Historically marginalized student expression through culturally sustaining

With the adoption of the new Common Core Visual and Performing Arts Standards by the California Department of Education in 2019, there was an emphasis on creating a more inclusive and equitable arts educational experience for students through their arts educators. Unfortunately, with the majority of educators in the Visual and Performing Arts departments within California with an average of more than five years teaching experience, they obtained their knowledge of mandatory California teacher standards before the adoption took place for new common core state standards. Therefore, how are current students enrolled in these courses, specifically Historically Marginalized Students, obtaining an arts education that emphasizes inclusivity and equity? Professional development has not been provided that emphasizes equity and inclusive as well as a shift with the COVID-19 pandemic that has affected the educational system. How are students interacting with curriculum, and how arts educators looking to increase student engagement? This three-part qualitative action research study builds on a collaboratively developed lesson plan to engage a diverse art class consisting of historically marginalized students. Within this secondary visual arts classroom setting the implementation of culturally sustaining pedagogical practices consistently occurs. Second, the study explores the effectiveness of this implementation through student self-expression in the form of media influenced, design concept analysis. Third, through the analysis of completed student artifacts and reflections, understand the effect of culturally sustaining pedagogical practices through artistic self-expression. The concluding recommendations support the implementation of culturally sustaining pedagogical practices to increase authentic student self-expression. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Territorial Disparities in COVID-19 Vaccination in Romania

This paper explores relationships between vaccination coverage and indicators at the level oflocal administrative units for the case of rural localities of Romania. Positive correlations have been identified in relation to fiscal capacity, coverage of the population with general practitioners, COVID‐19 incidence rate and absence of a marginalized community within the locality. Regional differences are again highlighted in the analysis. This means that there is at least partially an overlap of the disadvantaged rural areas with the ones registering low vaccination uptakes against COVID‐19. Further on, it means that these territorial areas accumulate a series of structural disadvantages that can prove to increase the discrepancies between them and other rural or large urban areas. The paper contributes to enlarging the perspective on vaccination coverage by adding both conceptual and practical insights. From the point ofview of practitioners, the results of the study can be used to tailor intervention in communities with similar characteristics, to underscore public health inequalities across territories. Points for practitioners are relevant for a wide range of stakeholders from public health, public management, and social protection fields, placed in both local and central level decision‐making positions. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration & Policy is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

An Introduction to Biopolitics and Shock Economy of COVID-19: Medical Perspectives and Socioeconomic Dynamics

This edited volume on the biopolitics and shock economy of COVID-19 crisis embraces a wide spectrum of topics such as shock economy, medical perspectives on COVID-19, application of geospatial technology, infectivity, immunity, and severity of the disease, as well as ontology of the disease emergence as important factors for adoption of relevant biopolitical measures, sociocultural obstacles, COVID-19-induced transaction costs, social support and resilience of inhabitants of marginalized areas, as well as business resilience factors, entrepreneurship, and digital transformation. Through each chapter of this book, the authors, with their expertise in the theme they picked, have attempted to unfold some emerging aspects in the COVID-19 crisis which could benefit not only the academics but also the institutional, social, economic, developmental, and health policy-makers as well as the health practitioners on the ground. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Reaching city youth with an online summer arts workshop in Los Angeles

The Summer Arts Workshop (SAW) is a community-based art therapy program with a social justice focus. It has been offered through the Helen B. Landgarten (HBL) Art Therapy Clinic at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) since 2007 in partnership with Dolores Mission School in Boyle Heights, a historically under-resourced part of East Los Angeles. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders in Los Angeles, the SAW leadership team adapted the workshop to an online format. The authors took advantage of the online format to extend the reach of the workshop to several school sites in marginalized communities in Los Angeles County, including a juvenile hall high school, which is a prison for youth in a state youth detention centre. The greatest challenge in adapting to an online format was preserving the core component of the workshop: building trust and healthy attachments through expressive art making. The authors overcame this and other challenges and succeeded in providing connecting experiences for participants and facilitators during a time of social isolation and collective anxiety. This chapter shows how teletherapy can bridge gaps of access, particularly for marginalized populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Assessing the Social Support and Resilience of the Inhabitants of Marginalized Communities amid COVID-19 Pandemic in Iran: A Shiraz Metropolis Case Study

