Going digital overnight: mothers′ agency in children′s remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article analyses the processes through which educational inequalities among primary-school children in Czechia widened during the COVID-19 pandemic, focussing on mothers’ experiences of supporting their children′s remote learning in the context of the digital acceleration. The study draws on a secondary analysis of qualitative interviews with 36 Czech mothers with different family and socio-economic status and education levels. It compares how mothers with different volumes of resources responded to the sudden transfer of educational responsibility from schools to households. The findings identify three key processes. First, socio-economic disadvantage translated into shortages of both digital and emotional capital, generating a self-reinforcing cycle of stress constraining parents’ ability to support children’s learning. Second, while all participants initially accepted responsibility and engaged in practices sustaining remote schooling, mothers with limited resources more often resorted to tacit resistance, whereas those with greater capital negotiated with schools or introduced innovations that improved learning conditions. Third, emotional capital proved central in shaping families’ capacity to make effective use of digital resources. The article demonstrates how the interaction of economic, cultural, digital, and emotional capital reproduced educational inequalities during school closures, while also highlighting the practices through which mothers attempted to mitigate or challenge these dynamics.