About the Project
This research project was focused on learning about children’s diverse experiences at different points in the pandemic in 2020. Between April and June of 2020, we conducted bi-weekly online interviews (and mini check-ins on the alternate weeks) with 30 children from Southern Ontario, mostly between 8 and 15. We talked directly to children, including those living in a variety of kinds of living spaces, from different class, racial and cultural backgrounds, living in diverse family configurations, and from a range of abilities/disabilities. There were significant differences between children’s experiences linked to family configuration, living space, parents’ education and employment, ability, ESL, and the style of their online schooling.
At the beginning of October 2020, we re-interviewed most of our participants again.
This project was funded by Brock’s Dean of Social Science Discretionary Fund, Brock’s CRISS fund, and SSHRC.
Rebecca Raby
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
CHYS, Brock University
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS
Sara Black (Brock CHYS, BA, now graduated), Laurel Donison (Brock CHYS PhD), Keely Grossman (Carleton Sociology PhD), Evan Harding (Brock CHYS MA, now graduated), Haley Myatt (Brock CHYS MA, now graduated), Lindsay Sheppard (York Sociology PhD, now graduated) and Kay Waboso (Brock CHYS PhD)
Reports
This short video was made in 2021 to report our findings back to our participants.
Online Media Coverage
Donison, L., Raby, R., Waboso, N., Sheppard, L., Grossman, K., Harding, E., Myatt, H. & Black, S. (forthcoming) “’I’m going to call my friend to join us’: Connections and challenges in online video call interviews with children during COVID-19” Children’s Geographies.
Donison, L. & Raby, R. (forthcoming) “I can definitely find ways to entertain myself. Like listening to music, I listen to a lot of music”: Children’s musical assemblages during COVID-19. Journal of Childhood Studies.
Waboso, N., Donison, L., Raby, R., Harding, E., Sheppard, L., Grossman, K., Myatt, H. & Black, S. (2022). “We can play tag with a stick”. Children’s knowledge, experiences, feelings and creative thinking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Children & Society, 37(1), 199-215.
Raby, R., Waboso, N., Donison, L., Harding, E., Grossman, K., Myatt, H. & Sheppard, L.C. (2021) School is closed! Opportunity, challenge, and inequality in the early days of the pandemic. Journal of Teaching and Learning, special issue on “Emerging Research on the Impacts of COVID-19 for Children, Youth and Education” 15(2), 40-59.
