At risk or remarkably resilient? Childhood vulnerability in governmental justifications of COVID-19 school closures

ABSTRACT

Children faced many challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the school closure policies that were implemented to combat it. When justifying closures, governments had to decide how to frame children’s vulnerability, as their decisions protected children from some harms while forcing them to endure others. Children are typically framed as vulnerable to justify implementing protective policies but given that these protective policies came with severe consequences for children, it was not an inherently appropriate framing in this case. This study compares the press releases about school closures produced by the Victorian and New South Wales state governments to examine how they framed children’s vulnerability and how this positioned their obligation to protect children. It concludes that even though school closures were protective policies, neither government framed children as particularly vulnerable. This is likely explained by the fact that many of the consequences of school closures were harmful to children, so emphasising their vulnerability may have made it harder to retain public support for these policies.

KEYWORDS:

• School closure
• COVID-19
• childhood vulnerability
• policy framing

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge Professor Mark Considine and Dr Kate Williams for the support they provided while I conducted this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data used for this study can be accessed on the Victorian Premier and NSW Government’s press centres

Additional information

Funding

This work was not supported by any funding.

Notes on contributors

Michael Donaghue-Evans

Michael Donaghue-Evans holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and Masters of International Relations from the University of Melbourne. He has a particular research interest in children’s rights and their role in policymaking.