Experiences of Children During the Pandemic: Scrutinizing Increased Vulnerabilities in Education in the Case of Turkey

Abstract

The lengthy time of school closure was one defining factor in understanding child well-being during the pandemic in a context where school as a relational space holds great importance for children, particularly those from a low socioeconomic background. Considering this significant aspect of lengthy school closure during the pandemic in Turkey, this article explores children’s experiences concerning their day-to-day access to education, digital inequalities, housing conditions, and changing context of relations with peers and teachers. The article also explores the meaning that children attribute to school as a relational space where they shape their intergenerational and generational relations. The absence of the school in children’s lives for almost 2 years has been a major source of longing for such significant childhood space. Following our earlier work on the children’s negotiation of well-being within the boundaries of the relational spaces of home and school, this article looks into how children negotiate their well-being in a pandemic environment where school as a relational space has changed its meaning and where children’s caretakers’ (teachers, parents, and other) vulnerabilities have also increased. The analysis draws on the qualitative fieldwork carried out with 50 children during the summer of 2020 in Turkey. We aim to reflect on the experiences from children’s perspectives within the boundaries of the constraints that the pandemic has generated. This article also discusses how COVID-19 has widened the gap and increased vulnerabilities among the already disadvantaged groups and gender in terms of available resources and their allocation as it is reflected in time use that portrays the meaning that children attribute to their own experience during the pandemic. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.