Abstract:

At the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States, all elements of the nation’s social structure were impacted drastically. Essentially, all functioning infrastructures though out the nation was altered. No geographical areas of the nation were left unimpacted. Further, rural communities were the hardest hit areas overtime. In the early stages of the pandemic, urban areas were severely impacted. Subsequently, suburban communities began to feel the impact of unprecedented public health crisis too. Healthcare systems in urban communities experienced capacity decreases daily. Businesses both large and small had to re-think functional operations. Government efforts to slow or stop the viral spread mandated closure of almost all public facilities including public schools. Since most public institutions such as libraries, public social gathering entities, churches, and schools were closed in almost every locality in the nation, families were largely isolated at home. However, it must be noted that even essential stores were operating with many restrictions. As a result, families in underserved African American communities were faced with even more massive challenges in their re-ordered lives. Those families experienced and have continued to experience serious challenges to securing basic needs such as food, shelter, loss of household income, etc. Those same families were seriously impacted by the digital divide before the pandemic and afterwards too. Consequently, the education of children and adolescents in these households were negative impacted by the migration of instruction to online/remote formats from face to face school site instruction. Therefore, this study investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on education of the children and adolescents of families in underserved African American communities since the outbreak last spring. The primary research questions were: 1.) What were the major economic challenges that underserved African American families experienced since the COVID-19 outbreak that impacted the education of their children? 2.) How successful were underserved African American families in securing adequate online/remote instruction access and resources for their children? 3.) What were some of the mental and physical health challenges experienced by underserved African American families and their children since the COVID-19 outbreak last spring? 4.) What were the major barriers experienced by the children of underserved African American families in the instructional delivery transition to online/remote instruction? A quantitative research design was used to test 4 null hypotheses using samples (n=630) of data generated from the Household Pulse Survey published by the United States Center for Disease Control (CDC). The inferential statistical method used to test null hypotheses was Binary Logistics Regression and all were rejected at the .05 alpha level of significance. Principal findings indicated that the educational experiences of vulnerable African American children have been severely impacted by community conditions that emerged since the outbreak of COVID-19. Also, family and home lives were profoundly altered. Therefore, their formal educational experiences have been profoundly altered as well.

Keywords:

digital inequality, digital divide, internet connectivity, technology gap, African Americans, lack of access.