Abstract:

Although it may be difficult for educational providers to consider the discrimination students' experience in classrooms, realism is a political act: it builds solidarity and better conditions for those disadvantaged. The conversations I have had with international student women about their reality of online learning spurred me to research how the move to online education uniquely affected their ability to learn. It was brought to my attention that lockdown regulations instructing undergraduate students to return home and stay home directly led to an increase in domestic and un-paid work for them which impacted on their ability to learn. Although research in this area has been significant for postgraduate women, undergraduate women have been neglected from this research and international student women practically ignored.

Worryingly, research (such as Craig and Churchill, 2020) has identified the new experiences of balancing work and care during lockdown as being damaging to wellbeing. It became clear to me that change needs to be made both in re-assessing our understanding of international student women's access to education, but also how technology needs to be (re)designed and better managed by companies and educational providers to ensure equality of opportunity for all. Online learning should have been an opportunity to tackle long-standing educational inequalities across the world, not to perpetuate and develop them. UK HE educational institutions have struggled in their first major test of the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) mindset by refusing to differentiate the online student experience on grounds of nationality and gender. As a result, 'old' inequalities of domestic responsibility are shaping the futures of our international undergraduates by way of new technologies. We need quick and innovative solutions to educational inequalities caused by sexist gender norms to ensure that diversity within higher education is not lost to the pandemic. By listening to the lived experiences of international student women continuing their studies in lockdown, I make simple and achievable recommendations for change in the delivery of online learning: ensuring in the short term that women are not left behind in accessing higher education; and, in the long term, that gender inequalities are challenged at an institutional, governmental, and global level.

Keywords:

Covid, Gender, Online Learning, DEIB, Unpaid-Work, Domestic Work.