Perspectives of Romanian Students about Life in Social Isolation
Article information:
Volume IV, 2020, No 1, Pages: 32 – 43
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24193/JRHE.2020.1.3
Bogdan Nadolu, West University of Timisoara, Romania, Email: bogdan.nadolu@e-uvt.ro
Abstract:
The global crisis of COVID-19 represents, because of the measures adopted, an unprecedented social natural experiment. All over the globe, a common rule was to impose measures of social isolation at home, with a very limited and restricted possibility to go outside. The daily routine was massively changed for all the people that were not considered essential workers. A significant part of economic activities were shut down, others were moved to the online environment. Education was a privileged domain that was able to easily take the step towards distance learning. But how did the students receive the new challenges? How did they reconfigure their new lifestyle in insolation? Trying to get an answer to these questions, we designed and applied two sociological studies. First, at the beginning of the pandemic crisis (15 March – 30 April) we conducted a qualitative interview of the life-story type (N1=50), followed up by a quantitative survey (N2=518) in the last days of the state of emergency in Romania (N2=518). The combined and compared results from both studies reflect very complex and interesting new configurations of the daily life style of students.
Keywords: social isolation, students, daily life pattern, Covid19, higher education
