The pandemic both exacerbated harmful drinking habits for many people and made treatment more difficult to access — a wake-up call for the need to address this global issue. A tweetstorm about congestion at LA ports highlighted the supply chain crisis. Governments are now stepping up efforts to remove the bottlenecks. I accept.
The models, real and hypothetical, show lockdowns work in halting the spread of disease. Take action on UpLink. Forum in focus. Read more about this project. Explore context. Explore the latest strategic trends, research and analysis. Have you read? The authors of the study say there are two routes to try to get there:. The impact of various social distancing or lockdown measures on ICU bed requirements. What is the World Economic Forum doing about the coronavirus outbreak?
So, have the lockdowns worked? Economic, structural, digital and cultural divides influence the psychological functioning of parents and students in a way that amplify inequalities. Although the use of digital technologies is almost ubiquitous in developed nations, there is a digital divide such that some people are more likely than others to be numerically excluded 15 Fig.
Social class is a strong predictor of digital disparities, including the quality of hardware, software and Internet access 16 , 17 , For example, in , in France, around 1 in 5 working-class families did not have personal access to the Internet compared with less than 1 in 20 of the most privileged families A similar digital gap is also evident between lower-income and higher-income countries Second, simply having access to a computer and an Internet connection does not ensure effective distance learning.
For example, many of the educational resources sent by teachers need to be printed, thereby requiring access to printers. Moreover, distance learning is more difficult in households with only one shared computer compared with those where each family member has their own In the context of school closures, such disparities are likely to have important consequences for educational continuity.
In line with this idea, a survey of approximately 4, parents in the United Kingdom confirmed that during lockdown, more than half of primary school children from the poorest families did not have access to their own study space and were less well equipped for distance learning than higher-income families Data from non-Western countries highlight a more general digital divide, showing that developing countries have poorer access to digital equipment. For example, in India in , only In general, developing countries lack access to digital technologies 27 , 28 , and these difficulties of access are even greater in rural areas for example, see ref.
Consequently, school closures have huge repercussions for the continuity of learning in these countries.
Beyond the overall digital divide, social class disparities are also evident in developing countries, with lower access to digital resources among households in which parental educational levels were low versus households in which parental educational levels were high; for example, see ref.
In addition to unequal access to digital tools, there are also systematic variations in digital skills 36 , 37 Fig. These digital skills are particularly useful during school closures, both for students and for parents, for organizing, retrieving and correctly using the resources provided by the teachers for example, sending or receiving documents by email, printing documents or using word processors.
A third level of digital divide concerns variations in digital tool use 18 , 43 Fig. Furthermore, working-class families appear to regulate the digital practices of their children less 47 and are more likely to allow screens in the bedrooms of children and teenagers without setting limits on times or practices In sum, inequalities in terms of digital resources, skills and use have strong implications for distance learning.
This is because they make working-class students and parents particularly vulnerable when learning relies on extensive use of digital devices rather than on face-to-face interaction with teachers. According to classical social reproduction theory 8 , 49 , school is not a neutral place in which all forms of language and knowledge are equally valued.
For example, they possess more books and cultural objects at home, read more stories to their children and visit museums and libraries more often for examples, see refs.
For example, they are more likely to monitor and re-explain lessons or use games and textbooks to develop and reinforce academic skills for example, labelling numbers, letters or colours 57 , Thus, even if all parents are committed to the academic success of their children, working-class parents have fewer chances to provide the help that children need to complete homework 63 , and homework is more beneficial for children from upper-middle class families than for children from working-class families 64 , School closures, by making learning rely more strongly on practices implemented at home rather than at school , are likely to amplify the impact of these disparities.
During holidays, the learning by children tends to decline, and this is particularly pronounced in children from working-class families. Consequently, the social class achievement gap grows more rapidly during the summer months than it does in the rest of the year. This phenomenon is partly explained by the fact that during the break from school, social class disparities in investment in activities that are beneficial for academic achievement for example, reading, travelling to a foreign country or museum visits are more pronounced.
