How well did remote learning work for your family?

Education during COVID-19 often felt like a minefield, whether you were teaching a class, continuing your own learning or shepherding children through Google Classroom. But on top of the logistical headaches we experienced, according to Clara Vaz Bauler, PhD, associate professor in the Adelphi University School of Education, Ruth S. Ammon College of Education and Health Sciences, our collective sense of remote learning was indelibly influenced by public discourse.

In her paper “Have We Learned Anything? Raciolinguistic Ideologies in Remote Learning Public Discourses,” (Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability, May 2023),¹ Dr. Bauler analyzes various text resources—from social media posts to remote learning materials and traditional news media—to discover how they might have upheld “normative ways of being, knowing, and doing based on the idealized linguistic practices of whiteness.” Assumptions about what constituted a “good learning environment” remained highly traditional—and highly racialized— in public discourse, she found, even amid social turmoil and a global public health crisis.

“Lecturing, class periods and testing were rarely questioned at a deeper level,” Dr. Bauler noted. Everyday routines such as camera-on expectations, synchronous learning modules and parent-child activities created environments that benefited white, socioeconomically stable students and families.

Dr. Bauler’s paper also highlights the intersection between remote learning technology and traditional power structures. While Black, Hispanic and lower-income households were disproportionately impacted by a lack of internet access, the media tended to frame accessibility issues from a deficit-based perspective. “Access should be understood in a broader sense to include social inclusion,” the paper explains, as this framing “renders traditionally marginalized students deficient unless they adhere to norms of language use of white monolingual elites.”

Equitable technology integration is one pathway to reimagining diverse and creative education in the future. As Dr. Bauler put it, “We should continue to question assumptions about remote learning if we ever want to learn from our participation in the pandemic classroom and make educational experiences in general more meaningful and inclusive.”

Biography

Clara Vaz Bauler, PhD

Clara Vaz Bauler, PhD

Clara Vaz Bauler, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Education. Her research interests are threefold: examining how digital media technology can be used to benefit minoritized multilingual students; identifying ways to better prepare pre-service and in-service K–12 teachers to unveil pervasive and harmful raciolinguistic ideologies; and looking at ways translanguaging practices can be affirmed and validated in science and STEM. Dr. Bauler co-authored Reimagining Dialogue on Identity, Language and Power, published in 2023 by Multilingual Matters.

^{¹Bauler, C. (2023). “Have We Learned Anything? Raciolinguistic Ideologies in Remote Learning Public Discourses.” Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability, 1(1), 48–68. https://doi.org/10.48516/jcscd_2023vol1iss1.7}