“We teachers really got together”. The school as an educational community during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The schools’ closure and the adoption of distance learning (DL) during the Covid-19 pandemic deeply changed Italian schools’ teaching and organizational practices. This article investigates how a micro-universe of four parents, seven teachers, and a school principal experienced and represented the role of the school during the first Covid-19 lockdown (March-June 2020). We analyzed the set of semi-structured interviews through Thematic Analysis (TA). We identified three cross-cutting representations: the school as an “educational community”, as a “guide”, and as a “place of care”. Despite its fading as a physical space, the teachers experienced the school as a place to build meaningful relationships, intensify communication with colleagues, and re-discover the collective dimension of teaching. The school principal’s leadership, which was oriented towards the inclusion and valuing of teachers’ skills, served as a professional guide and emotional support for the teaching staff.