Research also indicates that learning loss during school breaks tends to be cumulative Thus, repeated episodes of school closure are likely to have profound consequences for the social class achievement gap. School closures have encouraged autonomous work among students. Conversely, in working-class contexts characterized by low economic resources and where life is more uncertain, individuals tend to perceive themselves as interdependent, connected to others and members of social groups 53 , 70 , This interdependent self-construal fits less well with the independent culture of academic contexts.
This cultural mismatch between interdependent self-construal common in working-class students and the independent norms of the educational institution has negative consequences for academic performance 9. Once again, the impact of these differences is likely to be amplified during school closures, when being able to work alone and autonomously is especially useful.
In the case of working-class students, this mismatch is likely to increase their difficulties in working alone at home. Supporting our argument, recent research has shown that working-class students tend to underachieve in contexts where students work individually compared with contexts where students work with others Similarly, during school closures, high self-regulation skills for example, setting goals, selecting appropriate learning strategies and maintaining motivation 73 are required to maintain study activities and are likely to be especially useful for using digital resources efficiently.
Interestingly, some authors have suggested that independent versus interdependent self-construal may also affect communication with teachers Such cultural differences are important because they can also contribute to the difficulties encountered by working-class families.
The issues reviewed thus far all increase the vulnerability of children and students from underprivileged backgrounds when schools are closed. To offset these disadvantages, it might be expected that the school should increase its support by providing additional resources for working-class students. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, in schools with a high proportion of students eligible for free school meals, teachers were less inclined to broadcast an online lesson for their pupils In addition, the probability of children receiving technical support from the school for example, by providing pupils with laptops or other devices is, surprisingly, higher in the most advantaged schools than in the most deprived In addition to social class disparities, there has been less support from schools for African-American and Latinx students.
Another source of inequality is that the probability of school closure was correlated with social class and race. Similarly, access to educational resources and support was lower in poorer compared with richer countries Of those who did, the medium was mostly radio, television or paper rather than digital.
Thus, the achievement gap and its accentuation during lockdown are due not only to the cultural and digital disadvantages of working-class families but also to unequal support from schools. This inequality in school support is not due to teachers being indifferent to or even supportive of social stratification. Rather, we believe that these effects are fundamentally structural. Additionally, the expectation of teachers may be lower for working-class children These differences in perception may have influenced the behaviour of teachers during school closure, such that teachers in privileged neighbourhoods provided more information to students because they expected more from them in term of effort and achievement.
During school closures, these students and their families may in consequence have been less likely to ask for help and resources. Despite being strongly influenced by social class, differences in academic achievement are often interpreted by parents, teachers and students as reflecting differences in ability These fears influence academic learning in important ways.
In particular, they can consume cognitive resources when children and students work on academic tasks 96 , Self-efficacy also plays a key role in engaging in learning and perseverance in the face of difficulties 13 , In addition, working-class students are those for whom the fear of being outperformed by others is the most negatively related to academic performance The fact that working-class children and students are less familiar with the tasks set by teachers, and less well equipped and supported, makes them more likely to experience feelings of incompetence Fig.
The research reviewed thus far suggests that children and their families are highly unequal with respect to digital access, skills and use. For all these reasons, we anticipate that as a result of school closures, the COVID pandemic will substantially increase the social class achievement gap. Because school closures are a recent occurrence, it is too early to measure with precision their effects on the widening of the achievement gap.
However, some recent data are consistent with this idea. Comparing academic achievement in with previous years provides an early indication of the effects of school closures during the pandemic. In France, for example, first and second graders take national evaluations at the beginning of the school year. Similarly, in the Netherlands, national assessments take place twice a year.
In , they took place both before and after school closures. Results indicated a general learning loss in Similar results were observed in Belgium among students attending the final year of primary school. Compared with students from previous cohorts, students affected by school closures experienced a substantial decrease in their mathematics and language scores, with children from more disadvantaged backgrounds experiencing greater learning losses Likewise, oral reading assessments in more than school districts in the United States showed that the development of this skill among children in second and third grade significantly slowed between Spring and Autumn , but this slowdown was more pronounced in schools from lower-achieving districts It is likely that school closures have also amplified racial disparities in learning and achievement.