Background: Marginalized communities were extremely vulnerable to health, social, psychological, and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between resilience and provided social support for the case study of marginalized communities during the COVID-19 outbreak. Methodology: This study was conducted by survey method. The study population belonged to the inhabitants of the suburbs of Shiraz (Iran) (n = 374,000 people), of whom 400 people were selected from different neighborhoods by proportional cluster sampling. In order to collect data, a 67-item researcher-made questionnaire was used. Major Findings: Results showed that among the dimensions of social support, emotional and informational support was above moderate and material support was at a moderate level. Therefore, it can be assumed that the material support was insufficient to increase people's resilience. Therefore, it is necessary to make interventions to improve the situation. Measures to be taken to increase the level of social support in its various dimensions will strengthen and complement each other and will directly or indirectly increase the resilience of marginalized communities. With regard to information support, steps should be taken to increase people's awareness, besides a step to strengthen their self-worth through necessary training and increase in awareness, which will in turn raise the level of emotional support. Therefore, people can strengthen the capability for making decisions, solving problems, and establishing effective relationships, as well as the ability for self-awareness, empathy, and coping with emotions and stress, to be able to successfully do away with this crisis. Implications: Resilience can be increased through social support interventions. Strengthening the social support of the inhabitants of the marginalized areas as a method to increase their resilience seems to be an important strategy in controlling the pandemic. Value: Assessing the social support and resilience of the inhabitants of marginalized communities amid the COVID-19 pandemic allows us to design more targeted support programs for them during confrontation and virus infections. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

What was a gap is now a chasm: Remote schooling, the digital divide, and educational inequities resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 resulted in the unexpected transition to remote learning for K-12 schools, exacerbating the existing digital divide and impacting the educational outcomes of marginalized youth. This article reviews the literature on the impacts of the pandemic on the educational outcomes of marginalized youth due to remote learning and the digital divide. Here, we provide an overview of the pandemic and remote schooling from an intersectional lens, discuss the impacts of the digital divide on learning for students during the pandemic, and then consider impacts on the delivery of special education supports. Additionally, we review the literature on the widening achievement gap in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Future directions for research and practice are discussed.

Impact of COVID-19 on Local Planning Practices: Focusing on Tactical Urbanism, Slow Streets and Low-Income Communities in Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, and New York

In the face of lockdowns and social distancing measures promulgated as a result of COVID-19, the effects on local planning are quite diverse. One of the effects is planners' use of tactical urbanism in their efforts to improve public health. With tactical urbanism being characterized as incremental, temporary, flexible, and easily implementable, it is appropriate to ask whether tactical urbanism-based strategies can help make underserved communities more healthy in times of pandemic. This chapter addresses that question by examining several examples of tactical programs called Slow Streets, Open Streets, Safe Streets, Essential Places, etc. These programs provide temporary public spaces in the streets for exercise and interaction. These programs are led by local governmental entities such as transportation departments in Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, California;Denver, Colorado;Chicago, Illinois;and New York, New York. We review literature to understand the relevance of those programs to tactical urbanism, and we investigate how effectively they are helping improve health in low-income communities during COVID-19. We use interdisciplinary literature on public health and healthy community design to ground our investigation. Interviews and internet-based sources complement the research. The study outcomes suggest that the pandemic forced planners to act swiftly, but that their tactical programs are limited in improving the health of disadvantaged population because the programs lack comprehensive community engagement and alignment with longer term plans. We end by identifying areas for improvement (governance) in tactical urbanism;and by suggesting future challenges (cultural shifts in urban planning and design practice including denouncement of racialized practices) that, if overcome, could help facilitate the transformation of cities in a healthy, just, and equitable manner. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Disasters in times of sheltering in place: Social work and the COVID-19 pandemic

