Young Europeans, Distance Learning and Trust in Education Institutions. A Comparative Analysis after Covid-19

"Young Europeans, distance learning and trust in education institutions. A comparative analysis after Covid-19 showcases an international perspective, with a data analysis on five national samples (Italy, Spain, UK, France and Germany) of young respondents (aged 19-33). The data confirm that the use of distance learning has increased greatly in all the countries with an overall effect of reducing the gap between the various systems. The greatest effort in terms of activation has been made by the Italian education system, in which prior to Covid-19 young people had fewer opportunities to experience formal education of this kind than their counterparts abroad. The process of technological development and the forced 'reconversion' of teaching staff to a teaching method based on IC technologies, resulted in a sort of ‘de facto reform’ of educational methods and practices (and Italy seems to have profited from it more than any other EU country). Italy seems to be the country with the most positive evaluation of distance learning followed by Great Britain and Spain. Young Italians also declare the highest level of increase in trust in educational institutions, followed once again by Spain and Great Britain. Young Germans and French expressed considerably more critical assessments of distance learning. The youngsters’ positive orientation towards e-learning highlights their desire for more dynamic education systems, open to innovations also in a work perspective. The average high level of trust in schools and universities expressed by the respondents was probably the sign that these systems showed their reactivity and ‘care’ of the educational demand, at the very moment when access to the classrooms was banned. However, among the respondents, there is a greater polarization - especially in Italy -between confident and distrustful of institutions; between those who have experienced at first hand the ‘fibrillations’ of the system, feeling intensely its limits and iniquities, and those who, on the other, have recognized its practical and symbolic value as a sign of resilience and resistance of the educational system itself.