Latin American Children Reconstructing School, Home, and Virtual Experiences During the Pandemic: A Collaborative Ethnography

• In Event: Youth Cultures of Collaboration and Community Empowerment

Abstract

The educational contexts of children around the globe have drastically changed because of the social isolation forced by the COVID-19 pandemic. This ethnographic study represents a collaboration with thirty-five Latin American children and youth from six different countries. Through exchanges of multimodal texts and virtual encounters, we seek to understand how children reconstruct schooling, domestic and virtual experiences during the pandemic. We focus on the following question: How do children deploy discourses and practices to (re)configure and (re)invent times, spaces, relationships and emotions related to their home/school quotidian life in different settings/countries? We examine a single event that illustrates the way in which four children reinvent their contexts of social isolation, and in the process, reinvent themselves.

Authors

• Alba Lucy Guerrero, Universidad Javeriana

• Maria E. Dantas-Whitney, Western Oregon University

• Angeles Clemente, Universidad Autónoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca

• Verónica Di Caudo, Universidad Católica Argentina

• Florencia Conde, Universidad Nacional del Nordeste

• Silvina Fernández, Instituto de Formación Docente Continua Bariloche

• Diana Milstein, Universidad Nacional del Comahue e Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social

• Regina Coeli Machado e Silva, Universidade da Integração Latino-Americana