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The virus is primarily spread between people during close contact via small virulent droplets produced by coughing, sneezing, and talking, with less common infection spread by touching a contaminated surface and then touching one's face. The coronavirus pandemic has also disrupted the provision of social work services ranging from child welfare and school social work to clinical and psychiatric social work. During the COVID-19 emergency, states and localities issued emergency stay-at-home orders requiring the temporary closure of nonessential businesses, including some private social work practices. As the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, social work practice will adjust to the needs of the client groups. The most vulnerable and marginalized populations will experience greater impacts on their health;welfare;economic stability;and access to medical care, education, and technology. Social work will have a valuable role to play in the amelioration of negative impacts that are devastating the United States and the world. The infusion of telemedicine and teletherapy in social work practice seems inevitable, and it is hoped that these will provide an efficient and effective new social work practice modality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

COVID-19 in Tunisia: Mapping and Documenting the Impacts on Those on the Margins

Since the 2011 uprisings, Tunisia has been going through a delicate political transition while the socio-economic context is continuously deteriorating. Our analysis focuses on the exceptional period of the lock down (from the 20th of March 2020 to mid-June 2020). With a large portion of the population deprived of their daily informal jobs, the collateral damages of the coercive measures were immediately visible in Tunisia. By critically engaging with how the coronavirus was politically managed in Tunisia, we propose to map and document plural impacts of the pandemic contextualizing this crisis for specific groups of population and territories: Tunisia's young population from hinterland regions (symptomatic of the 2011 uprising and the territorial division) and illegalized sub-Saharan migrants. By focusing on precarious, invisibilized and marginalized groups, we question processes of politization of socio-economic claims under the circumstantial constraints of the pandemic. Besides, this period (re-)activates new forms of civil society mobilization as well as cooperation through solidarity. In a nutshell, the effects of COVID-19 allow us to observe the transformations in the Tunisian post-revolutionary context through a much broader lens. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Trapped in housing insecurity: Socioecological barriers to housing access experienced by intimate partner violence survivors from marginalized communities.

Homelessness and intimate partner violence (IPV) do not impact all communities equally. Survivors from marginalized communities-that is communities that have been historically and structurally excluded from social, economic, and political resources-face additional challenges weathering IPV and housing crises. Understanding the housing experiences of marginalized survivors is necessary to achieve housing equity for all survivors. Community-based participatory research methods were utilized to convene 14 listening sessions (7 primary/7 validation) with Black and Latinx IPV survivors with intersectional identities (n = 92). Listening sessions were held in community-based locations including a church, health clinic, social service agency, and private residence. The last five validation sessions were conducted virtually on Zoom due to COVID pandemic protocols. All listening sessions were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Latinx population listening sessions were conducted in Spanish and were implemented and translated with attention to linguistic justice principles. The research team used a modified constructivist grounded theory approach for data analysis. Four overarching themes (and seven subthemes) related to survivors' housing experiences emerged: (1) safety and healing challenges, including living in unhealthy physical environments, not being safe in their homes, and contending with community violence, sexual exploitation threats, and eviction fears; (2) formal service fragmentation/bureaucracy that hampered access to housing resource information and resources; (3) resource scarcity associated with limited affordable housing stock; and (4) systemic oppression resulting from discriminatory treatment and gentrification. Comprehensive multileveled approaches are needed to disrupt the cycle of housing insecurity for IPV survivors from marginalized communities.

Practitioner Perspectives on COVID-19's Impact on Computer Science Education Among High Schools Serving Students from Lower and Higher Income Families

Research Problem. Computer science (CS) education researchers conducting studies that target high school students have likely seen their studies impacted by COVID-19. Interpreting research findings impacted by COVID-19 presents unique challenges that will require a deeper understanding as to how the pandemic has affected underserved and underrepresented students studying or unable to study computing. Research Question. Our research question for this study was: In what ways has the high school computer science educational ecosystem for students been impacted by COVID-19, particularly when comparing schools based on relative socioeconomic status of a majority of students? Methodology. We used an exploratory sequential mixed methods study to understand the types of impacts high school CS educators have seen in their practice over the past year using the CAPE theoretical dissaggregation framework to measure schools' Capacity to offer CS, student Access to CS education, student Participation in CS, and Experiences of students taking CS. Data Collection Procedure. We developed an instrument to collect qualitative data from open-ended questions, then collected data from CS high school educators (n = 21) and coded them across CAPE. We used the codes to create a quantitative instrument. We collected data from a wider set of CS high school educators (n = 185), analyzed the data, and considered how these findings shape research conducted over the last year. Findings. Overall, practitioner perspectives revealed that capacity for CS Funding, Policy & Curriculum in both types of schools grew during the pandemic, while the capacity to offer physical and human resources decreased. While access to extracurricular activities decreased, there was still a significant increase in the number of CS courses offered. Fewer girls took CS courses and attendance decreased. Student learning and engagement in CS courses were significantly impacted, while other noncognitive factors like interest in CS and relevance of technology saw increases. Practitioner perspectives also indicated that schools serving students from lower-income families had (1) a greater decrease in the number of students who received information about CS/CTE pathways;(2) a greater decrease in the number of girls enrolled in CS classes;(3) a greater decrease in the number of students receiving college credit for dual-credit CS courses;(4) a greater decrease in student attendance;and (5) a greater decrease in the number of students interested in taking additional CS courses. On the flip-side, schools serving students from higher income families had significantly higher increases in the number of students interested in taking additional CS courses.

