COVID-19 has had a sudden and profound effect on schools and communities globally. Efforts to control the spread of the virus have resulted in nationwide, regional and partial school closures, which are impacting hundreds of millions of students across the globe. They are disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable students and revealing deep inequalities within educational provision (UNESCO, 2020). COVID-19 mitigation efforts have not been felt equally across the population, but have interacted with existing patterns of inequality across dimensions of socioeconomic class, age, gender and ethnicity. For instance, whilst all parents have had to cope with huge additional demands on their time to care for and educate their children at home, better‐off families and those with higher levels of education were more likely to have physical and other resources at home to educate their children (Save the Children, 2020).

COVID-19 also threatens to exacerbate the risk of violence against children, particularly for those who are already at greatest risk – including girls, poor children, children with disabilities, and those in precarious contexts (Save the Children, 2020). The closure of schools means that children do not have access to a critical safe space that can provide protection from various types of harm. Stressors related to COVID-19, including health and financial concerns has created a ‘pressure cooker’ environment in many families, placing children at increased risk of exposure to neglect, abuse and violence within the home.

Meanwhile, teachers have remained on the frontline across many countries. They have had to re-imagine how they teach, and develop new creative ways of supporting students, often without adequate training and resources (Kim & Abery, 2020). The pandemic also presents a colossal challenge for school leaders in their efforts to ensure that students are cared for and nurtured, whilst also attending to the safety of all who attend the school and compliance with strict and frequently changing public health regulations (Harris & Jones, 2020).

The purpose of this symposium is to illuminate some of the inequalities that school closures have revealed across different socio-political and cultural contexts. Taking an intersectional lens the three papers in this symposium explore various dimensions of social injustice including but not limited to gender, class, (dis)ability, and race. Drawing on different theoretical and methodological approaches, the papers explore some of the major challenges and opportunities that school closures have presented in three countries, Ecuador, Ireland and the England.

This symposium draws inspiration from an inquiry method known at portraiture, which allows researchers embrace contradictions, document the different “textures” of human experience, and capture its complexity (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2005). Portraiture integrates aesthetics and narrative into the description, interpretation, analysis and synthesis of findings (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Hoffman Davis, 1997). This method allows the listener and/or reader to re-create the portrait, similar to other aesthetic experiences, and invites them to re-interpret it as well.

Inspired by this method of inquiry, this symposium is dedicated to offering portraits, along with discerning interpretations and comparisons, of lockdown experiences in three countries, focusing particularly on education. Whilst portraiture is typically concerned with first-hand accounts to describe participants lived experience, in this symposium we take some liberties, as we apply the method to explore decision making processes during an extreme health emergency. Considering the aim of portraiture is to document what is strong, resilient, and worthy in a given situation, we acknowledge the specific socio-cultural and political systems from which we come, and resist attempts to victimize or demonize teachers, students and families. We also offer some future-facing possibilities for developing more equitable educational policies based on values of participation, inclusion and trust, rather than individualism, accountability and competition. 

Engzell, P., Frey, A., & Verhagen, M. D. (2020). Learning inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic. Harris, A. (2020), "COVID-19 – school leadership in crisis?", Journal of Professional Capital and Community, Vol. 5 No. 3/4, pp. 321-326. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPCC-06-2020-0045 Jæger, M. M., & Blaabæk, E. H. (2020). Inequality in learning opportunities during Covid-19: Evidence from library takeout. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 68, 100524. Lawrence-Lightfoot, S. (2005) Reflections on portraiture: A dialogue between art and science. Qualitative Inquiry, 11(3), 3-15. Lawrence-Lightfoot, S., & Hoffman Davis, J. H. (1997). The art and science of portraiture. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. UNESCO, (2020). Global Monitoring of School Closures caused by COVID-19 https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse/ Save the Children UK, (2020). Coronavirus’ Invisible Victims: Children in Monetary Poor Households https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/blogs/2020/coronavirus-invisiblevictims-children-in-monetary-poor-households