Learning inequalities during the Covid-19 pandemic: a longitudinal analysis using the UK Understanding Society 2020 and 2021 data

The spring of 2020 saw a widespread and prolonged closure of schools across the UK due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Schools began a phased reopening in July 2021 and in January 2021 closed for the second time. The resulting transition to distance schooling has impaired students' learning and transferred to families a great deal of responsibility for educational activities, thus exacerbating inequalities in learning opportunities by socio-economic status. The current debate on the extent of the learning loss, the possibility of new school closures, the activities that are necessary to remediate the learning loss, and the nature of the 2021 school assessment would benefit from a timely analysis of the learning opportunities that children had during the two school closures. Our project will provide such an analysis.
It will use longitudinal data from the April 2020 and January 2021 Understanding Society (USoc) Covid-19 surveys to offer the most recent insights into learning opportunities in the United Kingdom during the January-March 2021 school closure. As both surveys interviewed the same families, are representative of the UK and can be linked to previous US surveys, we are able to construct a rich, reliable and longitudinal dataset of around 1300 children in primary school and 1500 children in secondary school. Dr. Birgitta Rabe and Professor Stephen Machin are currently leading two separate ESRC projects on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on educational learning opportunities, attainments at national exams and higher education participation (respectively projects ES/V015222/1 and ES/V010433/1). While their cross-sectional research design focuses on specific points in time, our project is the first to use panel data covering both school closures to offer a longitudinal analysis of learning opportunities. The newer USoc survey was prompted by the new school closure, which was announced in January 2021, hence the application through the ESRC Time Critical Covid-19 Call.
We will analyse whether the uptake of schoolwork - which reflects both the school provision and how families engage with it - changed between the first and the second school closure and whether the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged families in schoolwork has narrowed or widened. We define advantage using a wide range of characteristics including: parental occupational category; availability of computers at home; working patterns such as working from home and being in furlough; and family structure. In our previous study we suggested that in case of school closure inequalities in learning can be remediated by providing students with better access to IT and by providing online academic tutors to compensate for the absence of parents who cannot work from home.
Thanks to our existing relationship within academics, a clear dissemination plan which will be delivered with the cooperation of Public Policy at Southampton, we expect to match the impact of our previous research on learning inequalities during the first school closure, which included being featured in more than 100 national and regional outlets such as the Guardian, impact sessions with MPs Michael Tomlinson and Alan Whitehead and impact event contributions for the Scottish Government. Our research will enable policy makers and practitioners to evaluate whether distance learning has improved during the second transition to home-schooling, and what new policies are necessary to mitigate the consequences of the school closures and prepare for possible future school closures.