Families, COVID, and Unequal Schooling in the US

This book explores how parents became education partners in new and unexpected ways during the COVID pandemic. Emerging from a range of research studies, it reframes how researchers, educators, school leaders, and policymakers can establish and foster more equitable partnerships with families. The authors ultimately argue that COVID schooling erased boundaries between schools and families as families translated, decoded, and reshaped learning in their living rooms alongside their children. Chapters use firsthand accounts by parents and caretakers to contextualize and report on how families managed their lives and the education of their children during the pandemic, before exploring the tensions and issues that arose for families which were pandemic caused or the results of educational disparities and inequalities being intensified by the COVID crisis. It thus reveals how caregivers struggled with employment and food insecurities as well as issues such as technology access and their children’s learning needs. Building connections between research and practice, it re‑imagines how families can be education partners, discussing how schools can carry families’ assets into their work on improving schools during the pandemic, times of crisis, and into the post‑pandemic future. It will appeal to researchers and graduates with interests in educational leadership, teacher education, sociology of education, and the sociology of family and parenting, with additional relevance for teachers and school administrators with interests in education in crises, school reform, and educational leadership.