Technology as Thirdspace: Teachers in Scottish Schools Engaging with and Being Challenged by Digital Technology in First COVID-19 Lockdown

Abstract

This paper looks at the impact of digital technology on teaching and learning in primary schools in Scotland during the first COVID-19 lockdown from March to June 2020. The pandemic has challenged our understanding of schooling as, for the first time in many years, schools as we know them were shut and the school building was removed as the site of teaching and learning. This paper uses the concept of Thirdspace as developed by Edward Soja (1996), where Thirdspace is understood as an in-between space between binaries that enables the possibility to think and act otherwise. Drawing from qualitative data from interviews with primary school teachers, this paper explores how the lockdown in general, and digital technology in particular, facilitated a Thirdspace in the first COVID-19 lockdown. Findings from the study indicate that engaging with digital technology offers the teacher more possibilities than they have come to expect in the physical space of traditional schooling.

Keywords

• digital technology
• home-learning
• Thirdspace
• primary teachers
• Scotland
• COVID-19 lockdown