Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unexpected situation that has forced people to find educational alternatives to support learning and ensure child well-being. The need for practices that “open doors” at home as a way to promote a quality education and to foster an environment of supportive relationships and a sense of community, has led to the in-depth analysis of successful educational actions, particularly the Dialogic Literary Gatherings (DLGs). The aim of this article is to show how the transference of DLGs to the home environment has had an impact on child subjective well-being in times of confinement, promoting a safe and supportive environment for learning, interacting, coexisting and on emotional development at different educational stages, especially for the most vulnerable children. Data collection consisted of a focus group of 10 teachers, 6 semi-structured interviews addressed to families and 6 life stories of students, from 4 primary education centers, 1 high school, and 1 Special Education School. Communicative methodology structured the two-level data analysis, for studying both the elements provided by online DLGs that favor and achieve child well-being, and the elements that may hinder those achievements. The results confirm that DLGs have had a notorious impact on children’s and their families’ well-being. Considering the findings in the development of educational public policies and the possibility of extending “open doors actions” as an option for future learning environments beyond the confinement situation is contemplated. Future research on how these spaces can have an impact on child well-being in upcoming contexts of the new normal in the education domain will be of interest.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has created an unexpected situation that has forced people to interrupt everyday activity to avoid the disease transmission, with schools closing as an emergency action (Enserink and Kupferschmidt, 2020; Wang et al, 2020)
Taking into account the challenges that confinement has posed for children and their families and the possible consequences for their later development (Decosimo et al, 2019; Dryden-Peterson, 2020; Wang et al, 2020), this study addresses the impact of Dialogic Literary Gatherings (DLGs), taking as a reference, indicators related to child well-being from a subjective perspective, such as (1) the educational dimension, (2) the social dimension, and (3) the emotional dimension, as well as the (4) impact related to home and families, and (5) the barriers that have been identified to hinder those achievements and future perspectives
The “Results” section is divided on the transformative conditions according to child well-being dimensions, (a) educational; (b) social; (c) emotional factors, or (d) the impact on families as well as (c) the challenges emerged in this novel situation and future prospects, according to participants’ experience
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has created an unexpected situation that has forced people to interrupt everyday activity to avoid the disease transmission, with schools closing as an emergency action (Enserink and Kupferschmidt, 2020; Wang et al, 2020). A psychological impact on anxiety, fear, boredom or frustration, inter alia (Brooks et al, 2020) has been reported, as well as trauma both for children and their families (Sprang and Silman, 2013) This situation can become a vicious circle, as the subsequent social-emotional and behavioral disorders may contribute to more adverse results on health such as cardiovascular diseases, excessive weight gain, poor quality of life (Perrin et al, 2016), and a risk for future mental illnesses and cognitive development (Decosimo et al, 2019). Despite the contingencies caused by this outbreak, especially on education around the world, this interruption is providing new opportunities to find and discover transformative and stimulating practices, where the whole community—families and teachers—with the support of institutions and administrations, meet and reinvent education for the sake of the continuation of learning (Dryden-Peterson, 2020)
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