Confinement and return to classes in Argentina

teachers' stories about inequality in a pandemic

Abstract

During the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the argentine government ordered a strict confinement that led to the closure of all schools. Consequently, the teaching staff continued to teach in a remote manner, adapting to the technological resources available in their schools. Then, an educational segregation between the public and private sectors was evidenced, increased by the existing digital divide. The following year there was a return to school attendance with strict protocols, aimed at minimizing the risk of contagion in schools. The present work develops a descriptive and qualitative method, based on interviews with teachers at the secondary level of Bahía Blanca, Argentina. They were asked about perceptions and experiences regarding education in a pandemic during the years 2020 and 2021. In the results, it is highlighted that the return to face-to-face activity managed to balance the educational inequalities evidenced the previous year by the digital divide. Likewise, both teachers and students were able to adapt to the health protocols and positively valued the return to the classroom.