How Homework and Parental Involvement Narratives Maintain Inequality
What we can learn from the inequalities exposed by remote learning
Remote learning has brought welcome attention to the massive disparities in students’ abilities to engage in school from home. Schools have been forced to grapple with students’ lack of access to internet and digital devices, home situations involving high levels of responsibility and crowded conditions and the unmet needs of students with disabilities. This is unfolding in the context of unprecedented levels of generalized anxiety, trauma and economic precarity.
The pressure, not only on students but also on their families, is immense. Parents struggling with job loss, a sudden shift to working from home or working essential jobs involving heightened risk are now also asked to be responsible for remote learning for their children.
This is, rightly, recognized as a state of emergency. However, this moment should force us to confront the ways these inequalities and pressures are persistent, if invisible, features of schooling for millions of students and their families.
