The COVID-19 pandemic has made visible massive inequalities in wealth, income and power, and the protracted inequalities in education. Education was already mired in a crisis of resources, infrastructure, human capital, etc. before the appearance of COVID-19 in many countries, but this new development has pulled back the curtain to reveal more clearly the inefficiencies, the deep inequalities in schools and the challenges that students and teachers face (Chalari & Atta, 2021). In this presentation, we argue that this unprecedented global crisis and the health and safety measures imposed strengthened existing educational inequalities with direct effects on students’ quality of life and overall well-being. Specifically, they have highlighted conventional class hierarchies not merely in regard to wealth, income and economic security, but also inequalities regarding access to valued circumstances, to practices and ‘ways of life’ (Sayer, 2005). Subsequently, these have had a huge impact on students’ well-being, as well as on their ability to flourish and their potential for happiness.

In this presentation, we report findings from an EU funded research project titled ‘SHINE’, which adopted a comparative and intersectional approach to exploring the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on students’ well-being in Cyprus and Greece.The research objectives of our project were: to explore students’ well-being through an intersectional approach, to lay a foundation for tracing new ways of exploring the practices and discourses through which well-being is constituted, to respond to the challenging and ever-changing circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and to the need of education systems for change, to raise important questions about the possible role of education for the promotion of students’ well-being in contexts of emergency such as the pandemic, to illuminate the active role that schools have in facilitating the social, physical and emotional well-being of students, to explore how we can create an education system that will promote students’ well-being. The aim of our study was not simply to analyse and report but to actively seek out possibilities, particularly those articulated by students, for the creation of a different educational ecosystem that cares about students’ wellbeing. Our study gave secondary school students in Cyprus and Greece the opportunity to share insights into the impact of the pandemic on their society, on education and especially on their own everyday lives, and to share their thoughts and views on the role that education may play in tackling this impact.

In our attempt, Boudieu’s theoretical concepts and, in particular, ‘habitus’ were used as the main conceptual and methodological tools to help us explain and develop a holistic understanding of students’ lived, embodied, affective experiences in contemporary Greece and Cyprus. Habitus is a complex and enigmatic concept that Bourdieu developed to demonstrate the ways in which ‘not only is the body in the social world, but also the ways in which the social world is in the body’ (Reay 2004, 432). We employed habitus as an adoptive mechanism to the effects of the crisis on young people’s lives and because it holds promise for exploring the affective aspects of living in an unequal society (Reay 2015). A psychosocial understanding of students’ habitus may allow for a better and richer appreciation of how the exterior – wider social structures such as the pandemic crisis– is experienced and mediated by the interior, the psyche (ibid), and creates the proper conditions for a happy or unhappy life. It may also introduce other variables that may explain and predict social inequality (Illouz 1997). 

The study attempted to shed light upon the perceptions and lived experiences of students – a purpose that led us to select a mixed method approach (qualitative and quantitative). Within this framework, a two-stage study carried out: a) an online survey and b) face to face focus groups and online one to one semi-structured interviews (at the schools where due to the strict health protocols face to face focus groups weren’t allowed). The aim in this study was not to develop a statistically generalisable sample, but rather to capture diversity of experience and to explore research questions and classify key issues for future development. Thus, in order to ensure access to a sufficient number of participants, ‘purposeful sample’ technique was employed (Patton, 2002). Specifically, we started our fieldwork by finding four secondary public schools in Nicosia and in Athens. These schools contained primarily of students from lower middle-class and working-class families and students from families with a history of immigration. Participants were identified and selected through direct contact with school head teachers. Firstly, we conducted the online survey in both countries. This survey could be completed remotely even during extended periods of lockdowns and school closures. For this survey we aimed at a sample of around 300 participants in each country and we focused in generating demographic information, general information on school performance, information on students’ emotions and well-being, students’ experiences of COVID-19, the effects of the pandemic and students’ thoughts on schools’ role. Next, we conducted focus groups and semi-structured interviews with students from the same eight schools. For the interviews and focus groups we aimed for a total of 40 students from each country. The selection of these participants was based on their profile, their degree of motivation to take part in the project, their gender, their age, their socio-economic status, their cultural background / migration status. During the interviews we focused on students’ well-being, the impact of the pandemic crisis and schools’ role. In both techniques we followed the OECD framework for measuring well-being. According to this framework students’ well-being is the psychological, cognitive, social and physical functioning and capabilities that students need for a happy and fulfilling life and it is measured through quality of life (health status, work life balance, education and skills, social connections, civic engagement and environmental quality, personal security) and material condition (income and wealth, jobs and earnings, housing.

Our intention in undertaking this research project was to contribute new knowledge, add a new body of empirical evidence to the effects of the pandemic crisis, and address gaps for policy-making both at the EU and national levels by offering a systematic and comprehensive study of the effects of educational experiences on students’ well-being in Greece and Cyprus from a comparative and intersectional perspective. The study reported in this presentation aimed to effectively discuss and provide a closer insight into possible ways of thinking about education, different from those presented in previous studies. Its findings aim to contribute to the improvement of educational policy and practice in both countries, by informing pedagogic, curricular and other educational judgments and decisions in times of crisis, and to serve as an indication of the need for further research. Such findings may shed light on the effects of crisis on individuals’ educational experiences in a global perspective; the impact of the pandemic crisis is now common across most of the countries around the world. Many countries might find the present study informative with regard to their own struggles. Within Europe, there is currently a rising interest in the impact of the pandemic crisis on education. Recent EU policy developments – but also broader sociological and cultural studies – show a noticeable trend towards efforts to develop and highlight a discourse on well-being, health and happiness, by putting the health and well-being of young people at the core of the social investment agenda through transforming educational practices.

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