Mind the "Gap": The COVID Pandemic and the Reproduction of Inequalities in Education in Greece

• In Event: An International Study of the Cultural and Spatial Politics of Education During the COVID Pandemic

Abstract

This paper explores the reproduction of inequalities in education during the COVID pandemic in Greece. Vulnerable children such as the refugee and asylum-seeking children living in refugee camps and shelters, as well as Roma children who are underprivileged have been struggling more than the privileged children during the pandemic. Some of the reasons why the pandemic had a particularly adverse impact on these populations are: lack of basic educational infrastructure including lack of regional and national level policies, lack of equipment such as technological devices, internet connection, living conditions in overcrowded homes and camps as well as lack of parental support.

Based on preliminary data collected from 7 teachers and school principals, this paper argues that inequalities in education (Bourdieu & Passeron 1990) are not new and that the pandemic visibilised these inequities that are deeply anchored in longer histories of poverty, lack of legal status concerning asylum seeking and unaccompanied children living under precarious, spatial, temporal and legal uncertainties. Teachers and school principals who work in public schools and nongovernmental organisations have reported that the pandemic has created a huge “gap” in terms of curricula and learning especially for disadvantaged children. Educators highlight that their students lost “almost a year” due to lack of infrastructure. In addition, there are concerns about children’s wellbeing. Participants in this study reported that children who live in camps and overcrowded households have been suffering from isolation and helplessness as schools play a role in their socialisation i.e. giving them a sense of “normality” especially to those living in deviant spaces such as refugee and Roma camps.


References

Author (2018, 2020, 2021).

Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J.C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society and culture. London, UK: Sage Publications.

Author

• Birgul Yilmaz