UC Davis

The COVID-19 pandemic caused reverberations throughout the educational system that disproportionately impacted students of color and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In this review, we examine recent research documenting the disparate educational impacts of the pandemic across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic status groups that deepened existing educational inequities in the United States. Numerous systemic barriers underlie these disparities, including disproportionate access to in-person learning and technology alongside the intensification of racial discrimination. Amidst these disparities, we also highlight emerging evidence of similarities in the educational impacts. Finally, recent evidence reveals a more multifaceted view of how some students of color leveraged supplemental educational supports and their academic confidence to confront educational challenges during the pandemic despite experiencing more pandemic-related stressors.