For example, in the United States, after the first lockdown, students of colour lost the equivalent of 3—5 months of learning, whereas white students were about 1—3 months behind. Moreover, in the Autumn, when some students started to return to classrooms, African-American and Latinx students were more likely to continue distance learning, despite being less likely to have access to the digital tools, Internet access and live contact with teachers These findings show that school closures have exacerbated achievement gaps linked to social class and ethnicity.
First, to assess the specific and unique impact of school closures on student learning, longitudinal research should compare student achievement at different times of the year, before, during and after school closures, as has been done to document the summer learning loss 66 , In the coming months, alternating periods of school closure and opening may occur, thereby presenting opportunities to do such research.
This would also make it possible to examine whether the gap diminishes a few weeks after children return to in-school learning or whether, conversely, it increases with time because the foundations have not been sufficiently acquired to facilitate further learning Second, the mechanisms underlying the increase in social class disparities during school closures should be examined.
As discussed above, school closures result in situations for which students are unevenly prepared and supported. It would be appropriate to seek to quantify the contribution of each of the factors that might be responsible for accentuating the social class achievement gap. Third, existing studies are based on general comparisons and very few provide insights into the actual practices that took place in families during school closure and how these practices affected the achievement gap.
For example, research has documented that parents from working-class backgrounds are likely to find it more difficult to help their children to complete homework and to provide constructive feedback 63 , , something that could in turn have a negative impact on the continuity of learning of their children. Identifying the practices that best predict the maintenance or decline of educational achievement during school closures would help identify levers for intervention.
Finally, it would be interesting to investigate teaching practices during school closures. The lockdown in the spring of was sudden and unexpected. Within a few days, teachers had to find a way to compensate for the school closure, which led to highly variable practices. Some teachers posted schoolwork on platforms, others sent it by email, some set work on a weekly basis while others set it day by day.
Some teachers also set up live sessions in large or small groups, providing remote meetings for questions and support. There have also been variations in the type of feedback given to students, notably through the monitoring and correcting of work.
Future studies should examine in more detail what practices schools and teachers used to compensate for the school closures and their effects on widening, maintaining or even reducing the gap, as has been done for certain specific literacy programmes as well as specific instruction topics for example, ecology and evolution We are aware of the debate about whether social science research on COVID is suitable for making policy decisions , and we draw attention to the fact that some of our recommendations Table 1 are based on evidence from experiments or interventions carried out pre-COVID while others are more speculative.
In any case, we emphasize that these suggestions should be viewed with caution and be tested in future research. Some of our recommendations could be implemented in the event of new school closures, others only when schools re-open. We also acknowledge that while these recommendations are intended for parents and teachers, their implementation largely depends on the adoption of structural policies. Importantly, given all the issues discussed above, we emphasize the importance of prioritizing, wherever possible, in-person learning over remote learning and where this is not possible, of implementing strong policies to support distance learning, especially for disadvantaged families.
Where face-to face teaching is not possible and teachers are responsible for implementing distance learning, it will be important to make them aware of the factors that can exacerbate inequalities during lockdown and to provide them with guidance about practices that would reduce these inequalities. Thus, there is an urgent need for interventions aimed at making teachers aware of the impact of the social class of children and families on the following factors: 1 access to, familiarity with and use of digital devices; 2 familiarity with academic knowledge and skills; and 3 preparedness to work autonomously.
Increasing awareness of the material, cultural and psychological barriers that working-class children and families face during lockdown should increase the quality and quantity of the support provided by teachers and thereby positively affect the achievements of working-class students. For example, questions about family rather than personal well-being would be congruent with interdependent self-construals.
This should contribute to better communication and help keep a better track of the progress of students during distance learning. It is also necessary to help teachers to engage in practices that have a chance of reducing inequalities 53 , Particularly important is that teachers and schools ensure that homework can be done by all children, for example, by setting up organizations that would help children whose parents are not in a position to monitor or assist with the homework of their children.
