The reality of UERJ Social Work students in pandemic

Abstract

The article presents the preliminary outcomes of a research that aims to analyze the living conditions of students from the UERJ Faculty of Social Work of a public university in Rio de Janeiro in context of the Covid-19 outbreak and their strategies for dealing with this new reality. The research also aimed to build pedagogical strategies aligned with the reality of students during emergency remote teaching. The methodology used was a mixed approach and was carried out in two stages: in the first, an online questionnaire was applied to students from all levels of the course – reaching a total of 228 within a statistical population of 477 students; in the second phase, we used the solicited diaries research method in a group of 16 students that reported for one month their experiences in written and photographic records. The partial results of the research shows that the majority of these students have suffered the impacts of the outbreak both in terms of economic difficulties – with significant drop in their incomes – and mental health issues – many have symptoms of anxiety, fear, discouragement, and depression, which ends up decisively interfering in their academic performance.