Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The crisis derived from the COVID-19 pandemic leads us to think about fragility or uncertainty as fundamental aspects of our societies, and to reflect on the social consequences of this situation. Our daily relationship with the confinement that we had never faced before, has changed our way of managing time, being in contact, work- ing, studying... All this will produce a new social scenario in which many questions must be answered by Sociology as well as solutions to the social consequences of this crisis.

This article provides a discussion on the role of sociology and other social sciences in order to analyze major social issues of the COVID-19 pandemic crises. Social conditions related to social structure, culture, the power of science and the construction of institutions related to health and R&D are discussed. Some impacts of the pandemic crisis are considered from the angle of the untended and unintended conse- quences of confinement. In the conclusions some thoughts about the effects of the crisis on the social sciences are provided.

The Coronavirus pandemic has closed schools in Spain since mid-March 2020. It is not expected to open this year, except for examinations in upper secondary and at the University. Online teaching, with differential implementation by type of center and region, replaces in this period face-to-face teaching in schools. This telematic educational model increases the inequality of educational opportunities. It highlights the material shortages of electronic devices in the most disadvantaged households, in the households with the lowest incomes and resources, even more so in single-parent households, even more in households with parents of compulsory secondary education or less (father and mother, or worse, only one of them), even more so in public school students and even more so in students living in the Southern Communities, including Galicia and the Canary Islands. Although all the students, and their families, are negatively affected by the closure of the educational centers, almost a million of them (variable according to the registration sources used) are even more affected by their personal and family conditions.This article shows that current online telematic education, without discussing its benefits and support for learning processes, increases the educational inequalities of students.

The crisis caused by COVID-19 has placed the school in an unprecedented scenario. From one day to the next, teaching –when this has been possible– has moved from being face-to-face to being virtual. It remains unknown what percentage of teachers and students may be teaching and learning telematically and to what strategies they are resorting. Under these circumstances, the differences among students in terms of economic and cultural capital are aggravated. If radical measures are not taken, it is likely that this period without face-to-face tea- ching may take its toll on an entire generation. Teachers, students and parents are now accessing educational content –of the kind provided by the Khan Academy– which shows that it is possible to learn in a different autonomous way. This can lead to a creative and innovative redefinition of the role of the teacher. It is possible that, as of the return to face-to-face teaching, it will not be necessary to spend so many hours in the school and, very especially, in the classroom. The university, likewise, should take advantage of the fact that it has more resour- ces and a student body that is more easily connected to the Internet than that of the rest of the educational levels, in order to undertake a deep transformation of its teaching.

The global pandemic generated by COVID-19 and the consequent mandatory confinement measures of the population entail unpreceden- ted challenges for the education systems elsewhere. The closing of the schools and of the face-to-face classes highlights a critical question: What is the school for? The objective of the paper is to reflect on this question from a sociological perspective and, in particular, from an educational and social justice perspective. It is argued that the main function of the school as a specialized institution should be the transmission and acquisition of powerful, relevant and meaningful knowledge for all students. Likewise, two requirements are established to guarantee the exercise of this role: the physical presence as the basis for developing full interaction; and the role of teachers to simulta- neously ensure students’ learning and wellbeing. Overall, the paper provides a reflection not only on the impacts of the current situation on the functions of the school, but also on the meaning of the educational institution in the xxi century, representing a key contribution within the debates of the sociology of education.

In this paper we will describe briefly the main changes in the access and permanence conditions in the university after post-2012 reforms, in a scene of austerity in public spending. Based on Langa-Rosado ?s recent research it is concluded that last changes have provoked an increase of social class inequalities between students. In a final section we outline some arguments that reinforce the inopportuneness of this inequal turn in university policies, taking account the present context of sanitary and social crisis.

This article uses a pictorial image in a double sense. First, it raises the blind spot of concern about the digital divide in the confinement by COVID-19, namely, the difference in performance in the previous situation correlated with the disposition of domestic goods. Second, it uses the expression of pure non-objectivity in relation to the possibility of extracting from Bourdieu and Passeron a theory of the school as the zero or null medium, in the manner of Enzensberger.

School closure caused by COVID-19 and the decision of the Spanish education authorities to continue with the school year, entailed that the educational system started to teach online. This article argues that the educational system cannot properly guarantee the right to education in these circumstances. Its aims are to analyze the underlying ideas behind this fiction, the reasons why it has been built and accepted, and its possible negative effects. Finally, public policy measures are offered to mitigate these effects.