Education systems around the globe have faced unprecedented disruption due to the COVID19 pandemic as school closures, transition to distance learning, and a variety of other policy measures changed education realities “overnight”.

A growing body of research suggests that change in many countries has not been smooth. As policy decisions were (and are still being) taken fast and without much contingency planning, teachers, students, parents, and school principals who are on the frontline of education provision were faced with numerous uncertainties and complex challenges. In many countries, this has put at risk a number of hard-fought achievements in the areas of quality, equity, and inclusion in education.

With our research we wanted to understand what role the newly adopted policy measures played in proliferating these risks, and the ways in which they were understood and implemented by practitioners and other stakeholders in education. The extent to which education policy outcomes coincide with the original intentions of policy makers depend a great deal on its implementation by education participants – teachers, students, parents, administrators – in particular contexts. Policy implementation is never straightforward, but rather creatively interpreted, actively construed, and refracted through the prism of the experiences, contexts, and identities of those who implement the policy. Therefore, a question about policy outcomes is also a question about “policy appropriation”.

As a creative and interpretative practice, the appropriation of policy decisions in education is also an epistemological issue which is situated in (and shaped by) the context in which it takes place. In the effort to navigate the changed context (i.e. the transition to remote teaching) and in the absence of timely and clear “top-down” guidance and opportunities for “face-to-face” collegial discussions during the Covid-19 crisis, teachers, parents, and other education participants intensified their use of social media (in particular Facebook) in the effort to navigate the new reality.

The collective negotiation and interpretation of the changed circumstances by education participants quickly transformed a number of such social media “locations” into rich repositories of evidence on how education participants are transforming official policies into new, locally situated policies in their communities of practice.

With our research we tapped into this pool of content data across several countries to explore appropriation of policy measures introduced in response to COVID19 pandemic. We situated our exploration in the conceptual framework of sociocultural policy research and digital ethnography as an approach to studying communicative practices and repertoires in digital environment that can accommodate diverse research goals, while allowing researchers to stay in line with epistemological assumptions that using the internet, language and other semiotic means are locally situated experiences which are not self-explanatory but need to be investigated.

In our paper, we discuss how transition to distant teaching has been interpreted and negotiated in online communities of practice in five countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, as a proxy for the implications of policy decisions taken in education in response to the COVID19 crisis. Three research questions guided us:

1. How are meanings of distant teaching negotiated in Facebook groups?
2. Through what institutional and contextual conditions has policy implementation refracted?
3. How does distant teaching look like from teachers’ perspectives?

For the purpose of our research, we followed a methodology for collection of frontline experience data generated in Facebook groups, which is in line with the theoretical underpinnings of sociocultural policy analysis and digital ethnography and ensures respect for privacy of individual users, feasibility of data collection (data volume), and permissibility (non-automated data collection). We used this methodological approach to: • Identify Facebook groups which can be considered as communities of practice and shared spaces of people who participate in education in five countries; • Collect “content data” from these groups, i.e. posts and comments which communicate teachers’ understanding and experiences of transition to distant teaching in spring 2020. • Analyse the content data with the help of computer-assisted content analysis (MAXQDA) Analysis was done in two phases. In the first phase we explored “cultures” of selected Facebook groups, by looking at the official description of the group and through observation of in-group discussions, communicative styles, etc. This “sense” of group culture informed collection of posts and comments as well as content analysis (phase 2 of the analysis, steps 1 and 2). In the second phase, we conducted computer-assisted thematic analysis (MAXQDA) of posts and comments in three steps. (1) Initially, we identified posts and comments that communicate about transition to distance education. The first analytical phase led us to search broader and include not only comments in discussions that were triggered with a post about distance education, but also for comments in other discussions, as they often evolve and move thematically. (2) Then, we sought to organize these posts and comments into broad themes that speak of education participant’s experiences with this policy measure in the ways that reflect groups’ cultures and purposes and the ways in which meanings are negotiated (through expressions of contentment, challenges, and gaps – see expected outcomes). By experience we refer to both inner (opinions, beliefs, feelings etc.) and experiences in practice, as expressed in posts and comments. (3) Finally, the content of each category of experience was explored in-depth which led us to understanding the views of education participants on how the policy measures played out in practice and what institutional and other contextual conditions shaped these practices.

We identified 16 Facebook groups in 5 countries (Armenia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine), which gather 545 000 education participants (mostly teachers), where who shared 4769 policy-related posts and comments. First results show that group discussions express positive experiences with policy measures (contentment) - group members talk about potential of digital platforms for transformation of learning, students’ creativity, motivation, and enthusiasm, thus reflecting teachers’ and students’ well-developed digital competences, adequate ICT infrastructure, parental support at home etc. It can be presumed that in these cases, intended policy outcomes were met. Nevertheless, participants also share difficulties they face in distant education (challenges), they ask for support, point to unaddressed needs, and share advice based on acquired coping strategies (gaps). For example, lack of student-teacher interaction due to unstable or non-existing internet connection was especially challenging with younger students, overburdening curriculum, lack of instructions for student assessment in online setting etc. Such posts and comments show discrepancies, and contradictions between different policy locales, worldviews, institutional conditions, and point to lapses in policy making that prevent teachers from “translation” of policies into meaningful practice. Unfortunately, discussions in selected Facebook groups mainly revolve around challenges and gaps, while expression of contentment is rare. On one hand, this is due to the nature and purpose of Facebook groups, but on the other it shows how implementation of distant teaching may have many forms which do not always correspond with principles of equity, quality, inclusion. It varies from smooth and innovative practice to overwhelming exchange of printed materials, endless Viber/Whatsapp/e-mail exchange of learning materials and homework, or even exclusion from education. Further analysis of similarities and differences in policy responses and implementation across countries is yet to be conducted. Also, grass-root responses to policy measures that further transform policies should be recorded too.

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