Complicating "Learning Loss" in Rural Latinx Families and Communities During COVID-19 and Online Learning

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Fighting for Educational Equity Within a Global Pandemic (Table 26)

Abstract

This paper uses a desire-based framework and pedagogies of the home framework to reject the prevailing notion in the field of education that rural Latinx students suffered a “learning loss” during the pandemic and online learning. Current conversations around what students have lost because of the transition to online learning has primarily been contextualized through a deficit-based perspective. While rural Latinx students are at a significant educational and material disadvantage due to the disproportionate impact of the pandemic in working-class Communities of Color, this study finds that rural Latinx students from California’s San Joaquin Valley continued to develop skills, including critical thinking skills and help-seeking skills, and strengthened their relations with their families while learning from home.

Author

• Mayra Puente, University of California - Santa Barbara