Home school during covid-19 lockdown: NERA 2021

This paper sheds light on the involvement of parents in their children’s homeschooling during the first Covid-19 lockdown. Based on a survey and interviews with parents and informed by sociological parenting studies (e.g. Lareau 2003), the paper discusses the varied ways parents were involved in their children’s homeschooling. It focuses on parents' emotional involvement (Reay, 2004), especially how parents spoke about negative emotions. The negative emotions that parents were affected by made them act in different ways. Parents drew on diverse resources as part of arranging school and family life. For some, lockdowns became a time of ‘hygge’ and joyful learning. For others, it was characterized by struggles and opt-outs and experiences of their child being marginalized in relation to school, at the same time as the family could no longer function as a sheltered place.