Project Overview
The coronavirus outbreak fundamentally transformed the way education took place in New York State and across the nation. In March of 2020, schools and businesses were shuttered in New York State due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many parents found themselves in a situation where they were working, either at home or as essential workers, while also overseeing their children’s education. For many of these parents working from home was an entirely new experience as was overseeing their children’s education. In the context of COVID- 19, unprecedented numbers of parents were working and teaching their children from home simultaneously. Although homeschooling in US has attracted some parents, remote schooling caused by the pandemic was different from homeschooling in many aspects.
First, remote schooling, unlike homeschooling, was not a choice of parents. Second, remote schooling is based upon a curriculum provided by schools and teachers rather than the parents’ choice of curriculum and finally remote schooling during the lockdown has been taking place in a situation when many parents are working full time either remotely or as essential workers, meaning that they may be less engaged in their children’s work than when children are homeschooled. Although more women these days are working in the market on a par with men, their roles have been also extended to serve being both a breadwinner and a homemaker. Hence, understanding the experiences of mothers during the coronavirus outbreak is important in terms of understanding the social and gender consequences of COVID-19. This project reflects the collective effort at understanding mothers’ experiences of work and home- schooling in the Syracuse area during the Coronavirus outbreak though semi-structured deidentified interviews.
Data and Data Collection Overview
A qualitative study design with semi-structured interviews was used to understand the experiences, challenges, coping and rewards of parenting during the coronavirus outbreak. Phone interviews with 65 parents (and a few grandparents) of school-age children were conducted with mostly working mothers, in Spring (April-June) 2020 when at-home education started in the Syracuse, NY area.
The study was advertised on various Facebook groups and listservs including parenting, babysitting, school PTA, health care industry, and church groups as well as contacted personal contacts. While initially it was intended to interview parents including fathers and mothers, but most of the respondents to the ads were mothers as the topic of study resonated strongly with mothers. In a few cases custodial grandmothers, who were raising their grandchildren were interviewed. These grandmothers were going beyond the typical grandmother relationship to provide the level of care normally provided by a parent. Of those interviewed, 59 were mothers, 3 were grandmothers, 1 was a father, and 1 was a couple interviewed together.
In terms of race/ethnicity, 67% respondents were White, 20% were Black, 4.5% were Asian, 1.5% were Middle Eastern, 3% were Latina, and 3% identified as both Black and Latina. In terms of education 57% respondents had at least a bachelor’s degree while 43% of respondents had less than a bachelor’s degree. The vast majority of those interviewed were working; only 7 (11%) were not. In 51% of the families either the respondent or their spouse/partner was an essential worker, meaning that they were legally working outside of the home during the coronavirus outbreak in Spring 2020. For essential workers, working outside the home meant trading off between two parents, using a babysitter or older children, or in one case, bringing a child to work.
Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Necessary redactions were applied to mask the revealing information of respondent. After the interviews were complete, two doctoral students at Syracuse University helped code the interviews and write up the findings.
Selection and Organization of Shared Data
The data files shared here encompass the 64 de-identified interview transcripts labeled by pseudonyms. The documentation files shared consist of the original informed consent used, the interview questionnaire, a Data Narrative and an administrative README file. |