All That Coughs Is Not COVID.

We report the case of a woman from the Bronx, New York, who presented to the emergency department (ED) in June 2020 with a febrile respiratory illness resembling coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) but was ultimately diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease (LD). New York City (NYC) rapidly became an epicenter of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In the years since the pandemic started, variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have recurred in multiple waves and remain an important cause of viral respiratory illness. The bacteria Legionella pneumophila is often under-recognized as a cause of community-acquired pneumonia, yet it recurs each year in clusters, outbreaks, or as sporadic infections. Pneumonia caused by SARS-CoV-2 and Legionella can present similarly and may not be readily distinguished in the absence of diagnostic testing.

The associated factors of self-harm and suicide ideation among Chinese Indonesians during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background: This study aimed to identify the associated factors of self-harm and suicide ideation among Chinese Indonesians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A nonrandom sampling was performed through a nationwide online survey in Indonesia (May-June 2021). The online survey covered participants' demographic information, suicide literacy, suicide stigma, loneliness, and self-harm and suicide ideation. A series of t-tests, chi2 tests, and hierarchical logistic regressions with the backward stepwise method were used to identify the factors associated with self-harm and suicide ideation. Responses from a total of 484 Chinese Indonesians were analyzed in this study. Results: The predictive model showed a significant goodness of fit to the observed data [chi2(17) = 174.1, p < .001;RN2 = .41]. Chinese Indonesians with an average monthly income of >=USD 843 were found to be 0.23 times (95% CI = 0.07-0.99) less likely to experience self-harm and suicide ideation than those who did not have an income. A one-point increase in the intensity of suicide glorification and loneliness were associated with 3.06 and 3.67 increase in the chance of experiencing self-harm and suicide ideation, respectively. Conclusion: One third of Chinese Indonesians self-reported self-harm and suicide ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health and suicide prevention intervention programs are recommended to target those with low socioeconomic status, high glorification toward suicide, and high perceived loneliness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) Impact Statement Impact and Implications:-The current study indicated that one third of Chinese Indonesians experienced self-harm and suicide ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Monthly income, suicide glorification, and levels of loneliness were found to be significantly associated with this experience. Our findings will inform the development of effective suicide prevention and intervention programs in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 regarding "Good Health and Well-being," especially for reducing premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promoting mental health and well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Enhancing social capital and reciprocity through community news media during COVID-19: a study of video volunteers

Purpose: This article attempts to highlight the defining role that community media engagements play during times of the pandemic. It is argued that the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic forced community news media houses to reinvent their news reporting practices to cover issues pertaining to the marginalized and underprivileged sections of the society. It explores the role of community media in engaging and empowering the citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: Central to our study is the analysis of the news model of "Video Volunteers” (henceforth VV), an independent community-based online news platform based in India. To understand the level of citizen participation and engagement in the making and dissemination of news during the pandemic, the authors conducted 13 interviews with different stakeholders of VV, including founders and news audiences. Findings: It seeks to reveal that when the mainstream media have failed to represent the issues of a local community, it is the independent media platforms like VV which function as a veritable source of information and sharing of knowledge. Most importantly, this paper emphasizes that the communicative model of independent community-based online platforms has been most successful in the coverage of the pandemic and the level of engagement with the citizenry. Originality/value: The study contributes to the aspects of reciprocity and collaborative journalism in community news media and its potential impacts on news creation and dissemination. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Experiences of licensed professional counselors of color with implementing social justice advocacy

