Multiple Vulnerabilities: Knowledge Politics of School Closures during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This article explores the debate on school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic using the lens of a theory of multiple vulnerabilities. It examines connections between epistemic-normative positionings and notions of vulnerability in a sample of 43 qualitative interviews with committed laypeople who discussed the issue on Twitter. It can be shown that critics of school closures emphasize the psychological and social harms to children, but rarely the disease itself. Conversely, those who are in favour of school closures, distance learning or infection control measures see children as being primarily threatened by possible infections and consider the psychological and social consequences to be less problematic. Despite these differences, which can be read as polarization, all interviewees share a concern for children's well-being and refer to the scientific discourse. We interpret the results in terms of the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of science, integrating the theory of multiple vulnerabilities with the concept of multiple facts.