Abstract
Covid-19 and the subsequent worldwide lockdowns have had a major impact on families and school education. The lockdowns have highlighted and exacerbated the disadvantages experienced by those children who suffer from child poverty. This article focuses on food insecurity and the digital divide, or digital exclusion, and argues that these have emerged as very pressing issues during lockdowns for children suffering from child poverty. The article provides an outline of the response of the Catholic Church and Catholic schools, primarily in the United Kingdom. There have been some concerted efforts to address food insecurity by providing food and food vouchers for children and vulnerable families. It has proved more problematic to address digital exclusion and the article argues that for those children who experience digital exclusion, this can effectively mean exclusion from the religious education, religious life, community and the pastoral and spiritual support that is normally offered by the Catholic school.
Highlights
Catholic schools throughout the world, like other schools, have faced unprecedented challenges caused by the Covid-19 lockdowns
This article will examine the two issues of food insecurity and the digital divide in the period of lockdown caused by Covid-19, how these have affected children from backgrounds of poverty and disadvantage and the response of the Catholic Church and Catholic schools
Food insecurity for children in school is often partially addressed by the provision of free school meals for those children who belong to families on low incomes
Summary
Catholic schools throughout the world, like other schools, have faced unprecedented challenges caused by the Covid-19 lockdowns. This article will examine the two issues of food insecurity and the digital divide in the period of lockdown caused by Covid-19, how these have affected children from backgrounds of poverty and disadvantage and the response of the Catholic Church and Catholic schools. These two issues have been selected because food insecurity was becoming a serious issue pre-lockdown and the lockdown has created greater awareness of the existence of digital exclusion and the educational and social consequences of digital exclusion for many children and young people. The effects of food insecurity and the digital divide for some children became worse under the lockdown
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