Bildungsbenachteiligung in der Corona-Pandemie

Schools’ improvement capacity and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from schools serving disadvantaged communities

“…Besides providing opportunities for academic learning, it was vital for schools to monitor student needs and emotional health during the school closures, especially at SSDCs (Bremm, 2021). Our results suggest that while all schools focused on academic learning, only those in the most active group also reported to have reinforced their efforts to reach out to their students, for instance by making home visits, providing a self-learning center with access to WiFi, expanding emergency care and in-school instruction to students who needed it but officially were not eligible, while trying to hold on to the regular curriculum as best as possible.…”

“…While our results illustrate the range of initial strategies taken by SSDCs to cope with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, and suggest a general, though not a deterministic association between these strategies and the SIC of the schools prior to the pandemic, the scope of our study does not provide any insight into whether the strategies chosen by the more active schools could prevent the achievement gap between schools in different social situations from opening further in the context of distance learning. In addition to the six dimensions of SIC discussed here, teachers' beliefs and attitudes (e.g., deficit thinking) may also play a role at SSDCs (Bremm and Racherbäumer, 2020;Bremm, 2021). For instance, qualitative data show that a high sensitivity for the heterogeneity and diversity of the student body, the cultivation of an appreciative school culture and a distancing from common attributions of deficit thinking are related to successful school improvement (Racherbäumer, 2017;Klein and Bremm, 2019).…”

“…These factors may constitute particular challenges for SSDCs in their response to distance learning, and in meeting educational standards as well as students' needs. Due to lower technological equipment as well as both actual and perceived deficits of students in terms of their digital skills and ability to learn independently, teachers at SSDC may be less able or even less inclined to use digital technologies and virtual formats during distance learning (Bremm, 2021). This may, in turn, lead to difficulties in staying in contact with the students in order to maintain educational standards and to address their emotional and learning needs.…”

“…This may, in turn, lead to difficulties in staying in contact with the students in order to maintain educational standards and to address their emotional and learning needs. At the same time, the actual or perceived difficulties students face in their home environments during COVID-19 may lead to a lowering of educational standards at SSDC during distance learning (Bremm, 2021).…”

“…Recent evidence from the German-speaking context suggests that especially SSDCs appeared to have difficulties in maintaining educational standards and providing opportunities for academic learning. In a study from Switzerland, Bremm (2021) showed that SSDCs deliberately lowered standards while increasing their concern for students' emotional well-being. In Austria, Jesacher-Rößler and found that principals at SSDCs perceived distance learning as less positive.…”