Mental health, racial, and socioeconomic disparities in today's society have shown how important representation and social justice advocacy is for disenfranchised and marginalized communities. Social justice, advocacy, and social justice advocacy implementation have been topics of research in the counseling profession. The importance of social justice, social justice advocacy, and representation for disenfranchised and marginalized communities has been explored the literature, as has the importance of social justice advocacy for disenfranchised and marginalized clients. However, the social justice advocacy experience for counselors who are members of disenfranchised and marginalized communities has been missing from social justice advocacy literature. The inclusion of licensed professional counselors of color's experiences in this study contributes to the gap in the research literature addressing diverse representation in the counseling profession. The experience with the implementation of social justice advocacy strategies with disenfranchised and marginalized communities was explored through a generic qualitative inquiry as the research methodology. Due to COVID-19, open-ended semi-structured interviews with participants were conducted via Zoom. Ten licensed professional counselors of color described their experiences with implementing social justice advocacy strategies with disenfranchised and marginalized populations. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify themes amongst the participants' responses to identify successful strategies for incorporating social justice advocacy within counseling practice. Recommendations for future research were made based on the participants' experience with social justice advocacy as licensed professional counselors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

The intersection of environmental justice, climate change, community, and the ecology of life

This book examines and encourages the increasing involvement of those in the social sciences, including social work, as well as everyday citizens, with environmental injustices that affect the natural ecology, community health, and physical and mental health of marginalized communities. The authors draw on their diverse experiences in research, practice, and education to suggest interdisciplinary strategies for addressing environmental justice, climate change, and ecological destruction on both a local and global scale. This insightful work presents models for action, practice, and education, including field learning, with examples of how programs and schools have integrated and infused environmental justice content across their curricula. Environmental and ecological impacts on local communities as well as the whole ecology of life are examined. Models for engaging civic dialogue, addressing structural oppression, and employing other interdisciplinary responses to environmental injustices are provided. Topics explored among the chapters include: Water, Air, and Land: The Foundation for Life, Food, and Society;Human Health and Well-Being in Times of Global Environmental Crisis;Power and Politics: Protection, Rebuilding, and Justice;Pathways to Change: Community and Environmental Transformation;Decolonizing Nature: The Potential of Nature to Heal;The Intersection of Environmental Justice, Climate Change, Community, and the Ecology of Life equips readers to identify the impact of the global environmental crisis in their own communities. Emphasizing the need for immediate action on ecological, climate, and environmental justice issues, this forward-thinking book assists social science professionals, educators, researchers, and other concerned individuals with the knowledge needed for creating meaningful interdisciplinary responses in their communities as they take action within a rapidly changing context. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.

Practitioner Perspectives on COVID-19's Impact on Computer Science Education Among High Schools Serving Students from Lower and Higher Income Families

Research Problem. Computer science (CS) education researchers conducting studies that target high school students have likely seen their studies impacted by COVID-19. Interpreting research findings impacted by COVID-19 presents unique challenges that will require a deeper understanding as to how the pandemic has affected underserved and underrepresented students studying or unable to study computing.Research Question. Our research question for this study was: In what ways has the high school computer science educational ecosystem for students been impacted by COVID-19, particularly when comparing schools based on relative socioeconomic status of a majority of students?Methodology. We used an exploratory sequential mixed methods study to understand the types of impacts high school CS educators have seen in their practice over the past year using the CAPE theoretical dissaggregation framework to measure schools' Capacity to offer CS, student Access to CS education, student Participation in CS, and Experiences of students taking CS.Data Collection Procedure. We developed an instrument to collect qualitative data from open-ended questions, then collected data from CS high school educators (n = 21) and coded them across CAPE. We used the codes to create a quantitative instrument. We collected data from a wider set of CS high school educators (n = 185), analyzed the data, and considered how these findings shape research conducted over the last year.Findings. Overall, practitioner perspectives revealed that capacity for CS Funding, Policy & Curriculum in both types of schools grew during the pandemic, while the capacity to offer physical and human resources decreased. While access to extracurricular activities decreased, there was still a significant increase in the number of CS courses offered. Fewer girls took CS courses and attendance decreased. Student learning and engagement in CS courses were significantly impacted, while other noncognitive factors like interest in CS and relevance of technology saw increases.Practitioner perspectives also indicated that schools serving students from lower-income families had (1) a greater decrease in the number of students who received information about CS/CTE pathways;(2) a greater decrease in the number of girls enrolled in CS classes;(3) a greater decrease in the number of students receiving college credit for dual-credit CS courses;(4) a greater decrease in student attendance;and (5) a greater decrease in the number of students interested in taking additional CS courses. On the flip-side, schools serving students from higher income families had significantly higher increases in the number of students interested in taking additional CS courses. © 2022 Association for Computing Machinery.