Options include homework help groups and tutoring by teachers after class. When schools are open, the growing tendency to set homework through digital media should be resisted as far as possible given the evidence we have reviewed above. Moreover, previous research has underscored the importance of homework feedback provided by teachers, which is positively related to the amount of homework completed and predictive of academic performance Where homework is web-based, it has also been shown that feedback on web-based homework enhances the learning of students It therefore seems reasonable to predict that the social class achievement gap will increase more slowly or even remain constant or be reversed in schools that establish individualized monitoring of students, by means of regular calls and feedback on homework, compared with schools where the support provided to pupils is more generic.
Given that learning during lockdown has increasingly taken place in family settings, we believe that interventions involving the family are also likely to be effective , , Simply providing families with suitable material equipment may be insufficient. Families should be given training in the efficient use of digital technology and pedagogical support. This would increase the self-efficacy of parents and students, with positive consequences for achievement. Ideally, such training would be delivered in person to avoid problems arising from the digital divide.
Where this is not possible, individualized online tutoring should be provided. For example, studies conducted during the lockdown in Botswana and Italy have shown that individual online tutoring directly targeting either parents or students in middle school has a positive impact on the achievement of students, particularly for working-class students , Interventions targeting families should also address the psychological barriers faced by working-class families and children.
Some interventions have already been designed and been shown to be effective in reducing the social class achievement gap, particularly in mathematics and language , , For example, research showed that an intervention designed to train low-income parents in how to support the mathematical development of their pre-kindergarten children including classes and access to a library of kits to use at home increased the quality of support provided by the parents, with a corresponding impact on the development of mathematical knowledge of their children.
Such interventions should be particularly beneficial in the context of school closure. Beyond its impact on academic performance and inequalities, the COVID crisis has shaken the economies of countries around the world, casting millions of families around the world into poverty , , As noted earlier, there has been a marked increase in economic inequalities, bringing with it all the psychological and social problems that such inequalities create , , especially for people who live in scarcity The increase in educational inequalities is just one facet of the many difficulties that working-class families will encounter in the coming years, but it is one that could seriously limit the chances of their children escaping from poverty by reducing their opportunities for upward mobility.
In this context, it should be a priority to concentrate resources on the most deprived students. A large proportion of the poorest households do not own a computer and do not have personal access to the Internet, which has important consequences for distance learning. During school closures, it is therefore imperative to provide such families with adequate equipment and Internet service, as was done in some countries in spring Even if the provision of such equipment is not in itself sufficient, it is a necessary condition for ensuring pedagogical continuity during lockdown.
Finally, after prolonged periods of school closure, many students may not have acquired the skills needed to pursue their education. A possible consequence would be an increase in the number of students for whom teachers recommend class repetitions.
Class repetitions are contentious. On the one hand, class repetition more frequently affects working-class children and is not efficient in terms of learning improvement On the other hand, accepting lower standards of academic achievement or even suspending the practice of repeating a class could lead to pupils pursuing their education without mastering the key abilities needed at higher grades. This could create difficulties in subsequent years and, in this sense, be counterproductive.
We therefore believe that the most appropriate way to limit the damage of the pandemic would be to help children catch up rather than allowing them to continue without mastering the necessary skills.
As is being done in some countries, systematic remedial courses for example, summer learning programmes should be organized and financially supported following periods of school closure, with priority given to pupils from working-class families.
Such interventions have genuine potential in that research has shown that participation in remedial summer programmes is effective in reducing learning loss during the summer break , , Students who participated in the summer programme progressed more than students in the control group.
A meta-analysis of 41 summer learning programmes that is, classroom- and home-based summer interventions involving children from kindergarten to grade 8 showed that these programmes had significantly larger benefits for children from working-class families. The unprecedented nature of the current pandemic means that we lack strong data on what the school closure period is likely to produce in terms of learning deficits and the reproduction of social inequalities.
However, the research discussed in this article suggests that there are good reasons to predict that this period of school closures will accelerate the reproduction of social inequalities in educational achievement. By making school learning less dependent on teachers and more dependent on families and digital tools and resources, school closures are likely to greatly amplify social class inequalities.
At a time when many countries are experiencing second, third or fourth waves of the pandemic, resulting in fresh periods of local or general lockdowns, systematic efforts to test these predictions are urgently needed along with steps to reduce the impact of school closures on the social class achievement gap. Bambra, C. Health 74 , — Google Scholar. Education: from disruption to recovery. Daszak, P.
