Children and COVID-19 Research Library

In spring 2020, governments around the globe shut down schools to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus. This study argues that low-achieving students may be particularly affected by the lack of educator support during school closures. It collects detailed time-use information on students before and during the school closures in a survey of 1099 parents in Germany.

The return to face-to-face learning helps children return to a sense of normality, although different normality as prevention and control measures have likely altered school and classroom routines. It is important that schools should have a risk-mitigation strategy in place. Countries should ensure these strategies carefully balance the likely benefits for, and harms to, younger and older age groups of children when making decisions about implementing infection prevention and control measures. Any measure needs to be balanced with the even worse alternative of schools being closed and Any measure introduced by schools should follow standard protocols for implementation. This publication shares more detailed considerations for health and educational authorities on the public health and social measures to reopen schools as safely as possible.

Schools are essential for children’s learning, health, safety and well-being. But students’ learning suffered a major setback when most educational institutions reduced or cancelled in-person instruction and moved to remote learning and teaching to minimize the spread of COVID-19. Prolonged school closures continue to jeopardise the future of millions of children across the globe. The Europe and Central Asia Region is no exception. Schools should be the first to open and last to close. Getting children back in the classroom remains a priority for UNICEF and WHO Regional Offices, striking a balance between applying public health and social measures and ensuring that children are able to continue learning and socializing to the greatest extent possible. UNICEF and WHO have created several tools and resources to support countries in their back-to-school efforts. This joint UNICEF Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (UNICEF/ ECARO) and WHO Regional Office for Europe Schooling Resource Pack has an easy-to-find compilation of materials to help parents/caregivers, teachers and students return to school safely.

The global COVID-19 public health crisis has driven policies of lockdowns and social distancing that have had negative social and economic impacts, worsening inequalities and social exclusions, and mixed environmental impacts. This study engaged children from schools with diverse environmental pedagogies in online focus groups about nature and their experiences with nature during the pandemic. Participants expressed fear of the unknown virus, sadness from isolation, longing for family and friends, and yearning for the freedom to enjoy the outside world. They revealed knowledge of both positive and negative impacts of lockdowns on the environment. Their experiences with nature demonstrate how environmental injustice affects the lives of children from public schools in urban contexts, especially those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, who reported less contact with nature during the lockdown. As a group, children are aware and very critical of intergenerational environmental injustice and argue for the need for adults to act.

Teachers and students have experienced an unusual year in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To minimize the risk of the epidemic spreading, face-to-face lecturing hours have been reduced, resulting in a substantial need for online instruction. This project thus aims to develop open access flipped learning resources (e.g. dynamic courseware and instructional videos) for secondary school mathematics teachers and students in Hong Kong. The overarching goal of this study is to make theoretically and empirically supported suggestions for developing the resources. Experiential learning theory was used as the theoretical foundation for developing the resources. A three-cycle recursive instructional design approach involving 34 mathematics educators was used to develop and improve materials that better meet the needs of frontline teachers.

During the current global pandemic, parents and carers in England and across the UK have been asked by the Government to ‘home school’ their child/ren, and a plethora of resources have been produced and made available to assist with this. The perceived detrimental effects of being absent from school have been a driver for the Government in ensuring that schools remain open for as long as possible, and the current pandemic situation is replete with narratives of ‘loss’. Little attention has been paid to any potential benefits for children and families of homeschooling or the opportunities it provides. This paper reports on a small-scale online survey that explored the experiences of parents’ homeschooling their child/ren with SEND during a global pandemic in England.

The present study investigated parental involvement in the homework of children with learning disabilities, during distance learning due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Also, the role of parents' fear of COVID-19 and resilience in their involvement in homework was examined. The study involved 271 parents (140 mothers and 131 fathers) of children with learning disabilities, who studied in the fifth and sixth grade from4 schools of Thessaloniki (Greece). Parents completed a set of self-reported questionnaires, which included a scale on parental involvement in homework, a scale on fear of COVID-19, and a scale on resilience.

Stay-at-home orders and the removal of care and domestic supports during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic substantially disrupted US parents’ work and family lives. Although much is known about changes in US parents’ paid labor arrangements, the evidence regarding changes in unpaid domestic labor has been largely anecdotal. This study uses novel data from 1,025 US parents in different-sex partnerships to provide a descriptive overview of changes in mothers’ and fathers’ participation in, and division of, housework and childcare from March 2020 to the early days of the pandemic (late April 2020).