An exploration of learning-at-home experiences among families and children of color labeled with disabilities during COVID-19: A narrative inquiry

We are living in this historical moment of a COVID-19 global crisis that is continuing to impact marginalized families in our very own communities. Students of color, especially those who are already on the margins, and experience inequities in the classroom and in the community, have been further impacted by the quarantine as the educational system had not prioritized how to support students who face certain vulnerabilities due to lack of government funding, the historical oppressive tendency for schools to function within a medical model of standardization, along with the commodification of learning. Given the novelty of COVID-19 research, the full impact on these communities is yet to be fully known. Some students of color labeled with disabilities are faced with deeper struggles exacerbated by the pandemic's impact, while others may have improved performance during distance learning due to the removal of inherent bias in the classroom or the traditional inequities that may be perpetuated in a traditional school environment. Within a DisCrit theoretical framework that centers and celebrates the intersectional identities of these families and children, this study is about exploring the unique experiences of public, private and charter school students and their families in the San Francisco Bay area. Centering the narratives of families of color and their children labeled with learning disabilities is one way to shift the voice of power and dominant narratives, and to begin to understand their lived experiences as a way to decenter and dismantle white privilege, ableism and heteronormative supremacy. This qualitative narrative inquiry based study centers and celebrates the lived experiences of six families and their children of color labeled with learning disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic-fueled remote learning crisis. The thematic findings from this study can inform policymakers and other stakeholders on how to best support these communities, advocate for school-based rights within a constructivist lens, and contribute to the dearth in scholarly research that supports disability justice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Child safety, welfare and well-being: Issues and challenges., 2nd ed

This book provides a focused and comprehensive overview of the status of children across society, with special reference to emerging features and measures of child safety, welfare, and overall well-being. The book is arranged into four parts covering various dimensions of child welfare and well-being. In this second edition, highly experienced academics, researchers, child rights activities, and policymakers from both developed and developing countries have contributed chapters on topics such as status of children living under institutional care, sexual abuse of male children and tribal girl children, issues and challenges faced by children living in conflict zones, children living on the streets, COVID-19 and its impact on the education of children. The status of marginalized children gets special importance in the second edition. The new chapters include field-based experiences of researchers in protecting child rights and preventing child abuse. It also considers the promising strategies and promising future directions in enhancing effective prevention, intervention and responses to child abuse and neglect. This volume is essential for a wide range of professionals and researchers from the social sciences, law, medicine, and behavioral sciences. It is also beneficial for policymakers and law enforcement agencies working with children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Introduction

This edited volume provides a unique account of the impact COVID-19 had on the use and adoption of technology among the most marginalized populations worldwide. Older adults were disproportionately at risk during the pandemic because of their infection and mortality rate, and at risk to social isolation due to lower levels of digital literacy, use, and adoption. However, other populations had high levels of social disruption during the pandemic, namely children (and families with children), who had to adapt to rapidly changing new school policies requiring them to use online technologies for education. The changes in course instruction put a strain on the children who may have difficulties learning virtually and the families who assisted the students with technology issues, provided broadband wireless access, and enables a quiet learning environment. This chapter provides a brief overview of the global impact of the pandemic, as well as the response measures which led to a dramatic increase in the worldwide reliance of communications technology. Additionally, this chapter includes a summary of the types of marginalized populations who may have had significant difficulty in use or adoption of technologies for employment, education, or other activities in daily life (such as doctor's visits and government services). Finally, a synopsis of the research studies included in this book are presented. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.