Building community online during the COVID-19 pandemic: facilitating networks of support in the early primary years from the perspectives of key stakeholders in Canada

ABSTRACT

This research examines the ways early primary educators, parents and children made efforts to build community during the COVID-19 school closures in Canada. This qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews with 25 educators and 11 parent participants. Data were analysed in NVivo using a combination of inductive and deductive approaches. The analysis resulted in four themes: the importance of clear communication, maintaining consistency, support from administration and teacher colleagues, and the home learning environment. Building on the voices of the key stakeholders captured in this study, we provide recommendations for facilitating and building community in remote learning environments in the early primary years.

KEYWORDS:

• Community building
• early primary education
• COVID-19
• key stakeholders
• capturing perspectives
• school and home partnerships

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank and acknowledge the educators and families who participated in this study and helped us to learn more about their experiences of remote teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Disclosure statement

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

Ethical approval

This study was approved by Queen’s University Graduate Research Ethics Board (GREB).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Queen's University.