Virtual education and the policy of bringing inequality home / Mina Giovani - Education in Iran has repeatedly faced situations where closing schools and universities is considered a temporary and inevitable solution to overcome the crisis: from air pollution and energy shortages to diseases, security crises and war. In these situations, virtual education appears as a guarantee for the continuity of education: the school is closed, but the classroom is not closed; Education is transferred from the physical space of the school to the home and from the blackboard to the screen. At first glance, this response is a sign of the flexibility of the education system in dealing with the crisis. But here the question begins: for whom and under what conditions is this "continuity" possible? The transfer of education from school to home is not, contrary to popular belief, the same transfer of educational opportunity. Virtual education relies on a set of facilities that are not distributed equally between families: stable internet, suitable tools, a quiet space for studying, digital literacy and the possibility of parents accompanying the learning process. Therefore, closing a school is not a single experience. For a group, an online class is just a change in the way of getting an education; For another group, it is the beginning of a chain of obstacles that gradually distance them from the learning process. Therefore, the issue of virtual education cannot be reduced to the efficiency of the platforms, the quality of online teaching or the level of Internet access. The more fundamental question is the question of educational justice, and here the distinction between formal equality and substantive equality is decisive. Formal equality is enough for all students to have access to common links and content; Substantial equality questions how much learning this approach actually leads to. The same resources, in the absence of the same family, material and cultural conditions, do not translate into the same real possibilities. From this point of view, the same treatment of unequal students does not neutralize the inequality, but gives it legitimacy: formal equality of access, in the context of social inequality, can itself become a mechanism for the reproduction of inequality. Read more and a link to the article on the Peace Line website. Contact - Harana's channel.

Virtual education and the policy of bringing inequality home / Mina Giovani - Education in Iran has repeatedly faced situations where closing schools and universities is considered a temporary and inevitable solution to overcome the crisis: from air pollution and energy shortages to diseases, security crises and war. In these situations, virtual education appears as a guarantee for the continuity of education: the school is closed, but the classroom is not closed; Education is transferred from the physical space of the school to the home and from the blackboard to the screen. At first glance, this response is a sign of the flexibility of the education system in dealing with the crisis. But here the question begins: for whom and under what conditions is this "continuity" possible? The transfer of education from school to home is not, contrary to popular belief, the same transfer of educational opportunity. Virtual education relies on a set of facilities that are not distributed equally between families: stable internet, suitable tools, a quiet space for studying, digital literacy and the possibility of parents accompanying the learning process. Therefore, closing a school is not a single experience. For a group, an online class is just a change in the way of getting an education; For another group, it is the beginning of a chain of obstacles that gradually distance them from the learning process. Therefore, the issue of virtual education cannot be reduced to the efficiency of the platforms, the quality of online teaching or the level of Internet access. The more fundamental question is the question of educational justice, and here the distinction between formal equality and substantive equality is decisive. Formal equality is enough for all students to have access to common links and content; Substantial equality questions how much learning this approach actually leads to. The same resources, in the absence of the same family, material and cultural conditions, do not translate into the same real possibilities. From this point of view, the same treatment of unequal students does not neutralize the inequality, but gives it legitimacy: formal equality of access, in the context of social inequality, can itself become a mechanism for the reproduction of inequality. Read more and a link to the article on the Peace Line website. Contact - Harana's channel.