We are entering an era of pandemics—it will end only when we protect the rainforest. Dobson, A. This is because the general form of probability functions is expressed in terms of standard normal distribution. Values less than this mean 0. The Tukey-lambda distribution is expressed mathematically in Eq. Some of these countries continue the lockdown. However, the last day of lockdown in these countries was accepted as 5 May for this study. The Ireland, which has been curfewed for 68 days, has the longest lockdown period.
Spain, the country with the highest number of cases, has been imposed lockdown for 53 days see Fig. Although China became the center in the first days of the epidemic, Italy passed China with the emerging cases. Even though Italy suffered a severe injury in this pandemic, Italy have managed to control the number of COVID cases with the lockdown for a long time.
On the other hand, although there is a downward trend in new cases confirmed in France and Spain, the number of cases confirmed in Spain has exceeded the number of cases confirmed in Italy. Descriptive analyses were implemented for all the data. The data used for the study were analyzed using JMP Pro software version Descriptive analyses were presented for all the data used in this study in Table 1.
The data set used is not suitable for normal distribution according to Anderson-Darling the value of AD was 9. The Tukey-Lambda distribution forms a distribution family that can approach the normal distribution.
The period of lockdown applied by 49 countries on average have taken A lockdown was imposed for a minimum of 3 days while a lockdown was imposed for a maximum of 68 days by countries. During this period, an average of people in these countries were actively infected with COVID virus. A minimum of 30 observations are required to create an effective statistical analysis.
It has been observed that the developed model was found important according to the statistical analyses. The healthcare system capacities of countries have serious concerns about meeting the needs of infected COVID patients. Therefore, countries have to take the strictest measures necessary to slow down or even stop this pandemic. Otherwise, this situation triggers the intensive care units to be at their maximum level in these countries.
Although the number of infected patients is very high in Spain and Italy, the number of cases decreased significantly in recent days. This situation is also found in other countries.
As a result of the strict measures taken, governments plan to return normal life gradually in the countries mentioned. As a result, an absolute decrease in the number of cases will occur if there is no possibility of virus mutation.
It is observed that there is a confusion with the rapid spread of the COVID outbreak in the world and the emergence of serious consequences. For this reason, it is certain that the new data for COVID mental health effects will be obtained more clearly with the big data to be obtained. According to the first findings obtained in the studies, Lockdown has been shown to be related to human psychology.
It was determined that stress 8. These findings have some limitations. These psychological symptoms emerged from only a few of the affected countries and may not reflect the experiences of people living in other parts of the world. As a result, it is clear that having confirmed cases and mortality rates due to the COVID pandemic has an impact on mental health problems. The effect of the lockdown on the environment due to Covid has been addressed in many studies.
It is observed that the environment has started to renew itself due to all kinds of industry, vehicle movement and social activities of people continue at a low level for a long time. In particular, a positive effect of lockdown restrictions on air and water quality has been observed. Yunus et al. Kerimray et al. Another study has showed that the quality of air due to the lockdown in Delhi has a positive effect [ 14 ]. Dantas et al. For this study, we emphasized that the effect of lockdown on covid was statistically significant.
Examples of the environmental impacts of the indirect lockdown due to Covid were provided. However, the measures taken by countries against this epidemic bring along an unprecedented economic disaster [ 16 ]. The global pandemic, namely COVID, has been dealt with in many studies on the socio-economic effects of the world economy [ 17 ]. In countries where the COVID case is intensely occurring, either no lockdown is imposed or is applied intermittently.
In addition, it is claimed that, besides the positive aspects of the lockdown, people who comply with this restriction cause a weakened immune system.
The main reason for this is that there is too much food consumption and limited mobility. The effect of the lockdown caused by the COVID pandemic on human health may be the subject of future work. This study aims to analyze the effect of lockdown days on the spread of coronavirus in 49 countries. In addition, other parameters such as demographic of population, density of populations, the parameters of weather, economy, infrastructure of healthcare systems may be considered in the studies considering that it may be effective on COVID pandemic.
0コメント