COVID-19 Digital Memory Banks: Challenges and Opportunities for Historians of Education

in Paedagogica Historica (2022), 58(5), 781-801

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, historians – along with archivists and other stakeholders – began to initiate digital memory banks, inviting members of the public to upload personal stories, pictures ... [more ▼]

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, historians – along with archivists and other stakeholders – began to initiate digital memory banks, inviting members of the public to upload personal stories, pictures, videos, or other material connected to the pandemic and its impact on everyday life. This article describes how platforms from Western and Central Europe differ with regard to contributions by children and adolescents, taking the German coronarchiv.de and covidmemory.lu from Luxembourg as the main case studies. Submissions come in various forms, but photographs are the most frequent, echoing the visual bias of social media. By means of selected contributions, the article illustrates the range of topics that can be of interest to future historians of education. The platforms show how COVID-19 influenced not only practices of education, with the introduction of homeschooling, but also the content of teaching, as seen in the many pandemic-related assignments uploaded. In this respect, it is crucial to acknowledge that there are significant gaps in the collections. Most notably, the first wave of infections in Europe is overrepresented, and people that were most existentially affected by the pandemic are underrepresented. Performing a thorough source critique on a selection of contributions, we argue that, despite these gaps, digital memory banks on the pandemic are of significant value for a future historiography of education, as long as the available metadata of the individual submissions are as complete and transparent as possible. [less ▲]