Education and technology: family experiences with distance education during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Since the spread of COVID-19, the lockdown brought new family dynamics to safeguard the learning of children and adolescents, where technology took a role in education and social relations. The research question of this work is the following: how were the experiences of socialization and adaptation developed in different family environments of the Ecuadorian Andean region after homeschooling during the coronavirus pandemic? The methodology utilized consisted of in-depth interviews with family members who took the role of helpers of people under 18 years old who were studying remotely during the COVID-19 health emergency during 2020 and 2021. The work shows that diverse forms of the social, cultural, and economic capital of Andean geographic contexts were sources for pursuing a relevant and dignified education, thus it questions the dissociation of public policies from individual and social experiences. This work seeks to demonstrate the impacts of public policies on education in different social contexts after the health emergency due to the spread of COVID-19, to understand the transformation of family dynamics due to lockdown and immobility, and to question technological determinism in educational policies