The Impact of COVID-19 on College Students: Implications for Equitable Education across College Life and Academic Success

2023-06-21

Call for Contributions to an Edited Collection 

The Impact of COVID-19 on College Students: Implications for Equitable Education across College Life and Academic Success 

Edited by Samson Chama,Professor, Alabama A&M University 

We extend a formal call for contributions to an edited collection that I am currently developing. The volume, tentatively titled “The Impact of COVID-19 on College Students: Implications for Equitable Education across College Life and Academic Success.”

The accelerating convergence of local and international social, economic and political problems, threatens to usher in a new age and culture that poses great challenges to education, democratization, participation, representation, connectedness and access. In addition, the emerging networks of disinformation, excessive surveillance, control and collusion, raise increasingly, troubling questions about threats to, or violations of, civil liberties, human rights, privacy, democratic processes and institutions, truth, basic freedoms, autonomy, and so on.

The implications are very significant: for example, if social injustices are real, as indeed they are, and if social justice is a meaningful and laudable goal, globally, in the 21st century, and if it is bound to basic freedoms, liberties, autonomy, rights and entitlements, education, health and so on, then social justice may well be facing some serious, and in some cases, unprecedented, challenges in this current age.  The phrase “social justice” has become more mainstream in recent times, but it’s existed for hundreds of years. As a concept, social justice gained more importance during the 19th century due to the Industrial Revolution and civil unrest in Europe. People started standing up to dangerous labor conditions, exploitation, and other unfair systems. At its core, social justice is about the fair distribution of opportunities and privileges as they apply to individuals within a society. While at first social justice centered mostly on wealth and property, it now encompasses more areas such as the environment, race, gender, and education.

The second form of social justice in education is how social justice is taught within the school system. In a social justice framework, curriculum is specifically chosen to broaden students’ worldviews through incorporating different ideas and challenging opinions. Instead of ignoring very real-world issues such as sexism, racism, poverty, and more, a social justice education framework addresses it and encourages students to exercise analytical thinking. Schools committed to social justice in education pay close attention to their choice of curriculum and how it can be used to expand their students’ minds. For example, in the United States today, educational opportunities are not created equal. This problem, says Sara Ewell, teaching professor in Northeastern University’s Graduate School of Education, is a reflection of a greater societal issue. “We’re not providing equal education opportunities and we’re further stratifying in our society,” she says. “We need to level the playing field. This has been an issue throughout history, and we’re trying to find solutions so we can create opportunity for all students—not just for the workforce, but to create citizens who are more engaged and socially and emotionally prepared.” Achieving social justice and equal opportunity in education are lofty-but-essential goals for educators in America, experts agree. To effect change, educators must fully understand the key issues and barriers in play and position themselves with the right network, skills, and education.

At another level, the COVID-19 pandemic created the largest disruption of education systems in human history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 200 countries. The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had spread worldwide, affecting almost all countries and territories. The outbreak was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. The countries around the world cautioned the public to take responsive care. The public care strategies had included handwashing, wearing face masks, physical distancing, and avoiding mass gathering and assemblies. Lockdown and staying home strategies had been put in place as the needed action to flatten the curve and control the transmission of the disease. Closures of schools, institutions and other learning spaces had impacted more than 94% of the world’s student population. This had brought far-reaching changes in all aspects of our lives. Social distancing and restrictive movement policies have significantly disturbed traditional educational practices. Reopening of schools after relaxation of restriction was another challenge with many new standard operating procedures put in place. 

Within a short span of the COVID-19 pandemic, many researchers, policy makers and practitioners have shared their works on teaching and learning in different ways. Several schools, colleges and universities even discontinued face-to-face teachings. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic there was, and there still is, a fear of losing academic years or even more in the coming future. The need of the hour is to innovate and implement alternative educational system and assessment strategies to combat future pandemics. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided us with an opportunity to pave the way for introducing digital learning. 

This edited volume will focus on the challenges discussed previously in order to see if the pursuit of equitable education is achievable and sustainable in the 21st century, given the accelerating convergence of the barriers pointed out previously. The volume will aim to provide a relevant and timely theoretical discussions and the latest, compelling findings in the area. It will be written for professionals and students who want to improve their understanding of recent challenges and barriers to education for college students. The book will discuss developments, transformations and convergences, in the COVID-19 age, which raise significant questions, and concerns, about the pursuit of college education in the 21st century. Each narrative chapter will provide in-depth discussions including illustrations of COVID-19, equity and college success. Potential chapters will highlight the salient areas, challenges, issues of equity as they relate to students, COVID-19, equity, and college success. 

 

The book will be divided into three parts and topics of interest include (but are not limited to): 

  • Part I: Impact of COVID-19 on Colleges
  • Disparate Impacts on Students in Higher Education
  • Barriers to Meaningful Students Access, Opportunities, and Outcomes
  • Impact on Student Well-being and Mental Health
  • School Campuses and Student Characteristics
  • Financial Effects and Housing Stability
  • Impact on international students, refugees and undocumented students
  • Part 2: Building and Fostering Academic Achievement and Student Success 
  • Disrupted Learning during the Pandemic
  • Opportunities, Challenges for Teaching and Learning
  • School Closures Due to Inclement Weather and Natural Disasters
  • Perceived Susceptibility and Concerns about the Future
  • Public Health Practices and Impact on College Students 
  • Supportiveness of Campus and Impact on Students’ Financial Insecurity
  • Ensuring students Access to Mental Health Services
  • Intentional Outreach for Students with Special Circumstances
  • Pedagogy for Continuing Education through Online
  • Online learning and Student learning outcomes
  • Increased Class Workload and Concerns about Academic Performance
  • Similarities/Differences between Out-of-College Time Studies and COVID-19 School Closures
  • Part 3: Closing Academic Gaps and Implications for the Future
  • Pre-Pandemic Disparities, Academic integrity, Gender disparities and Racial Disparities
  • Impact on HBCUs, TCUs, MSIs and Deepening Disparities for Students of Color
  • Disparate Impact on Mental Health for Students of Color
  • Student Enrolment: Widespread Effects and Disparate Impacts
  • Effective Building Back for Equity in Educational Opportunity
  • Inaccessibility to Mitigation Strategies
  • United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
  • Digital Divide, Accessibility and Student Success
  • International Students and Mobility 

As a professional courtesy, we would appreciate if you email an expression of interest, indicating your intent to submit a proposal, along with a 200-word abstract for your chapter. We invite those who are interested in submitting a proposal to reach out to us with any questions you have as you develop ideas for submission. Proposals are due by 09-30-2023 in Word format to samson.chama@aamu.edu. We will send decisions about proposals by 10-31-2023.  Accepted papers will be due 03-31-2023. All interested authors will be provided guidelines for manuscript submissions. Contributors may also be invited to serve as reviewers for this project.