Growing Up Under COVID-19: Young People’s Agency in Family Dynamics

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the nature of family life in countries across the world. School, and workplace closures meant that families spent more time at home and had to confront new economic, social, and psychological challenges as a result of lockdowns and the greater proximity of family members. Policy, research and media coverage of the pandemic’s impact on family life has focused primarily on the economic costs borne by households. This article draws on the findings from an empirical research project funded by the UK Nuffield Foundation on “Politics, Participation and Pandemics: Growing up under COVID-19”, which worked with young people as co-researchers, to present an innovative perspective on the impact of lockdown on family relationships. The research team adopted a longitudinal ethnographic action research approach to document and make sense of the experiences of young people (aged 14–18) in four countries: Italy, Lebanon Singapore and the United Kingdom. The project used digital ethnography and participatory methods to track the responses of 70 young people to the challenges created by the pandemic. The study used the family as a prism for understanding how the lives of children and young people in different family circumstances and relationships were affected by the crisis. This article analyses, firstly, the complex shifting dynamics within households to identify the transformative effects of the pandemic on family life in various socio-cultural contexts. Secondly, it examines how young people’s agency shaped family dynamics. In conclusion, the authors recommend how the findings from the study can be used to inform government interventions designed to minimise the impacts of the pandemic on the social well-being and rights of children and young people, and to recognise them as active participants in family and civic life both during and after the pandemic

The change in children's subjective relational social cohesion with family and friends during the COVID-19 pandemic: A multinational analysis

“…For example, in Switzerland, half of the respondents said that their social life with friends stayed more or less the same, while 79% of the respondents declared no change in their family life. Shah et al (2021) demonstrated that, in different countries, young people living in families with close and stable relationships found it easier to cope with the pandemic circumstances; by contrast, living in close proximity exacerbated family tensions and conflicts and endangered intrafamilial closeness.…”

“…Social-distancing measures, including school closures, may have had different effects on children's relational social cohesion (inter)generationally, i.e., with family and friends. Measures limited in-person contact with friends and extended family while increasing it with immediate family (Chaabane et al, 2021;Kutsar and Kurvet-Käosaar, 2021;Shah et al, 2021). Online tools have been increasingly used to compensate for the lack of in-person interactions with friends and extended family.…”

“…Previously, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's relationships with their friends and family has been explored in a single country, e.g., in South Korea (Choi et al, 2021), Germany (Vogel et al, 2021), Finland (Salin et al, 2020), Spain (Mondragon et al, 2021), and Estonia (Kutsar and Kurvet-Käosaar, 2021). There are also some multinational qualitative studies (e.g., Shah et al, 2021;Stoecklin et al, 2021). Stoecklin et al (2021) examined children's experience of the lockdown in relation to their family life and contacts with friends in Switzerland, Canada, and Estonia.…”

“…Stoecklin et al (2021) examined children's experience of the lockdown in relation to their family life and contacts with friends in Switzerland, Canada, and Estonia. Shah et al (2021), in their longitudinal ethnographic action research, focused on children aged 14-18 years and how their agency shaped family dynamics during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, Lebanon, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. However, there is no evidence that the decrease in children's relational social cohesion during the COVID-19 pandemic is a common feature across countries.…”

Opportunities, challenges, and contextual supports to promote enacting maturing during adolescence

“…As one young person explained, “ I have my little brother, who was getting work, but it was just papers sent home with no guidance or help from teachers. So, I had to teach my little brother because my parents aren’t really good with English, so they can’t really translate what they know in Kurdish into English, so I have to do all the teaching for him” (16 year-old girl; Shah et al, 2021 ). This quote helps illustrate how a teenage girl from an immigrant family needed to step into a new, mature role, during an especially challenging time when it was difficult for anyone to take on additional responsibilities.…”