksheets, assignments and watching videos. The uptake of online lessons, delivered in real time by schools, was not linked to parents’ working patterns.
The researchers wondered whether older siblings might support younger children with their work or compete for computers, space and parents’ attention. They found more evidence for the latter scenario among secondary school children, where the presence of older siblings was linked to less schoolwork being done. Children who did not own their own computer were also likely to spend less time doing schoolwork per day than those who had sole access to a computer. Girls completed a larger volume of schoolwork and took part in a larger number of offline lessons than boys.
The most advantaged families were those where both parents worked regularly from home, the main parent was in a “service class” occupation such as management and professional roles, and the children had their own computers. Primary pupils from these families spent on average 2.9 hours a day on schoolwork while that was 3.8 hours a day for secondary pupils.
Among the most disadvantaged were children in families where the main parent was not in a “service class” occupation, where the child had to share a computer, and where neither parent worked regularly from home. Primary pupils spent on average 2.3 hours on school work, while that was 2.6 hours for secondary pupils.
The researchers estimate primary school children from the most advantaged group will have completed 26 per cent more hours of schoolwork than their disadvantaged counterparts over lockdown – a total of 218 hours compared with 173 hours. Meanwhile, secondary school children from the most advantaged group will have completed around 285 hours of schoolwork, 46 per cent more than their disadvantaged counterparts at 195 hours.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
Parents who work in professional and management occupations, which are suitable for home-working, are better able to assist children’s home learning. They are also better able to provide children with their own computers and other learning resources, as well as suitable spaces where children can study. The researchers suggest the transition to distance learning is likely to increase inequalities in education because of differences in both the volume of schoolwork undertaken and the abilities of some parents to support their children’s learning.
FURTHER READING
Balancing the Risks of Pupils Returning to Schools, Royal Society Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics (Delve) initiative, July 2020
Learning During the Lockdown: Real-Time Data on Children’s Experiences During Home Learning, Alison Andrew and others, Institute for Fiscal Studies, May 2020
Inequalities in Home Learning and Schools’ Provision of Distance Teaching During School Closure of Covid-19 Lockdown in the UK, Sait Bayrakdar and Ayse Guveli, Institute for Social and Economic Research, June 2020