The Earth Is Becoming a Coronavirus
Children's Perceptions, Knowledge, and Experiences of the Covid-19 Pandemic as Presented in Their Drawings
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4705343 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sofia Gjertsson (0009-0006-6780-9463, Uppsala University, corresponding author), Maria Thell (0000-0003-4245-1726, Uppsala University), Anna Sarkadi (0000-0001-6594-2291, Uppsala University) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 9 |
| Pages | 946-959 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-26 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Qualitative Health Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1049-7323 • E-ISSN: 1552-7557 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/10497323251334247 |
| PMID | 40286263 |
| OpenAlex | W4409837088 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 23 |
Younger children's voices are often overlooked in research and policy, yet their perceptions and experiences are crucial in understanding their needs in planning responses to crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Existing studies on children's experiences of crises often rely on adult perspectives or are adult-led; a more child-centric approach could be to analyze children's drawings. The aim of this study was to explore Swedish 7- to 11-year-old children's experiences and knowledge of the COVID-19 pandemic, as expressed in their drawings. Drawings from N = 454 children with accompanying texts, from various Swedish municipalities with different socio-economic profiles, were analyzed using a combination of semiotic visual analysis and content analysis. Three main themes emerged: (a) Fun, friends, and freedom are cancelled which pointed to societal changes as a result of the pandemic that impacted the children's own lives, causing high levels of frustration; children saw contrasts between what had been, what is, and what is to come; (b) The world is all upside down , in which the children highlighted their understanding of the virus, how it has changed and impacted the world, as well as existential reflections of their lives and surrounding environment; and (c) The Virus: evil, scary, and dangerous, but masks and sanitizer can help showed the children's understanding of the pandemic as a global event and showed high level of health literacy related to COVID-19. Children were very perceptive and astute to the societal issue at hand. Despite Sweden's relatively lenient measures, the pandemic significantly affected their lives and autonomy
Developmental psychology · Disease · Existentialism · Literacy · Pandemic · Pedagogy · Perception · Political science · Child Development and Digital Technology · Children's Rights and Participation · Medicine · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Psychology · Social Psychology
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| Highly cited | No |
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