This open access edited volume is a comparative effort to discern the short-term educational
impact of the covid-19 pandemic on students teachers and systems in Brazil Chile Finland
Japan Mexico Norway Portugal Russia Singapore Spain South Africa the United Kingdom and
the United States. One of the first academic comparative studies of the educational impact of
the pandemic the book explains how the interruption of in person instruction and the variable
efficacy of alternative forms of education caused learning loss and disengagement with learning
especially for disadvantaged students. Other direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic
diminished the ability of families to support children and youth in their education. For
students as well as for teachers and school staff these included the economic shocks
experienced by families in some cases leading to food insecurity and in many more causing
stress and anxiety and impacting mental health. Opportunity to learn was also diminished by the
shocks and trauma experienced by those with a close relative infected by the virus and by the
constrains on learning resulting from students having to learn at home where the demands of
schoolwork had to be negotiated with other family necessities often sharing limited space.
Furthermore the prolonged stress caused by the uncertainty over the resolution of the pandemic
and resulting from the knowledge that anyone could be infected and potentially lose their lives
created a traumatic context for many that undermined the necessary focus and dedication to
schoolwork. These individual effects were reinforced by community effects particularly for
students and teachers living in communities where the multifaceted negative impacts resulting
from the pandemic were pervasive. This is an open access book.
