Are the Kids Alright? Lingering Effects of COVID-19 on Youth Well-Being, Learning, and Educational Engagement

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

Children who were born in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic will enter kindergarten in 2025. In the five years since the onset of the pandemic, we have seen enormous disruptions to education systems and lingering effects on children’s academic, behavioral, and wellbeing outcomes. Education researchers must learn to work within complex systems wherein the root causes of these educational problems are complex, interacting, and not simple to solve. This session takes up this call by bringing together scholars from across the academy (psychology, neuroscience, educational policy, educational leadership) for an interactive discussion of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on a variety of student outcomes and experiences, while illuminating the interconnections between them and the possibilities for improvement.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chairs

• Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, Wayne State University

• Joshua Childs, University of Texas at Austin

Participants

• Sonya Douglass, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University

• Amanda Guyer, University of California - Davis

• Chantal A. Hailey, University of Texas at Austin

• Christopher Kearney, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

Discussant

• Vivian L. Gadsden, University of Pennsylvania