Exceptional childhood and COVID-19: Engaging children in a time of civil emergency

Abstract

In the days and weeks following the March 2020 World Health Organization declaration of the global COVID-19 pandemic, a number of national leaders in the Global North, all of them working under unprecedented and extraordinarily challenging circumstances, took time to directly address the children of their respective countries. Besides answering questions about the crisis put to them by their youngest citizens, a recurrent theme on these occasions was the imperative role of children in helping to arrest the spread of the pathogen. Recalling how children have been similarly engaged in other moments of emergency, the overtures made in the context of COVID-19 are instructive both as to the recognition of children as bona fide, effectual, and necessary social agents as well as to the limits of acceptance of their subjecthood, revealed as they are in circumstances of exception.

Locking down adolescents: Victims, irresponsible subjects, or just social actors

“…Hence, its results are not generalisable. However, the accounts from the adolescents we met opened up a window of knowledge about how adolescents experienced the pandemic, while-at the same time-offering the interviewees the opportunity to give voice to their thoughts, opinions, and feelings, which are rarely taken into due account by the institutions responsible for managing health emergencies (Beier, 2021).…”

Ao ritmo da COVID-19: entre políticas para a infância e práticas pedagógicas em pandemia. Que perspetivas sobre os direitos das crianças?

“…A COVID-19 teve um impacto profundo no mundo (SANTOS, 2020) havendo já indicadores que possibilitam afirmar os múltiplos riscos associados à doença e o agravamento de desigualdades (COSTA, 2020;FAO et al, 2021). Portugal, ainda mal recuperado de uma profunda crise económica e social resultante da intervenção da Troika (2011Troika ( -2014 e das políticas de austeridade, é surpreendido com os primeiros casos de COVID-19 em 2 de março de 2020, e a primeira morte a 16 desse mês, sendo assolado por uma nova crise, agora com outros contornos e densidades (CARMO; TAVARES; CÂNDIDO, 2020;FARIA;BENDO;MITCHELL, 2021;MAMEDE, 2020;BEIER, 2021;UNESCO, 2021;UNICEF, 2021;OECD, 2021;UNICEF, 2021). A 12 de março, o Governo português anunciou medidas extraordinárias de prevenção, contenção e mitigação da Covid-19 cobrindo um vasto leque de domínios (circulação, socialização, uso de máscara e viseira, horários dos estabelecimentos comerciais, consumo em espaços púbicos, etc.…”