The Field of Education in Reconstruction as the Consequence of COVID Pandemic Rebuilding Education? Mapping Landscapes of Changes in the COVID-19 Era

Abstract

The pandemic outbreak in 2020 has influenced all aspects of social life. We focus on the education system and its impact on social (in)equality using Poland’s case to analyse them, through the notion of Bordieuan social field and knowledge-power relations. We claim that lockdown put into motion important processes or even systemic changes of education, by the emancipation and empowerment mechanism of social actors that aspire to be an active part of the educational field. In Poland, we deal with a static, centralized and hierarchic system. The time of pandemic made the field of education more dynamic. New actors were invited with the result that the power-knowledge relations changed. In this frame, we put the question about educational inequalities. We ask how the educational field is changing in face of the unforeseen and scarcely manageable global pandemic risk. Do they mean less in the global pandemic context or, on the contrary, are they strengthened?