What might the Covid Pandemic mean for the SERA Theory and Philosophy of Education Network?

Abstract

Some prominent theorists and philosophers of education recently offered their reflections on the ongoing crisis. In this article, the authors want to address structural inequality in the Scottish context: the oft-decried attainment gap. Promises to deliver educational equity in Scotland by closing the attainment gap have seldom looked as hollow as they do in the wake of the pandemic. While the very possibility of school for many children in Scotland seems to be hanging in the balance, the results of an extended period of school closure have shown that school can resist the forces of inequality (Scottish Government 2020). It is because lockdown appears to negatively affect better-off children less than their poorer counterparts (Armitage and Nellums 2020), that it seems reasonable to suppose that schools are providing some resistance to the social forces of inequity. Some educational theorists and philosophers argue that school offers a 'space of equality' (Masschelein and Simons 2013), a temporary deliverance from the structural injustices that impose themselves on contemporary life. This is because school is understood as a place which can temporarily suspend economic, social, cultural, religious or political aspects of one's identity as well as any obligations that exist in relation to them.