Editorial: pedagogical forms in times of pandemic

Abstract

Special Issue in Ethics & Education Pedagogical Forms in Times of Pandemic With the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus in the Spring 2020, campus life came to a halt. In many places all over the world, physical on campus seminars and lectures – pedagogical forms that prior to the outbreak of the pandemic were part of the very DNA of university life – could no longer take place like before and had to be either strictly regulated in terms of space and safety or simply converted into other forms. The loss of human togetherness and the reduction of teaching to a uniform activity on a flat digital screen (in wealthier parts of the world) echoed the sensory losses that were symptoms of the virus infection itself, turning the art of teaching almost from one day to the next into a twodimensional and sterile experience. Even if the prefix pan indicated that the global spread of the COVID-19 virus equally affected people all over the world, there were profound differences to be recognized. On local level, the pandemic magnified deep-rooted gendered, racial, economic, and social injustices, exposing perpetuated inequities particularly within the realm of education. In some contexts, schools were shut down and the children sent home, literally losing their education because of the pandemic. In others, the digital divide became a chasm, separating those who had access to electricity, computers, and the Internet from those who did not.