Distance relationships and educational fragilities: A Student Voice research in digital third spaces

Abstract

Abstract What impact did distance learning and education have on the most fragile students during the COVID-19 emergency? How is ‘educational fragility’ perceived by teachers and school educators, and how did this concept change during the school closure? How did children and young people perceive their remote learning experiences? The pandemic scenario forced to switch from face-to-face to distance educational relationships, triggering new fragilities and increasing digital inequalities. Therefore, in the digital environment of third space, a qualitative Student Voice research was conducted to collect students’, teachers’ and educators’ perceptions of remote schooling via semi-structured interviews. The study was implemented with working university students and school-going students with special educational needs, aged between 7 and 13 years, pursuing the teacher preparation aspect in the field of social justice. Preliminary results show that distance relationships fostered students’ self-regulated learning and awareness of their own learning processes; however, only in-presence schooling is experienced as a real ‘living-learning space.’ All these aspects and especially the practitioners’ awareness of the outcomes of distance education open up a new perspective towards an ecological theory of educational fragility, which could contribute to define new in-depth knowledge-construction tools in support of the education practice.