University teachers and students in the pandemic: Connection, disconnection, and identity challenges

Abstract

Drawing upon a new-materialist approach, the paper presents an explorative study on teachers' and students' identity re-configurations in the remote university. Online focus groups were conducted involving 60 students and 25 teachers from the Department of Psychology of the same University. The results showed that being connected appears to be a legitimating condition for students' and teachers' identities. Three main ways of being connected are described: connection as accessibility, connection as engageability, and connection as productivity. The paper offers reflections on this new intra-action between people and technology and discusses some challenges and implications for the future.