The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Educational Communities: Evidence of Early Childhood Education Students.

In the last two years, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on schools and its consequences for the training of new teachers have been the subject of numerous studies. The pandemic has led to a change in schools and their functioning, as trainee teachers have had to be introduced to a new environment for which university training proved to be insufficient. The pandemic poses shared challenges in which future teachers must be present. The objective of this study is to assess the perception of students enrolled in Early Childhood Education courses at the University of Extremadura (Spain) regarding the impact relationships between the subjects and agents of the educational communities. In order to achieve this goal, we present a qualitative study with a phenomenological design. The results of this research show perceptions in line with what the scientific literature shows: a profound change in the relationships between the different agents. Communication increased, but pedagogical issues were displaced by concerns about the health emergency. This study concludes with the need to broaden the knowledge of future teachers about the administrative functioning of and their relationship with the school, as well as about new resources to address new challenges.

Social Justice, Participation and School during the COVID-19—The International Project Gira por la Infancia

The purpose of this article is to present the data which have been obtained in a research project on education during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the framework of the international project Gira por la Infancia 2020. The aim was to construct a critical, active, and participatory citizenship. The method used has been the pedagogical hermeneutic in which the qualitative analysis of data was preceded by a process of child participation which allowed the analysis of the opinions of 6867 children and adolescents from 22 countries and 3 continents. The results present the children’s thinking about the closure of schools, the alternative teaching carried out, the role of teachers and families, and on the return of the "new school" with the health protocols. This work provides the children’s view on the measures of social distancing and massive school closures. However, without doubt, it also shows children’s and adolescents’ potential to empower themselves in complex situations which put the world’s schools in an unprecedented crisis. In addition, it shows the opportunity to take into consideration a joint construction of a society from the germ of its citizenship: children.