Perceptions about remote teaching during physical isolation: what do mothers have to report to us?

Abstract

The onset of the pandemic caused by COVID-19 imposed models of preventive care through a series of measures aimed to avoid the virus spread. Among them, the physical isolation proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) was the one that certainly had the greatest repercussions and resignifications to the different dimensions of social life, forcing the reorganization and incorporation of traditional practices into the domestic environment, such as studying at school. This qualitative study aims to describe the experiences and identify the main challenges faced by mothers in monitoring their children’s school activities during non-presential classes. To this end, data were collected by means of telephone interviews and divided into three thematic categories regarding the home–remote teaching: the first category shows the adaptations for distance learning, the second addresses participants’ different experiences with this learning modality, and the third reports the difficulties in accessing equipment and internet connections. The reports evince the complexity of this teaching modality when associated with mothers’ domestic and professional overload, especially for participants with a paid occupation.