The Transformation of Peer Relationships and Participation during the Covid-19 Pandemic

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The first national and international findings on children and adolescents’ perceptions of the Covid-19 pandemic-related restrictions provide very clear evidence of the social-emotional stress and excessive demands on school performance that young people have experienced since mid-March 2020. In this context, direct interactions with peers have been restricted and can no longer function as a means of support in crisis-laden everyday life. Some studies nonetheless also point to relief in terms of the suspension of face-to-face instruction, particularly regarding performance demands and the lower incidence of conflictual peer interactions. Young adolescents have been impacted by the effects of the pandemic at a crucial life phase. The transition to adolescence is characterized, among others, by a detachment from parents and an expansion of leisure activities with peers, growing intimacy in close friendships and romantic relationships as well as the development of political judgment and opinion formation. The proposed project addresses this largely unexplored topic by reconstructing the orientations and practices of 13- to 14-year-olds through a qualitative longitudinal study using the documentary method. At its centre is the question of the importance of peers in how young people cope with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the experience of educational and political (non)participation. It focuses on young people with special educational needs in the field of learning and adolescents with an identified educational disadvantage, a group that has received very limited attention in the research to date. Based on 30 interviews and 20 group discussions per study wave, individual educational trajectories are placed in relation to changes in peer relationships and practices at two points in time. The triangulation of data and perspectives in a longitudinal qualitative reconstruction makes an innovative contribution in terms of the intersection of youth and education research. Moreover, an additional expected gain in knowledge results from the project’s investigation of the interconnectedness of participation practices first as (non)participation in education and second as political (non)participation. As the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have brought about serious changes that require an empirical investigation of the interdependent relationships of school and non-school educational contexts.