"You Lose Your Sense of Direction": Meaning-Making During the Time of COVID-19

• In Event: Reading Research

Abstract

Three adolescents use the musical form of a motet as a metaphor to theorize their meaning-making experiences during COVID-19’s shelter-in-place order. With their parents as co-researchers, the teens explore what it means to create and learn alone, and then with others, via virtual platforms. This Child-Parent research study builds upon a Critical Dialectical Pluralist (CDP) methodology, which is a participatory research method that privileges the child as a co-researcher at every stage of the inquiry. Research team discussions initially were scaffolded by the parent-researchers, and then adolescents developed their analyses individually and together. The adolescents determined that time, frustration, and space were overarching themes that captured the essence of working alone, and then together, in messy, orchestrated online ensembles

Authors

• Mary Beth Schaefer, Saint John's University

• Sandra Schamroth Abrams, University of South Africa

• Molly Kurpis

• Charlotte Abrams

• Madeline Abrams