Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted children's education in schools, and reflects the urgent demands of children and their educators for diverse learning channels and materials. Memory institutions such as libraries, archives and museums, as repositories of reliable sources of information and knowledge service provider, have a responsibility to contribute to the cultural and media literacy education of children. Therefore, memory institutions should explore innovative ways to safeguard and utilize documentary collections in media and information literacy education for people and especially children, and share and promote good practices. These efforts will also inspire younger generations to participate in the preservation and transmission of historical records.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic crisis, and persistent systemic and structural racism have plagued Black communities. The continued physical and symbolic violence and murders of Black bodies are undeniable. As White institutions, schools are definite contributors to this brutality as they center the culture and realities of White children while ignoring or denigrating Black children. This is even evident in the undermining of Black families’ efforts to prepare their children to face the inequities and injustices they experience in the U.S. This article discusses Black families’ engagement in their children’s education amid threats through racial socialization research aimed at developing and validating Black children’s perspectives, experiences, and realities in Black identity to promote their positive social-emotional and psychological development. Black families must know how to cultivate their child’s healthy self-identity, voice, and agency, along with academic achievement. Schools should learn from these practices. Schools that choose to ignore these concepts will continue contributing to trauma and violence against Black children and maintain deficit-oriented views. The article includes examples and implications for teaching and supporting the well-being of Black children, and concludes with practical ideas that educators can learn from and integrate into their practices.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, children, families, and educators faced unprecedented challenges that disproportionally impacted racially/ethnically diverse, low-income communities due to long-standing health system, socioeconomic, and educational inequities. With closures of schools, libraries, and child-care centers, many children were disconnected from the community and did not have access to books. Parents’ and educators’ concerns centered around children falling behind academically and socially. Therefore, 410 high-quality, multicultural books were purchased and distributed to children and families. Case study design explored: (1) how this access to multicultural books influenced the CARC children’s home-based literacy experiences and their responses to the texts; and (2) the challenges of parents/caregivers in supporting their child’s literacy needs during a global crisis. This study described how high-quality multicultural literature book sets were selected. Three themes were  identified: (1) enjoyment, appreciation, and learning; (2) relevance of multicultural literature to children’s lives and identities; (3) difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only paralysed much of the world’s economic activities, but it has also made an impact on the educational work of schools and families, teachers, and communities. This brief contribution will sketch the effects of the pandemic on indigenous children and teenagers in Veracruz, Mexico, who are being affected by the closure of their schools – schools that are part of a public network of intercultural and bilingual education for indigenous students, conceived by the Mexican nation-state with the aim of including an intercultural approach and of taking advantage of the diversity of diversities as a learning resource. After describing the negative impacts the COVID-19 pandemic is having on these children and youngsters, this study will also briefly outline some positive long-term effects the pandemic and school closure crisis may have on the future of intercultural education in Veracruz and Mexico.