Abstract:

Since February 24, 2022, war-related stress and trauma have been part of everyday life for most children in Ukraine. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), more than 4.3 million Ukrainian minors (more than half of the country’s estimated 7.5 million child population) were displaced by the second week following the war's outbreak, and about two million of them crossed borders into neighboring countries as refugees (UNICEF, 2022). This study gives voice to Ukrainian refugees aged 10-13 (9 girls and 6 boys), during their stay at a refugee camp in Poland in March 2022. In doing so, this study aims to reveal how those young refugees used smartphones to cope with the challenges they faced in the first days of the war.

As a result of their forced displacement, the children lost their normal lifestyles and important social roles, such as their role of a student. The study shows that by 10-14 days since the beginning of the war (at the time in which the study was initiated), They already had created new practices of smartphone use, suitable for wartime. Some children used smartphone to maintain a school-related pre-war lifestyle and educational identity. For example, they organized meetings that imitated Zoom "lessons" which they had mastered during the covid-19 crisis. By doing so, they created and maintained a sense of normality among their new and abnormal life events. It is sad that the practice of distance learning, based on the Zoom application, introduced due to the limitations of the covid-19 epidemic, was perceived by child refugees as an example of normality. Nevertheless, during the current war many of them turned to technological practices and resources that had been developed during the previous crisis.

Another example of attempts to preserve their student identity is an attempt to study remotely with a smartphone at a refugee camp. Since the time of covid-19, there had been whole courses of lectures and exercises for Ukrainian schoolchildren on the Internet, and later teachers had started teaching using the Zoom platform. Additionally, some of these teachers were also refugees, and were providing lessons from other refugee's camps.
According to the informants, participation in virtual lessons allowed them not only to experience moments of nostalgia and the illusion of normality, but also, most importantly, allowed them to fulfill their pre-war role as students.

Taking into account that formal learning is a leading activity for school children (Vygotsky, 1998), one may understand why the informants perceive the absence of school routine, lessons, classmates, and teachers as a destruction of a fundamental component of life. Although many schools were destroyed and schoolbooks were not available, by using their smartphones, informants could piece together, hold, and restore what was left of the school through distant lessons and connections with classmates. By seeking to join online classes, and even organizing them themselves, the children pieced together war-torn parts of their lives—from a peaceful past through a troubled present to hopeful future.

References:
[1] UNISEF (March 23, 2022). Available https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/more-half-ukraines-children-displaced-after-one-month-war
[2] Vygotsky, L.S. (1998). Child Psychology. In M.J. Hall, Trans; R.W. Reiber (Eds). The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, Vol. 5. New York: Plenum Press

Keywords:

Russia-Ukraine war, child refugees, coping strategies, smartphone use, distant learning, grounded theory.