Equity of emergency remote education in Serbia: a case study of a Roma student’s educational experiences

Abstract

The aim of the study is to provide a particular portrayal of emergency remote education (ERE) in Serbia from the perspective of its most disadvantaged partakers. The study applied a single-case study design. The participant was an 11-year-old Roma boy, attending the 5th grade of elementary school in Belgrade. Since October 2019, a group of university students and teaching staff have been providing learning support for the student twice a week. For approximately two and a half years, the researchers continuously produced and/or collected participant-observations, anecdotal notes, the content of the Viber group, artefacts from the learning/teaching process, and notes from interviews with the pupil and his parents. The data from these multiple sources were merged and analysed using event structure analysis. From the analysed data the researchers reconstructed how the Roma student experienced ERE and which factors influenced the process. The analysis acknowledges that ERE policy and practice in interaction with the disadvantaged positions of certain students exacerbate inequity in education. The findings suggest that achieving equity of ERE requires educational decision-making which highlights the perspectives of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and their families, purposefully approaches ERE to disrupt potential inequities, and develops the capacities of schools and teachers to address educational inequities in an emergency context.