Inequalities in Children's Experiences of Home Learning during the COVID-19 Lockdown in England

Abstract

This paper combines novel data on the time use, home-learning practices and economic circumstances of families with children during the COVID-19 lockdown with pre-lockdown data from the UK Time Use Survey to characterise the time use of children and how it changed during lockdown, and to gauge the extent to which changes in time use and learning practices during this period are likely to reinforce the already large gaps in educational attainment between children from poorer and better-off families. We find considerable heterogeneity in children's learning experiences - amount of time spent learning, activities undertaken during this time and availability of resources to support learning. Concerningly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, this heterogeneity is strongly associated with family income and in some instances more so than before lockdown. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that any impacts of inequalities in time spent learning between poorer and richer children are likely to be compounded by inequalities not only in learning resources available at home, but also in those provided by schools.

Keywords: COVID‐19; education; home learning; inequality.

FIGURE 1

Children's and adolescents' activities over the course of a ‘school’ day during lockdown Note: Lines show the percentage of individuals reporting doing each activity in each hour for the UKTUS (2014–15) and the COVID survey (May 2020). All lines are smoothed using Epanechnikov kernels. In the UKTUS, an activity is coded as having taken place if any time is spent on that activity in that hour.

FIGURE 2

Distribution of time spent on educational activities on a ‘school’ day (from recall questions) Note: These statistics are computed for a sample of children including those who did not attend school the day before their parents answered the survey, who have valid time‐diary responses and non‐missing answers to the recall questions, and whose total learning time was less than or equal to 12 hours. ‘All learning time’ is the sum of class and non‐class time. ‘Non‐class time’ is the sum of ‘other school work’, ‘w/ paid tutor’ and ‘other educational’. Numbers in parentheses are average hours spent.

FIGURE 3

Distribution of access to technology Note: Calculated from responses to the survey question ‘What is the main device that [CHILD NAME] uses to access online resources provided by the school?’.

FIGURE 4

Distribution of access to a dedicated study space Note: Calculated from responses to the survey question ‘Does [CHILD NAME] have a desk or dedicated space for studying at home?’.

FIGURE 5

Home‐learning resources provided by schools Note: Calculated from responses to the survey question ‘Which of the following activities has [CHILD NAME]'s school provided while schools are closed? [Please tick all that apply]’.