The aim of the study on which this article reports was to identify parents' approaches to their children's remote education during the COVID-19 pandemic in April and May 2020. Additionally, this investigation sought to determine the role of parent perceptions of the barriers and benefits of remote education. The research draws on a survey of 421 parents of primary school students, in which a 66-item questionnaire (4 subscales) was used. Analysis revealed three main clusters that represent approaches adopted by parents: (1) the committed teacher approach, (2) the autonomy-supporting coach, and (3) the committed teacher and intervener. The parents in cluster 3 emphasised perceived barriers to remote learning more than parents in clusters 1 and 2. Regarding perceptions of the benefits, statistically significant differences were found in perceptions of child development facilitated by remote education (the parents in cluster 2 rated it most positively). The results can be used to support parents and schools in the provision of optimal remote learning.

School closures in spring 2020 caused by the COVID-19 pandemic were an unprecedented and drastic event for students, parents, and teachers. The unplanned adaptation of classroom instruction to emergency distance learning was necessary to ensure continued education. In this new learning environment, teachers formed expectations for student academic achievement gains, which in turn affected the opportunities for students to learn. Parents faced new challenges in supporting their children’s learning. According to parenting stress models, such drastic events can be a stress factor for parents, which in turn affects their children’s adjustment. This study analyzed the extent to which parents and teachers affected the perceptions of students in compulsory school toward distance learning through processes at home (individual level) and at the class level with data from multiple informants. On an individual level, the relationship between parents’ perceived threat of COVID-19 and their stress due to distance learning and students’ perceived threat of COVID-19 and their perception of distance learning were examined. Students’ learning behavior was accounted for as a variable related to their perception of distance learning. At the class level, the explanatory character of teacher expectations and class-aggregated achievement gains were examined. Data on students in grades 4 to 8, parents, and teachers in Switzerland were collected with standardized online questionnaires after the period of school closures.

The growing number of adolescents who are overweight or obese (OW / OB) is a public concern. The present study was aimed to evaluate physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviors (SB) (screen time (ST) and homework time (HT)) among Yazd OW/OB adolescents. This cross-sectional study was performed among 510 students aged 12-16 in Yazd, Iran. The general information, PA, and SB (ST and HT) were collected by interview based on the WHO standard questionnaire. Anthropometric data were assessed by precise instruments. Daily energy intake (Energy) was obtained from a 7-day food record. Nutritionist 4 software (version I) was run to estimate the energy.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many parents suddenly had to assume responsibility for their children’s learning at home. Research conducted before the pandemic showed that mathematics homework is often unsuccessful or stressful for both parents and children and that tension exists between home and school in the learning of mathematics. Understanding parents’ experience of home-learning mathematics during lockdown has implications for positive learning relationships between home and school in the future. During the lockdown, we sent an online survey to New Zealand parents and received 634 responses. We found that parents were generally very engaged in the home learning of mathematics. They reported a range of opinions about the quality of mathematics work and teacher support, and there was a correlation between general stress levels and negative opinions. To further support their child’s mathematics learning, many parents turned to online mathematics programs, about which they were very positive.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced teachers and parents to quickly adapt to a new educational context: distance learning. Teachers developed online academic material while parents taught the exercises and lessons provided by teachers to their children at home. Considering that the use of digital tools in education has dramatically increased during this crisis, and it is set to continue, there is a pressing need to understand the impact of distance learning. Taking a multidisciplinary view, this study argues that by making the learning process rely more than ever on families, rather than on teachers, and by getting students to work predominantly via digital resources, school closures exacerbate social class academic disparities. To address this burning issue, this study proposes an agenda for future research and outline recommendations to help parents, teachers and policymakers to limit the impact of the lockdown on social-class-based academic inequality.

The purpose of this systematic review is to summarize what is known about health-related physical fitness (cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and body composition) and physical activity among homeschool youth. Findings from this study have implications for all American youth as they return to public school from mandated schooling at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Database engines identified over 22,000 articles with 82 abstracts screened for further review. Of these, 18 full-text articles were additionally screened with 10 cross-sectional articles included in the final review. Articles were condensed into a standard review template and findings were summarized by topic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of children abruptly moved to online schooling, which required high levels of parental involvement. Family routines were disrupted, potentially increasing parental stress, and may be reflected in greater media screen time use in children. To determine whether (1) parenting styles and (2) parenting stress were associated with children's screen time use during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period.