COVID-19 and Childhood Inequality

The COVID-19 pandemic and the global response to it have disrupted the daily lives of children in innumerable ways. These impacts have unfolded unevenly, as nation, race, class, sexuality, citizenship status, disability, housing stability, and other dimensions of power have shaped the ways in which children and youth have experienced the pandemic. COVID-19 and Childhood Inequality brings together a multidisciplinary group of child and youth scholars and practitioners who highlight the mechanisms and practices through which the COVID-19 pandemic has both further marginalized children and exacerbated childhood disparities.
Featuring an introduction and ten chapters, the volume "unmasks" childhood inequalities through innovative, real-time research on children's pandemic lives and experiences, situating that research within established child and youth literatures. Using multiple methods and theoretical perspectives, the work provides a robust, multidisciplinary, and holistic approach to understanding childhood inequality as it intersects with the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the USA. The chapters also ask us to consider pathways toward resilience, offering recommendations and practices for challenging the inequities that have deepened since the entrée of SARS-CoV-2 onto the global stage.
Ultimately, the work provides a timely and vital resource for childhood and youth educators, practitioners, organizers, policymakers, and researchers. An illuminating volume, each chapter brings a much-needed focus on the varied and exponential impacts of COVID-19 on the lives of children and youth.

Nazneen Khan is an associate professor of Sociology at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, USA. She is an active member of the Children and Youth Section of the American Sociological Association and currently serves as the section's Treasurer-Secretary. Her research and teaching employs intersectional theory and methodology and focuses on families, childhood, and motherhood at the crossroads of broader racial, economic, and political formations in the USA. Her recent scholarship has been published in Children & Society, Contexts, Sociological Focus, Critical Research on Religion, and Understanding and Dismantling Privilege.

Introduction: Unmasking Childhood Inequality Part 1: Unmasking Childhood Inequality 1. Pandemic Eugenics: Reproductive Justice and Racial Inequality in Childhood 2. LGBTQ+ Youth and the COVID-19 Pandemic 3. Turning a Blind Eye: COVID-19 and Homeless Children 4. The Impact of COVID-19 on Children with Thalassemia and Their Families in India Part 2: Unmasking Institutional Entanglements 5. Youth at the Margins: Continuity of Services During the COVID-19 Pandemic 6. Consequences of COVID-19 Realities and Misconceptions for Rural PK-12 Students: Implications from Rural Education Research 7. The Impact of Parental Burnout and Time with Children: Family Stress in a Large Urban City During COVID-19 Part 3: Unmasking Pandemic Agency 8. When Six Feet Feels Like Six Miles: Children's Images of Their Lives During the COVID-19 Pandemic 9. The COVID-19 Pandemic: Childhood Inequalities Unmasked in the Caribbean 10. Risk-Taking Among Older Youth at the Outset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the USA