Yasuko Kanno and Jonathan Zaff

Centers, institutes & labs

Study to Explore Pandemic School Attendance

A study from BU Wheelock’s CERES Institute for Children & Youth will explore the lived experiences of Black and Latinx high school students and English learners in Boston who have stopped attending school regularly during the pandemic. The study will be co-directed by BU Wheelock faculty members Jonathan Zaff and Yasuko Kanno and has received an Early Stage Urban Research grant from BU’s Institute on Cities.

“Anecdotally, we hear that young people are juggling work and family responsibilities. They are facing loss, isolation, and mental health challenges, and these overwhelming barriers stand in their way of pursuing education,” says Zaff, a research professor in applied human development and director of the CERES Institute.

Navigating life during the pandemic

For this study, Kanno and Zaff will collaborate with youth-focused, community-based organizations that have an established history of work with Boston youth to interview 200 disengaged or tenuously engaged high school students of color and English learners.

“There has been little systematic assessment of how young people are navigating through life during the pandemic. We want to change that,” says Kanno, an associate professor of language education. “We don’t just want to focus on learning loss. If these youth have not been in school, they must have been spending their time doing something else. So what have they learned from these experiences?”

The CERES Institute drives positive educational and life conditions for children and youth, especially those in historically disenfranchised communities, so that they may emerge from childhood as thriving adults. To do this, they conduct, evaluate, support, and promote community-engaged, applied research on positive educational and developmental ecosystems for today’s children and youth.