ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors provide a conceptual understanding of the disparate school outcomes experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic depending on the sociocultural and sociopolitical context in which schools are located. The analysis depicts schools as political sites that reproduce social inequities and offers a way to understand the undergirding social structures that were reflected as digital and equity divides during and after the onset of the pandemic. In order to address issues related to the digital divide and digital equity, the authors assert that schools, practitioners, and policymakers need to develop a better understanding of these issues. The chapter further points to solutions regarding teaching the whole child as a means to combat a one-size-fits-all structural or curricular approach that exists independent of students’ lived experiences and assumes a learning readiness that may or may not exist for an individual child. The authors offer pedagogical and leadership solutions that address children’s basic needs while ensuring the desired learning outcomes that account for the lived experiences of each child.
