COVID Winners and Losers in Education: How the Pandemic Has Exacerbated but Also Improved Current and Future Social Inequalities

The onset of the pandemic in 2020 put over 90% of the world's students and teachers into remote delivery virtually overnight. Social isolation and a rapid reliance on technology as the primary mode of delivery created many challenges for students, parents, teachers, administrators and governments. Considerable attention has been given to the burdens that online schooling imposed: 1) on mothers, particularly those who remained in full-time employment, 2) on students whose needs to interact with peers in shared physical space were unmet, and 3) on teachers who had insufficient training and infrastructure. This session calls for submissions highlighting both positive and negative long-term impacts and lessons learned during the pandemic.

We invite empirical papers based on large-scale data or in-depth investigations that consider how disadvantages deepened during the pandemic for some students.

We also call for papers that focus on how the pandemic improved access to quality education. Moreover, we encourage contributions with systematic analyses on how the pandemic might have permanently improved or worsened teachers' work conditions. Theoretical contributions to these issues are also welcome.