Educational inequality and COVID-19: Who takes advantage of summer schools and other remedial measures?

Abstract

In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a global crisis with far-reaching effects, not least on education. Since the beginning of the pandemic, its impact on learning losses and increasing educational inequality has been widely discussed. While empirical evidence of rising educational inequality and learning loss is steadily growing, at the same time little is known about the families who are interested in remedial measures like summer schools to bridge the negative effects of the pandemic and school closures. The present study addresses this lack of research by providing an initial examination of the empirical evidence of mechanisms underlying parental choice of remedial measures. We take a closer look on which parents are particularly attracted by remedial measures by using cross-sectional data from a parent survey (N = 3590 parents) in Austria. The findings, illustrated via a series of latent mediation models, indicate that parents’ intention to use remedial measures is predicted by parents’ attitudes towards the implementation of remedial measures, parents’ assessment of their child’s learning engagement and of the quality of distance learning during school closures. Moreover, the intention to use remedial measures is significantly influenced by the family’s socioeconomic status.

School quality and COVID-19-related compensatory measures

“…Like the German federal states and many other countries, Austria relied on remedial offers (e.g., additional teaching and summer school) to compensate for learning losses. Postlbauer et al (2022) took a closer look at which parents are particularly attracted by remedial measures (i.e., summer school, additional teaching) by using cross-sectional data from a parent survey (N = 3590 parents) in Austria. The findings, illustrated via a series of latent mediation models, indicate that parents' intention to use remedial measures is predicted by parents' attitudes towards the implementation of remedial measures, parents' assessment of their child's learning engagement, and of the quality of distance learning during school closures.…”